The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington is seen June 24, 2021. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court late Aug. 24 said the Biden administration must restore a Trump-era immigration policy known as “Remain in Mexico.”

The Migration Protection Protocols policy, or MPP, as it is is formally known, was first implemented in 2019 and required asylum-seekers be returned to Mexico to await adjudication of their cases.

Critics of the policy said these migrants regularly faced dangerous and inhumane conditions in Mexico.

The high court, in an unsigned order, declined to block an Aug. 13 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk reinstating the policy.

He blocked Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security from implementing a June 1 memo that formally ended the Migration Protection Protocols.

Kacsmaryk, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, whose jurisdiction is the Amarillo division, stayed his decision for seven days to allow the Biden administration to file an appeal.

The stay expired at midnight Aug. 24, legally mandating the Biden administration to reinstate the policy Aug. 25.

The administration said it will follow the law, while appealing Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

DHS said in an Aug. 24 statement that it “respectfully disagrees with the district court’s decision and regrets that the Supreme Court declined to issue a stay. DHS has appealed the district court’s order and will continue to vigorously challenge it.”

“As the appeal process continues, however, DHS will comply with the order in good faith,” it said. “Alongside interagency partners, DHS has begun to engage with the government of Mexico in diplomatic discussions surrounding the Migrant Protection Protocol. DHS remains committed to building a safe, orderly and humane immigration system that upholds our laws and values.”

The Biden administration had sought emergency action from the high court to stay the judge’s ruling, but the high court said the administration “failed to show a likelihood of success on the claim that the (Mayorkas) memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not arbitrary and capricious.”

President Joe Biden had called a halt to the protocols Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. The Mayorkas June memo formally ended the policy and allowed applicants with open cases to enter the United States.

An earlier challenge to this memo, filed by the states of Texas, Missouri and Arizona, was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court June 21.

Kacsmaryk’s 53-page ruling came in a different lawsuit filed by Texas and Missouri. He said that in terminating the policy, the Biden administration had violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that dictates what procedures agencies must go through to implement certain policies.

Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC, said the Supreme Court’s order will “deepen human suffering and continue to erode U.S. law and values at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

“‘Remain in Mexico’ is an assault on human rights and U.S. asylum law,” she said in an Aug. 25 statement. “Both are already under attack due to the Biden administration’s decision to keep Title 42 in place.”

Title 42, is a provision of U.S. public health law that was activated by the Trump administration to expel migrants at the border, with the exception of minors, over COVID-19 concerns.

“Our message to the Biden administration at this critical moment is clear: We will hold you to your promise to restore the soul of America. To do so, you must take immediate action to end ‘Remain in Mexico,'” Gallagher added.

CLINIC cited a February 2021 study by Human Rights First documenting over 1,500 cases of asylum-seekers and migrants — including 350 cases of children — who it said were “murdered, raped, tortured, violently assaulted or kidnapped due to forcible return to Mexico under this policy.”

“The full picture of the human devastation caused by this inhumane policy is unknown, as the overwhelming majority of the tens of thousands of people affected have not been interviewed or been able to share their story,” according to CLINIC.

In his ruling, Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said the states of Texas and Missouri are being harmed by Biden’s reversal of the policy because when migrants are released into the U.S., they are using health care services, and because their children must be enrolled in U.S. schools, they are straining educational resources.

He also said that in his memo, Mayorkas did not acknowledge the rise in border crossings. According to The Texas Tribune, U.S.-Mexico border apprehensions for the fiscal year surpassed 1 million in June.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an Aug. 14 statement that “dangerous criminals are taking advantage of the lapse in law enforcement and it’s resulting in human trafficking, smuggling, a plethora of violent crimes, and a massive, unprecedented burden on state and federal programs for which taxpayers must foot the bill.”

He said Biden must act to end the “lawlessness” that he said is destroying our communities.

 

Pope Francis leads his general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican Aug. 25, 2021. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Hypocrites are afraid of the truth, fearful of who they really are and incapable of truly loving, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.

What hypocrites do “is like putting makeup on your soul, like putting makeup on your behavior” and hiding the truth, the pope said Aug. 25 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.

