Category: Catholic News Service

 

EMMITSBURG, Md. (CNS) – When the world shut down last year because of the pandemic, the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton decided it was time to reach outward.

The question was how — when, for a time, people couldn’t even visit the shrine in Emmitsburg? The answer was simple, profound and one that Mother Seton, America’s first native-born saint, would have appreciated: Pray.

So, buoyed by dedicated staff members and seminarians from nearby Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, the shrine in the Baltimore Archdiocese created a prayer hotline last April that has proven so successful, it plans to continue well after COVID-19 has receded.

To date, over 2,000 calls have been logged, and many of them have turned into relationships that have changed the lives of people on both ends of the line.

The hotline — (866) 202-4934 — is available between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. (EDT). The shrine also has a prayer request page on its website, https://setonshrine.org/prayer-requests-2.

“We are sometimes the only ones they talk to; the only ones who say their name,” said Rebecca Corbell, evangelization programs manager at the shrine. “Having that connection; having a person who knows your name builds a relationship that is so powerful.”

And this effort isn’t limited to just calls. One of the staff members on this project writes to 12 death-row inmates a week. The hotline team also proactively calls people in the shrine’s vast database to see if they need prayers.

“It’s a way to do pastoral work and to be with people amid the pandemic,” said Christopher Feist, a seminarian from Leonardtown, Maryland.

The prayer hotline is part of the extensive evangelization efforts of the shrine, as it marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Mother Seton. In January, the shrine released “Seeker to Saint,” a film on her life. Other short films on various aspects of her life and spirituality will be released later this year.

The shrine also instituted virtual tours of its historical buildings, attracting thousands of people and groups from as far away as Alaska. They are so popular that the shrine plans to continue them into the future.

In addition, the shrine plans an exhibit in July of artifacts from Mother Seton’s life that were recently donated by the Sisters of Charity of New York, one of the orders that traces its lineage back to Mother Seton.

There also are also plans to expand the shrine’s Seeds of Hope retreat program for underserved populations later this year.

“The shrine is a basilica, a museum and the real home of a saint, and we have a mission as a place of prayer and pilgrimage to draw people closer to our Lord,” said Rob Judge, executive director of the shine.

“Through programs like the prayer hotline, we connect people to Mother Seton and a life and legacy that is relatable and inspiring,” he said. “She is a true saint for our times, and we increasingly find that her message resonates with people today.”

Mother Seton valued friendship as evidenced by her voluminous correspondents with friends over her lifetime, Judge said.

“The prayer line is enabling her shrine to form friendships with people who need God’s healing love and to know that in Mother Seton, they have a friend in heaven,” he said.

The seminarians, who are from the Archdiocese of Washington, said they jumped at the chance to participate in the program. “We wanted the experience of being with people and to bring their concerns to God and to show we care and to bring God’s love to them,” Feist said.

The idea of cold-calling people — not to sell them anything but to offer to pray with them — can be intimidating, they say. But in the end, “you’re going to connect with people who Jesus wants you to and nobody else,” said Benedict Radich, from Rockville, Maryland.

Sometimes the reaction is “are you sure you’re not asking me for money?” said Caleb Gaeng, who is from Bowie, Maryland. “But it’s beautiful to be with someone who God has put me with; someone who needs prayers at just that moment.”

Prayer requests deal with everything from loneliness and illnesses to issues with jobs, families and addiction, said Karen McGrath of Taneytown, Maryland, and the first person hired on the prayer team.

“People need to tell their stories,” she said. “Part of this is just standing with them before God, asking for the things they need.”

She recalls how one man called in January and was distraught. She tried to express how he needed to see how God is with us and in each other.

Recently, he called back to say that her advice helped and “that he was able to look at Jesus and say, ‘Thank you.'”

A prayer ministry comes easy to her, she said. She’s the mother of five sons and a daughter — “so I pray a lot.”

As for the future, the shrine now sees the hotline — borne in the depths of the pandemic — as an essential part of its mission, Corbell said.

“These are our people,” she said. “We need to be doing this.”

