Category: Diocese of Scranton News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The death penalty is an affront to human dignity that offers no solace to victims and denies the possibility for conversion of those who commit serious crimes, Pope Francis said.

The growing calls around the world for an end to capital punishment are “a sign of hope” for the church, the pope said in a video message released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network Aug. 31.

“Capital punishment offers no justice to victims, but rather encourages revenge. And it prevents any possibility of undoing a possible miscarriage of justice,” he said.

“From a legal point of view, it is not necessary,” the pope added.

At the start of each month, the network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention. For the month of September, the pope dedicated his prayer intention for the abolition of the death penalty.

In his video message, the pope said the death penalty was unnecessary because society “can effectively repress crime” without denying those who offend “the possibility of redeeming themselves.”

The death penalty, he said, is “morally inadmissible” because it destroys life, which is “the most important gift we have received.”

“Let us not forget that, up to the very last moment, a person can convert and change,” the pope said. “The commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ refers to both the innocent and the guilty.”

Concluding his prayer intention, Pope Francis called on “all people of goodwill” to rally together to end capital punishment and prayed that “the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country.”

In 2018, Pope Francis ordered a revision of the catechism’s paragraph on capital punishment to say that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With St. Teresa of Kolkata’s death 25 years ago, there is an entire generation of young men and women who did not see much about her life and legacy, serving “the poorest of the poor.”

That meant it was time to put her back in the spotlight, said a panel of those who were promoting a new documentary about the life of this saint, known popularly as Mother Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charity.

At her beatification in 2003, St. John Paul II called her a “courageous woman whom I have always felt beside me.”

Mother Teresa was “an icon of the good Samaritan” who went “everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. Not even conflict and war could stand in her way,” the late pope said.

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly said at a news conference hosted at Vatican Radio Aug. 31 that the Knights made this film “to reach a new generation with the witness and example of Mother Teresa” and to inspire them.

Produced by the Knights of Columbus, “Mother Teresa: No Greater Love,” had its Vatican premiere Aug. 31, ahead of its release to more than 900 theaters Oct. 3 and 4.

“Thank you for all the efforts made to capture the life of this saint, whose life and testimony have borne much fruit,” wrote Pope Francis, who canonized her at the Vatican in 2016.

“Thank you for promoting this type of initiative that helps, in a creative manner, to make accessible the zeal for evangelization, especially for the young generations promoting the desire to follow the Lord who loved us first,” the pope said in an Aug. 25 letter written to Kelly, replying to news of the Vatican premiere.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Ganxhe Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents in Skopje, now capital of North Macedonia, on Aug. 26, 1910. On Sept. 5, 1997, she died of cardiac arrest at the motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India.

The documentary, by Emmy award-winning filmmaker, David Naglieri, features archival footage and interviews with dozens of commentators who knew Mother Teresa personally. It was filmed on five continents, providing interviews with many Missionaries of Charity and offering on-the-ground images of their work following in Mother Teresa’s footsteps, serving in what Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston called “the most hellish places” on earth to “bring the light and the love and the mercy of God.”

The cardinal was overcome with emotion at the news conference, recalling attending a talk Mother Teresa gave in the 1960s before her work was widely known and when he was still a young brother preparing for ordination as a priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.

He said, “this was one of the most inspiring talks I ever heard in my life.” He and the small number of people who had come to hear her speak, he said, “we were all weeping after a while, we were aware that we were in the presence of holiness.”

The documentary shows the work Mother Teresa inspired and, “when she was feeding the hungry or holding the hands of someone as they lay dying, she was treating them as she would the most important person in her life, Jesus Christ himself,” Kelly said in a media release.

“She was teaching us to have a heart that sees, and if we can learn to see as she did, the world would be a radically different and, I would say, better place,” he said.

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) – Marianite Sister Suellen Tennyson, who was kidnapped from the convent of her educational and medical mission in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, in early April, has been found alive and is safe after nearly five months of captivity, a congregational leader of the Marianites said Aug. 30.

“She is safe,” Marianite Sister Ann Lacour said. “She is on American soil, but not in America. She is safe.” She said Sister Suellen was recovered Aug. 29 and the sisters in the congregation have spoken to her. “She eventually will get back to the United States,” she added.

Sister Ann told the Clarion Herald, archdiocesan newspaper of New Orleans, that she spoke with Sister Suellen by telephone.

At least 10 armed men were involved in the attack in which Sister Suellen, 83, was abducted, the Marianites of Holy Cross said in an electronic newsletter at the time of the abduction.