All this pretending, he said, “suffocates the courage to openly say what is true and thus the obligation to say the truth at all times, everywhere and in spite of anything can easily be evaded,” he said.

The pope continued his series of talks on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and focused on the dangers of the law by looking at the apostle Peter’s “inconsistency” at Antioch.

Gentile Christians were free from the Jewish law, but there was pressure from people from Jerusalem that caused Sts. Peter and Barnabas to draw back from what the Gospel said.

That is why, in his letter, St. Paul condemns St. Peter “to his face because he clearly was wrong” by trying to appease critics who still observed Mosaic law and to justify his hypocritical behavior.

“Peter had been eating with the Christians of pagan origin without any difficulty; however, when some circumcised Christians from Jerusalem arrived in the city, he then no longer did so, because he did not want to incur their criticism,” Pope Francis said.

“Watch out. The mistake was paying more attention to the criticism, to make a good impression than the reality of the relationships,” the pope said.

This was serious in St. Paul’s eyes, because other disciples imitated St. Peter, and, even though he did not mean to, “Peter was, in fact, creating an unjust division within the community” by not being transparent or clear about what he was doing, Pope Francis said.

In his letter, St. Paul “wanted to remind the Christians of that community that they were absolutely not to listen to those who were preaching that it was necessary to be circumcised, and therefore be ‘under the law’ with all of its prescriptions,” Pope Francis said.

These “fundamentalist preachers,” he said, “created confusion and deprived that community of any peace.”

In his reproach to St. Peter, St. Paul uses the term “hypocrisy,” which “the apostle wanted to combat forcefully and convincingly,” the pope said.

Hypocrisy can be seen as a “fear of the truth. It is better to pretend rather than be yourself,” he said.

Wherever people are living “under the banner of formalism, the virus of hypocrisy easily spreads,” he said, mimicking the kind of strained, forced smile one might see — a smile “that doesn’t come from the heart,” but comes from a person “who tries to get along with everyone,” but, in the end, gets along with no one.

“Hypocrites are people who pretend, flatter and deceive because they live with a mask over their faces and do not have the courage to face the truth,” he said. “For this reason, they are not capable of truly loving” because they are limited by their ego and cannot “show their hearts transparently.”

Hypocrisy can be hidden at a workplace “where someone appears to be friends with their colleagues while, at the same time, they stab them behind the back due to competition,” he said.

It is not unusual to find hypocrites in the world of politics, when someone lives one way in public and another way in private, he added.

“Hypocrisy in the church is particularly detestable. Unfortunately, hypocrisy does exist in the church and there are many hypocritical Christians and ministers,” he said.

Jesus, too, condemned hypocrisy, Pope Francis said, asking people to read Chapter 23 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew to see how often Jesus condemned such behavior.

“Let’s not be afraid to be truthful, to speak the truth, to hear the truth, to conform ourselves to the truth, so that we can love. A hypocrite does not know how to love,” he said.

“To act other than truthfully means jeopardizing the unity of the church, that unity for which the Lord himself prayed,” the pope said.

At the end of the general audience, the pope greeted athletes competing at the Paralympics in Tokyo. He thanked them for showing the world what hope and courage look like.

These athletes, he said, “show how pursuing a sport helps overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties.”

 

ROME (CNS) – Italian police have launched an investigation after postal workers discovered an envelope containing three bullets and addressed to “the pope.”

News reports said the stamp on the envelope indicated it came from France, and the bullets were 9mm Flobert-round bullets. Reportedly, there was a message inside making reference to the Vatican’s financial operations.

The envelope had written on it in pen and with poor handwriting: “The pope. Vatican City. St. Peter’s Square in Rome.”

The envelope was flagged by employees at a mail sorting facility near Milan in the early hours of Aug. 9 and was handed over to Italy’s military police as authorities coordinated their investigation.

According to Wikipedia, 9mm Flobert shotguns are most often used for pest control and face very little to no restriction in Europe, even in countries with strict gun laws, due to their limited power and short range.