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Although Catholic leaders across the country called the April 20 jury verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial a moment of justice, they also stressed there is still a lot of work to do to move toward healing.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of Minneapolis and St. Paul called the verdict — which found the former Minneapolis police officer guilty on all counts for his role in the death of George Floyd last spring — “a sobering moment for our community.”

“The decision by a jury of peers punctuates the grief that has gripped the Twin Cities in these last months and underscores the soul-searching that has taken place in homes, parishes and workplaces across the country as we together confront the chasm that exists between the brokenness of our world and the harmony and fraternity that our creator intends,” he said.

The archbishop said he was praying for healing in the nation’s communities in this challenging time and for comfort for the Floyd family and for all who mourn and seek justice.

In an April 21 statement, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory said he echoed Archbishop Hebda’s call for “peace and nonviolence in all of our communities.” He also urged people to renew their commitment to respect each other and remember their shared humanity.

Other bishops around the country echoed this response soon after verdict was issued as many were gathered outside in Minneapolis and around TV sets and phones across the country awaiting the jury’s decision in the late afternoon that came after more than 10 hours of deliberation over two days.

Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said the “just verdict” should bring “more than a sigh of relief,” stressing that it should “spur us on in the peaceful but persistent struggle for racial justice, for genuine police reform and toward the creation of peaceful cities and neighborhoods.”

He also said the continued work is up to everyone in “overcoming racism, prejudice and other injustices.”

Similarly, Bishop Michael W. Fisher of Buffalo, New York, said the jury’s “verdict of accountability” was an “important step in healing the deep wounds of racial tension.”

He said the image of Floyd’s confrontation with police and the final moments of life, “will forever challenge us and must always compel us to create a more compassionate and just society, where all enjoy equal rights and protections under the law.”

Chauvin’s high-profile trial was three weeks long and included testimony from dozens of witnesses and hours of video footage. But just because the trial is over does not mean underlying issues are resolved, another bishop said.

“We must still face the reality that we are not done with racism,” said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri. “In our own communities, including in the Diocese of Jefferson City, individuals are being humiliated and denigrated because of their race. Their human dignity is being crushed and defiled because they are seen as ‘other’ or ‘less than.'”

In a statement, he said, “Violence motivated by racism must stop,” and he asked people to pray for this to happen, urging an “awakening of consciences in every American, but especially in our faithful.”

Bishop John E. Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, president of Pax Christi USA, added his voice to those who said the verdict in the case of Floyd’s death could be the start of something new, saying it “marks the beginning of an era of accountability for the violation of human dignity and the taking of human life by those in power.”

He also said the jury’s decision affirms the message “shouted on our streets for nearly a year: George Floyd’s life matters, Black lives matter. Let us pray that a precedent has been set that will allow people of color to know that their lives are to be protected by law enforcement and that there will be consequences when they are not.”

The bishop pointed out that what happened to Floyd was not an isolated event, saying: “There are many other families who are longing for this kind of justice and recognition of the worth of the lives of their loved ones; we must work to make this verdict the norm rather than the exception.”

The nation’s bishops were not the only Catholic leaders to publicly react to the long-anticipated verdict. Leaders of Catholic organizations also were quick to issue statements or respond on social media to the jury’s decision and its implications.

Dominican Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, offered prayers for Floyd’s family and similarly echoed the call for the nation to do more.

“While there may be a brief sense of relief that justice has been served, ” she said, “we must acknowledge that, as a country, we still have a lot of work to do to eradicate the pervasive racism and continued disregard for human life that continues to play out in communities across the country.”

She said Catholic Charities “remains committed to addressing issues of inequality and discrimination, by leading conversations on race, speaking up for the under-served and providing resources to remain educated on this systemic issue.”

Similarly, Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said the verdict in the Chauvin case should bring people together in a renewed commitment to racial and social justice.

She also said the nation’s Catholic health care ministry sees racism as a public health crisis and is “committed to addressing health disparities and achieving health equity. ”

Other sisters responding to the verdict included the general council of the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan, who said: “the nation takes the collective breath that Mr. Floyd was denied.”

The sisters said they grieve the loss of Floyd’s life and pray that Chauvin “may come to understand the monumental consequences of his lethal actions.”