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”

That is the view of Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington. He is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.

“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment,” he said about the ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra.

Franciscan Alliance, based in Mishawaka, Indiana, is a Catholic health care system now known as Franciscan Health that operates hospitals serving Indiana and one hospital in Illinois and employs over 18,000 full- and part-time employees. The defendant is Secretary Xavier Becerra of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

On Aug. 9, Judge Reed O’Connor of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls blocked the HHS regulation — in its current form as proscribed by the Biden administration. It requires doctors to perform gender-transition procedures in children and adults or be held liable for discrimination.

The regulation, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, was first issued in 2016 by HHS under the Obama administration.

In 2020, the Trump administration put in place a final rule that eliminated the general prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity and also adopted abortion and religious freedom exemptions for health care providers. But the courts blocked this rule change.

In 2021, shortly after he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden issued an executive order declaring his administration would apply in all areas — including the ACA — the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court’s in Bostock in 2020 that discrimination based on sex outlawed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers people who are gay or transgender.

“The Christian plaintiffs contend that violation of their statutory rights under RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) is an irreparable harm,” O’Connor said in his ruling.

“The court agrees,” he said, “and concludes that enforcement of the 2021 interpretation (of Section 1557) forces Christian plaintiffs to face civil penalties or to perform gender-transition procedures and abortions contrary to their religious beliefs — a quintessential irreparable injury.”

“The court grants plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction and permanently enjoins” HHS, Becerra and all HHS-related divisions, agencies and employees “from interpreting or enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.”

“Today’s decision rightly says the mandate violates federal law,” said Goodrich in a string of tweets. He noted “this is now the second federal court to block the mandate.”

He was referring to a Jan. 19 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota in Fargo in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. The states of Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska and Wisconsin also joined in the suit.

The Biden administration filed an appeal April 20 with the U.S Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in St. Louis.

Goodrich tweeted that Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health’s hospitals and health care professionals “gladly serve all patients regardless of their sex or gender identity, yet were threatened with multimillion dollar penalties by a controversial HHS regulation if they refused to perform gender-transition procedures.”

“These religious doctors and hospitals joyfully serve ALL patients and routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients. There is ample evidence, however, that some gender transition procedures can harm patients,” Goodrich said.

“Several federal circuits — including the 5th and 1st — have all reached the same conclusion: ‘There is no medical consensus that sex reassignment surgery is a necessary or even effective treatment for gender dysphoria.”

 

Pope Francis greets a child during his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall Aug. 11, 2021. The pope continued his series of audience talks focused on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and reflected on what role God’s law to Moses plays in helping people encounter Christ. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – What made Christian life radically new was the call for those who have faith in Jesus Christ to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law God handed down to Moses, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.

Mosaic law was necessary and important to follow at that time in history, but it served as a path to follow toward an eventual encounter with Christ and his commandment of love, he said Aug. 11 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.

The pope continued with his series of talks reflecting on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, focusing on the apostle answering the question, “Why, then, the law” if, after all, “there is the Holy Spirit and if there is Jesus who redeems us?”

“The law is a journey” and it acts like a teacher that takes people by the hand, leading them forward, toward an encounter with Jesus and having faith in Christ, he said.

God gave Moses the law to prepare his people on this journey during a time of rampant idolatry and to help his people guide their behavior in a way that showed and expressed their faith and covenant with God, he said.

However, he said, the law was not the covenant; the covenant came first with Abraham, hundreds of years before Moses, the pope said. The covenant was based not on the observance of the law, but on faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises, he said.

St. Paul needed to clarify the role of the law to the Galatians because there were “fundamentalist missionaries” among them who seemed almost “nostalgic” about observing Mosaic law, believing that adhering to the covenant also included observing the Mosaic law, he said.

The apostle explains that, “in reality, the covenant and the law are not linked indissolubly,” the pope said. “The first element he relies on is that the covenant established by God with Abraham was based on faith in the fulfillment of the promise and not on the observance of the law that did not yet exist.”

“Having said this, one should not think, however, that St. Paul was opposed to the Mosaic law” because he does defend its divine origin and says it has “a well-defined role in the history of salvation,” the pope said.

“The law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of (God’s) promise, because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ,” he said.

This was the problem — when people put more importance on observing the law than with encountering Christ, he said.

This passage of St. Paul to the Galatians “presents the radical newness of the Christian life: All those who have faith in Jesus Christ are called to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law and, at the same time, brings it to fulfillment according to the commandment of love,” he said.

The law is a path and “may the Lord help people walk along the path of the Ten Commandments, however, by looking at Christ’s love, the encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more important than all the commandments,” he said.

Addressing people after the main audience talk, Pope Francis told French-speaking visitors that it was “with great sorrow” that he learned of the Aug. 6 murder of the 60-year-old Montfort Father Olivier Maire.

“I extend my condolences to the religious community of the Monfortians in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre in Vendée, to his family and to all Catholics in France,” he said, assuring everyone of his closeness.

At the end of the audience, right before the pope was set to greet visitors, an aide went to the pope, spoke to him for a few minutes and handed him a mobile phone. The pope spoke on the phone for a few minutes, then left the hall briefly before returning to greet visitors as usual.

Visitors were required to wear face masks, but not present a so-called “green pass” of proof of vaccination, of a negative COVID-19 test or of recovery from COVID-19.

Italy recently passed a decree as part of ongoing measures to curb the spread of the virus, by making it obligatory for anyone over the age of 12 to show a “green pass” for certain activities, including to eat indoors at restaurants, enter gyms or movie theaters, visit museums, including the Vatican Museums, and, starting in September, to attend school on-site.

The Italian bishops’ conference published a note July 26 saying the pass was not required for going to Mass or joining in processions, but health measures such as wearing masks and social distancing would be continuing. The green pass was required for people entering church-owned or church-operated movie theaters, museums, restaurants and coffee bars, sporting events, conferences, indoor swimming pools, gyms, social centers and reception venues.

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The refusal by the U.S. House to include the Hyde Amendment and other pro-life riders in appropriations bills before lawmakers passed the measures is an “injustice” that overshadows the provisions that help “vulnerable people,” said the chairmen of two U.S. bishops’ committees.

Late July 29, the House voted 219 to 208 in favor of H.R. 4502, a package of appropriations bills that currently exclude the Hyde, Weldon and Helms amendments and other longstanding, bipartisan-supported pro-life language.

Eliminating these provisions would force taxpayers to pay for elective abortions and would have the effect of forcing health care providers and professionals “to perform and refer for abortion against their deeply-held beliefs, as well as forcing employers and insurers to cover and pay for abortion,” said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a news release issued after the vote.

The release included a joint statement on the House actions by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“The House has voted in a way that is completely out of step with the will of the American people who overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer-funded abortion,” the prelates said.

“The Hyde Amendment has saved at least 2.4 million lives since its enactment. Without it, millions of poor women in desperate circumstances will make the irrevocable decision to take the government up on its offer to end the life of their child,” they said.

The now-approved package of spending bills “includes provisions that help vulnerable people, including pregnant moms,” they acknowledged, but “as we have said before, ‘being “right” in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life.'”

This “failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community,” they said, again quoting a previous bishops’ statement.

H.R. 4502 covers spending for Agriculture; Energy and Water Development; Financial Services and General Government; Interior, Environment and related agencies, Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and related agencies; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

The Hyde Amendment, first enacted with strong bipartisan support 45 years ago, outlaws federal tax dollars from directly funding abortion except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the woman would be endangered.

Congress must reauthorize the Hyde Amendment annually as an attachment to the appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. Hyde language also has been part of a dozen spending bills for decades. Until this year, Hyde has been reauthorized every year since 1976.

“The injustice in H.R. 4502 extends to removing conscience protections and exemptions for health care providers who believe abortion is wrong, or whose faith drives them to serve and heal lives, instead of taking them,” Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Naumann said, referring to the Weldon Amendment, first passed in 2005.

“Funding the destruction of innocent unborn human lives, and forcing people to kill in violation of their consciences, are grave abuses of human rights,” they said.