And like many others, they urged Americans to take action against racism that “for too long has imperiled the lives of our Black brothers and sisters, sickened our souls and debased our democracy.” They said they would similarly step up, saying they would “commit to doing all we can to that end.”

Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, who is a longtime activist against the death penalty, similarly viewed the verdict as a sobering call to do more.

In an April 20 tweet she said: “The conviction of one individual is a small measure of justice when we have a system that remains plagued with centuries-worth of racism in the law and in practice. I pray that this will be a catalyst for real change.”

Lay leaders also responded to the trial’s outcome which captured so many people not just in the past three weeks but in the last 11 months since Floyd’s death.

John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a Washington-based advocacy group, echoed the sense of a “deep breath of relief for this decision,” but he similarly coupled with an acknowledgment of the ongoing challenge ahead.

“We can never forget that George Floyd and many others killed by police violence begged for breath they were denied. In that remembering, the struggle for justice continues,” he said.

Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, likewise noted the somberness of this case, saying that while people cheered the verdict, “the bitter reality of the Chauvin case is that George Floyd remains deceased” as do other Black men and women who were killed by police officers in the past year.

“No single verdict can restore justice for the Black and Brown communities so devastated by official violence and real oppression,” she said.

But she also recognized steps that can be taken, like ones happening now on Trinity’s campus.

“We believe that the most effective way to create social change is to make sure that our Black and Latina graduates have opportunities to become leaders in a wide range of professions, forging pathways in places where persons of color have been excluded or under-represented for far too long,” she wrote.

McGuire acknowledged that the campus effort “may seem like a long way from that Minnesota street where George Floyd lost his life,” but she sees it as a step in the right direction.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Without prayer, everything crumbles and any initiatives for church reform will just be proposals by some group and not the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis said.

“Everything in the church originates in prayer and everything grows thanks to prayer,” the pope said April 14 during his weekly general audience.

If there is no prayer, the church becomes “like an empty shell” that has lost its bearings and “no longer possesses its source of warmth and love,” he said, and it ends up being made up of groups of “entrepreneurs of faith” that are well organized and busy with charitable activities but lack faith.

Continuing his series of talks on prayer, the pope reflected on the role of the church as a school of faith and prayer.

“The breath of faith is prayer,” the pope said. “We grow in faith inasmuch as we learn to pray,” and over time, especially after crises or difficult periods in life, “we become aware that without faith, we could not have made it through and that our strength was prayer.”

That is why groups or communities that are dedicated to prayer “flourish in the church” and can become “centers of spiritual light, small oases in which intense prayer is shared and fraternal communion is constructed day by day,” breathing life into the church and society itself, he said.

“Praying and working in community keeps the world going,” Pope Francis said.

When the devil wants to attack the church, he starts with sapping its strength by hindering prayer, he said.

For example, he said, “we see this in certain groups who agree to promote church reforms, changes in the life of the church” and they may be very well organized and have wide media outreach, “but you don’t see any prayer.”

The groups may have interesting ideas and proposals, but these only emerged from talking and through the media, not prayer, the pope said.

“Prayer is what opens the door to the Holy Spirit,” who inspires the path forward, he said. “Changes in the church without prayer are not changes made by the church, they are changes made by groups.”

Prayer gives people strength, he said, leading one’s life “securely forward” no matter how lowly, imperfect or weak one’s life may be.

“Holy women and men do not have easier lives than other people” since they have problems, too, and face opposition, he said. But with prayer, the saints “nourish the flame of their faith” and even though they often “count for little in the eyes of the world, they are in reality the ones who sustain it, not with the weapons of money and power, of the communications media and so on, but with the weapon of prayer.”

Christians, he said, should ask themselves whether they pray and reflect on how they pray, for example, “like parrots or do I pray with my heart?”

Do people pray with the church or “do I pray a bit according to my ideas and then make my ideas become prayer? This is a pagan prayer, not Christian,” he added.

The essential task of the church, the pope said, is to pray and to teach people how to pray and to hand down the “lamp of faith and the oil of prayer from generation to generation.”

“Without faith everything collapses; and without prayer faith is extinguished,” he said. But as long as “there is the oil of prayer,” the lamp of faith will always be lit on earth.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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