The cardinal and archbishop called on the Senate “to redress this evil in H.R. 4502, and for Congress to ultimately pass appropriations bills that fully support and protect human dignity, and the most vulnerable among us.”

On July 28, the House voted 217-212 to pass the appropriations bill for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, H.R. 4373, without the Helms Amendment. Called “the Hyde Amendment for the rest of the world,” it has prohibited using U.S. taxpayer funds to directly pay for abortions in other countries since 1973.

In a July 30 joint statement, Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop Naumann and Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Illinois, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace, criticized the House for eliminating Helms.

“(This) could force recipient countries that have strong legal and cultural opposition to abortion to embrace it in order to receive desperately?needed help for their people,” they said.

“Pope Francis has referred to this type of situation as ideological colonization,” they added, calling on the Senate “to?stand?against the coercive pro-abortion policies of H.R. 4373.”

“While this legislation contains many positive provisions that provide assistance to the poor and vulnerable worldwide, including protection of refugees, increases to humanitarian assistance, and protection of the environment, nothing can justify subsidizing the taking of innocent human life,” the prelates said.

In a July 29 email, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, told Catholic News Service that he, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and other House members “pushed hard in the Rules Committee and in the House debates to defend the unborn and their mothers from the violence of abortion.”

“A total of 14 pro-life amendments were ruled out of order by the Democratic majority,” Smith said in July 27 remarks on the House floor. “All is not lost, however. I remain hopeful — confident — that the Senate will reinstate all current pro-life protections, like the Hyde Amendment.”

Before the full House took up the spending bills for fiscal year 2022, the House Appropriations Committee had spent the previous weeks marking up the bills on largely party-line votes to advance them to the House floor.

In marking them up, committee members left out the Hyde, Weldon and Helms amendments.

Their actions after President Joe Biden released his proposed budget May 28 without the Hyde Amendment, a move decried by the U.S. Catholic bishops, the Catholic Health Association, several national pro-life organizations, and Smith and many other pro-life House members.

Other pro-life reaction to the House’s July 29 vote included a statement from Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, who criticized “pro-abortion Democrats” for eliminating provisions that “protect the American public from funding or providing abortions against their will.”

“Consistent polling shows that a majority of Americans want these protections” she said in a July 29 statement. “It is time codify these popular and common-sense riders into law by passing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act. No one should be forced to compromise their values, but especially not on this life-or-death issue.”

Mancini was referring to the proposed No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2021, or H.R. 18, which would make Hyde and similar provisions permanent. Smith is the author of the bill, which has 166 co-sponsors.

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly said the House vote “to make taxpayers pay for abortions is both an assault on the dignity of life and contrary to the wishes of most Americans.” He cited the results of Knights of Columbus/Marist polling this year showing “that 58% of Americans oppose the use of taxpayer-funding for abortions … affirming over a decade of previous polling data.”

“We urge the Senate to include the Hyde Amendment and other similar provisions as they undertake the appropriations process and for the full Congress to ultimately pass spending bills that affirm this bipartisan desire of the American public,” Kelly said.

“We call on all legislators, especially our fellow Catholics, to have the courage to make a stand for conscience and to not force every tax-paying American to pay for the destruction of innocent life in the womb,” he said.

Jennifer Popik, legislative director of National Right to Life, said the Hyde Amendment “has proven to be the greatest domestic abortion-reduction measure ever enacted by Congress. … (It) is widely recognized as having saved over two million American lives since it was first adopted in 1976.”

 

Pope Francis greets a young person during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Aug. 4, 2021. It was his first audience since undergoing colon surgery July 4. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The true Gospel has been revealed by Jesus Christ, not by individuals or founders of movements, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.

“With the truth of the Gospel, one cannot negotiate. Either you receive the Gospel as it is, as it was announced,” or one embraces something else, he said Aug. 4 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.

“One cannot compromise. Faith in Jesus is not a bargaining chip; it is salvation, it is encounter, it is redemption. It cannot be sold off cheaply,” said the pope, as he led his first general audience since his colon surgery July 4 and after the usual suspension of general audiences for the month of July.

Continuing with a new catechesis series reflecting on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Pope Francis focused on the apostle’s insistence that the faithful be loyal to the Gospel Jesus preached and not be swayed by new missionaries who “wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ.”

St. Paul understands the need to keep the young community safe from that which threatens its foundations, that is, a new “gospel,” which is “perhaps more sophisticated, more intellectual,” but which distorted “the true Gospel because it prevents (people) from attaining the freedom acquired by arriving at faith,” the pope said, emphasizing the key here was “freedom.”

The true proclamation is “that of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the source of salvation,” he said. “Whoever accepts it is reconciled to God, is welcomed as a true son or daughter and receives the inheritance of eternal life.”

Instead, some of the Galatians seemed to be veering off onto another path: listening to new missionaries who think “that by circumcision they will be even more devoted to the will of God and thus be even more pleasing to Paul,” the pope said. They seem to be “inspired by fidelity to the tradition received from the fathers and believe that genuine faith consists in observing the law.”

St. Paul, therefore, seems unorthodox with regard to tradition, but he knows “that his mission is of a divine nature — it was revealed by Christ himself, to him” as something that is radically and always new, the pope said.

In this complicated situation, he said, “it is necessary to disentangle oneself in order to grasp the supreme truth that is most consistent with the person and preaching of Jesus and his revelation of the father’s love.”

“This is important: knowing how to discern,” he said. “Many times we have seen in history, and we also see it today, some movements that preach the Gospel in their own way, sometimes with their own real charisms; but then they exaggerate and reduce the entire Gospel to the ‘movement.'”

When that happens, it becomes a gospel of the founder and not of Christ, he said.

“It may help at the beginning, but in the end, it does not bear fruit with deep roots. For this reason, Paul’s clear and decisive word was salutary for the Galatians and is salutary for us too,” he said.

The pope said the true Gospel is “Christ’s gift to us; he himself revealed it to us. It is what gives us life.”

 

Cardinal Walter Brandmuller elevates the Eucharist during a Tridentine Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 15, 2011. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Saying he was acting for the good of the unity of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has restored limits on the celebration of the Mass according to the Roman Missal in use before the Second Vatican Council, overturning or severely restricting permissions St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had given to celebrate the so-called Tridentine-rite Mass.

“An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences and encourage disagreements that injure the church, block her path and expose her to the peril of division,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to bishops July 16.

The text accompanies his apostolic letter “Traditionis Custodes” (Guardians of the Tradition), declaring the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council to be “the unique expression of the ‘lex orandi’ (law of worship) of the Roman Rite,” restoring the obligation of priests to have their bishops’ permission to celebrate according to the “extraordinary” or pre-Vatican II Mass and ordering bishops not to establish any new groups or parishes in their dioceses devoted to the old liturgy.

Priests currently celebrating Mass according to the old missal must request authorization from their bishop to continue doing so, Pope Francis ordered, and for any priest ordained after the document’s publication July 16, the bishop must consult with the Vatican before granting authorization.

Pope Francis also transferred to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the new rules.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued “Summorum Pontificum” on the use of the pre-Vatican II Roman liturgy. It said any priest of the Latin-rite church may, without any further permission from the Vatican or from his bishop, celebrate the “extraordinary form” of the Mass according to the rite published in 1962. The Roman Missal based on the revisions of the Second Vatican Council was published in 1969.

The conditions Pope Benedict set out for use of the old rite were that there was a desire for it, that the priest knows the rite and Latin well enough to celebrate in a worthy manner and that he ensures that the good of parishioners desiring the extraordinary form “is harmonized with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop in accordance with Canon 392, avoiding discord and favoring the unity of the whole church.”

The now-retired pope also insisted that Catholics celebrating predominantly according to the old rite acknowledge the validity of the new Mass and accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

In his letter to bishops, Pope Francis said that responses to a survey of the world’s bishops carried out last year by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me and persuades me of the need to intervene. Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my predecessors, who had intended ‘to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew,’ has often been seriously disregarded.”

“Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true church,'” Pope Francis wrote.

To promote the unity of the church, Pope Francis said, bishops should care for those Catholics “who are rooted in the previous form of celebration” while helping them “return in due time” to the celebration of Mass according to the new Missal.

The pope also indicated he believed that sometimes parishes and communities devoted to the older liturgy were the idea of the priests involved and not the result of a group of Catholic faithful desiring to celebrate that Mass.

Pope Francis asked bishops “to discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the ‘holy people of God.'”

However, he also said that many people find nourishment in more solemn celebrations of Mass, so he asked bishops “to be vigilant in ensuring that every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II, without the eccentricities that can easily degenerate into abuses.”

The liturgical life of the church has changed and developed over the centuries, the pope noted.

“St. Paul VI, recalling that the work of adaptation of the Roman Missal had already been initiated by Pius XII, declared that the revision of the Roman Missal, carried out in the light of ancient liturgical sources, had the goal of permitting the church to raise up, in the variety of languages, ‘a single and identical prayer’ that expressed her unity,” Pope Francis said. “This unity I intend to re-establish throughout the church of the Roman Rite.”

 

An elderly woman becomes emotional as Pope Francis greets her as he arrives for a May 2014 weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Pope Francis wanted the first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on July 25 to be inaugurated as the world seeks to recover from a deadly pandemic, calling for the faithful to be “angels,” who care, console and caress. (CNS photo/Tony Gentile, Reuters)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Highlighting the importance and gifts of older people has been a constant refrain throughout Pope Francis’ ministry.

So it seemed only a matter of time before the pope would establish the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which was to be July 25. It comes after he created the World Day of the Poor several years ago, showing how the pope considers these world days to be a powerful and universal reminder to the faithful to rediscover or strengthen their service to and relationships with the forgotten or discarded members of the human family.

But he had a reason for inaugurating the day for elders in 2021: After more than a year of a global pandemic, which left a huge number of older people isolated, hospitalized or dead, there are finally signs in some parts of the world of a new horizon.

“Even at the darkest moments, as in these months of pandemic, the Lord continues to send angels to console our loneliness and to remind us: ‘I am with you always,'” the pope said in his message for the world day.

“That is the meaning of this day, which I wanted to celebrate for the first time in this particular year, as a long period of isolation ends, and social life slowly resumes. May every grandfather, every grandmother, every older person, especially those among us who are most alone, receive the visit of an angel!” he wrote.

The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly is a call for the faithful to flex their wings and be those “angels,” who care, console and caress.

Respecting, honoring and reaching out to one’s elders is not just for do-gooders checking off their compliance with the Fourth Commandment. According to Pope Francis, it is the only way a society can thrive, and the church can remain faithful.

“In a civilization in which there is no room for the elderly or where they are thrown away because they create problems, this society carries with it the virus of death,” he said in a March 2015 general audience talk dedicated to the elderly.

As with everything Pope Francis highlights, it is a two-way street. Not only must people reach out to and serve their elders, older people have to step up and do their part in living out their vocation in whatever ways they can, adapting to the unexpected limitations and challenges they may face.

It’s a message that dovetails perfectly with the pope’s recent encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” which calls everyone to wipe away a tired and cynical view of the world and instead be driven by compassion to take action.

Because “we are all indebted to one another, we are all brothers and sisters,” and no one can be saved or improve the world alone, he said in his world day message, the elderly “are needed in order to help build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the world in which we, together with our children and grandchildren, will live once the storm has subsided.”

“You need to show that it is possible to emerge renewed from an experience of hardship” and to “use those experiences to learn how to pull through now,” he told his older peers. In essence, who better to give the world hope than those who have already lived through and endured decades of joys and sorrows.

The pope brought together thousands of older people in September of 2014 for a meeting and Mass in their honor in St. Peter’s Square. Even retired Pope Benedict XVI was in attendance.

There, as elsewhere, he used the metaphor of a tree to describe their role — the elderly are the roots that nourish the tree, helping it bear new fruit.

A connection — dialogue — is essential.

This encounter between the elderly and the young is “for the construction of a society that is more just, more beautiful, more supportive, more Christian,” he said in a talk with members of two Italian associations of seniors in October 2019.

“If grandparents do not dialogue with grandchildren, there will be no future. We are all called upon to counter this poisonous throwaway culture,” he said.

But those conversations must be filled with patience, tenderness and understanding, he said. “Do not berate them. No. Listen to them, and then sow something.”

Or, as he said at an intergenerational meeting presenting the book, “Sharing the Wisdom of Time,” in 2018, even silent witness to one’s faith is enough.

He recalled how his grandmother Rosa wasn’t a big talker, but her deep faith and example still left a huge impression on him.

At that meeting an older couple asked the pope what they should do when, despite all their efforts, their children and grandchildren have not embraced their Catholic faith.

“Faith is shared in dialect,” the pope said, meaning, not with the standardized words of dogma and the catechism, but with the language of love, friendship and encouragement, because faith does not come just from content.

He said they did not fail in their duty, it’s that sometimes life just unfolds that way, with children either unconsciously following current trends or losing their faith because of “terrible witnesses” and scandal by church members.

They must be at peace, he said at that meeting, and they must never argue or debate with their children or grandchildren about the faith but instead listen, show love, understanding, patience, be good witnesses and pray.

He said it gives him strength to remember “when Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to the temple where they met the two grandparents, who were the wisdom of the people; they praised God because this wisdom was able to continue with this child. Jesus was received in the temple not by the priest, but by grandparents.”

 

Two religious statues displayed outside Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in the Queens borough of New York City are seen destroyed July 17, 2021. The church is in the Diocese of Brooklyn. (CNS photo/courtesy Diocese of Brooklyn)

QUEENS, N.Y. (CNS) – Two religious statues displayed outside Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in the New York borough of Queens were destroyed in an act of vandalism in the early morning hours of July 17.

The damaged statues included one of Mary and one of St. Therese Lisieux, known as “the Little Flower.” A news release from the Diocese of Brooklyn said the statues were dragged 180 feet from the church across 70th Avenue, where they were smashed with a hammer.

Earlier in the week, on the evening of July 14, the statues “were toppled over but were not damaged,” the diocese said. “The individual involved in both acts of vandalism is believed to be the same person.”

“Both of these statues have stood in front of the church since it was built” in 1937, said Father Frank Schwarz, pastor.

“It is heartbreaking, but sadly it is becoming more and more common these days,” he said in a statement. “I pray that this recent rash of attacks against Catholic churches and all houses of worship will end, and religious tolerance may become more a part of our society.”

The Brooklyn Diocese said the vandalism was being investigated by the New York City Police Department Hate Crimes Unit and the department’s 112th Precinct.

According to Spectrum News NY1, which covers New York’s five boroughs, police released surveillance video of a woman they said they were looking for. She was described as being in her mid-20s and was dressed all in black. According to police, she used a hammer to break the statues and then dragged them across the street from the church.

Father Schwarz told the news outlet that these attacks seem “to be targeted” not just at Catholic churches but also synagogues and mosques. He attributed the vandalism to “general anti-religious sentiment.”

He also said he urged the faithful at his parish to “pray for this person,” who “clearly” had “rage.” “She deliberately went and destroyed these things. It wasn’t enough to just topple them over, she stomped on them and spit on it,” he said.

Other church property in the Brooklyn Diocese has been the target of vandals, including the grounds of the diocesan administrative offices in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn.

Over the weekend of May 15 and 16, a statue depicting Mary holding the child Jesus was vandalized on the grounds of the diocesan administrative offices in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn. The child Jesus was decapitated.

Before that, in the early hours of May 14, a crucifix on the property of St. Athanasius Catholic Church in Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, was toppled and damaged. Msgr. David Cassato, the pastor, found it. He called it “truly an act of hatred” and said discovering it was “the saddest day of my 20 years here at this parish.”

With regard to the vandalism at St. Athanasius, New York police May 22 arrested a 29-year-old Brooklyn man, Ali Alaheri, in connection with that crime and an arson the week before. He has been charged with one federal count of criminal mischief as a hate crime.