Since then, there had been no news of her whereabouts or condition.

Sister Ann said when she spoke with Sister Suellen, the missionary did not actually “know where she was.”

“She’s totally worn out,” Sister Ann said. “I told her how much people love her, and she doesn’t have anything to worry about. I told her, ‘You are alive and safe. That’s all that matters.'”

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond said he received a text from Sister Ann and was overjoyed that she had been freed. When Sister Suellen was abducted – barefoot and in the middle of the night – she had left behind her blood pressure medication and her glasses.

The congregation said Sister Suellen, the former international congregational leader for the Marianites of Holy Cross and native of New Orleans, was sleeping when the men burst into the convent, ransacked the living quarters and kidnapped her, leaving behind two other Marianite sisters and two young women who also lived in the convent.

“There were about 10 men who came during the night while the sisters were sleeping,” Sister Ann said in an e-bulletin April 6. “They destroyed almost everything in the house, shot holes in the new truck and tried to burn it. The house itself is OK, but its contents are ruined.”

Sister Ann said she was told by the two younger women living at the convent that Sister Suellen was taken from her bed with “no glasses, shoes, phone, medicine, etc.”

The other two Marianites at the convent in Yalgo – Sister Pauline Drouin, a Canadian, and Sister Pascaline Tougma, a Burkinabé — were not abducted and did not see many of the details.

“They say the two young women who live with them saw what happened and told them (the details),” Sister Ann said. “They think there were more men on the road. They have heard nothing from or about Suellen since she was taken.”

Sister Ann said Sister Pauline and Sister Pascaline were quickly relocated to Kaya, Burkina Faso, about 70 miles from Yalgo.

She also said the Marianites contacted both the U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso and the U.S. State Department and received assurance that this was “a high priority case for them.

The congregation also contacted the apostolic nuncios to the U.S., Burkina Faso and France as well as the Vatican’s secretary of state and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the U.S.

Yalgo is in northern Burkina Faso, not far from the border with Mali. Reliefweb, a humanitarian information source on global situations, reported in April that in the past two years, Burkina Faso’s northern and eastern regions had seen a “sharp deterioration in the security situation … due to the presence of nonstate armed groups.”

Sister Ann, who has visited the Marianites in the country, said Sister Suellen was serving as a pastoral minister, “to wipe tears, give hugs, import a smile. She really did support the people that work in the clinic that the parish runs,” adding that people walked for miles to get help from the clinic.

Bishop Theophile Nare of the Kaya Diocese, said Sister Suellen was abducted overnight between April 4 and 5 and taken to an unknown destination by Unidentified Armed Men (UAM).

The bishop said the kidnappers vandalized the convent where Sister Suellen lived in community with other religious women before taking her to the unknown destination.

According to media reports, Burkina Faso, one of the 10 countries in the Sahel region of Africa, has been facing rampant violence occasioned by political crises, which gives a fertile ground for the proliferation of extremist groups.

The city of Yalgo borders the province of Soum, where armed groups are particularly active. In this area, attacks against civilians have increased according to reports.

Ruby Faucheux Keefe, a childhood friend of Sister Suellen’s said she was thrilled to hear Sister Suellen was safe in U.S. custody. “I’ve been thinking about her every day. This has made my day. We grew up together.”

Keefe remembered how the two loved to dance and talk on the phone or in person. The last time Sister Suellen was in town, Keefe recalled how much her friend expressed her love for being in Africa, even though it was very primitive.

“She told me she didn’t have hot water,” Keefe said. “I thought I don’t know how she did it at our age, but she loved it.”

“I just feel so great to hear that she’s been found,” she added.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CNS) – Sister Kathleen Storms hopes a calendar of prayers and suggestions for action during the upcoming worldwide Season of Creation will help people “understand that simple options can make an important difference in our care for creation.”

Meatless Mondays and shopping at farmer’s markets are among actions proposed by the Care for Creation Team of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to observe the season.

Sister Kathleen, a School Sister of Notre Dame, is a member of the team who wrote the calendar.

She said she studied resources on Catholic social teaching and ecology provided through the Catholic Climate Covenant, which was formed in 2006 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with partners including Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities USA and St. Paul-based Catholic Rural Life. She worked on the calendar for about three weeks.

“My best creative time is in the morning,” said Sister Kathleen, whose ministry since the 1990s has centered on environmental education. “It was a very prayerful experience,” she told The Catholic Spirit, the archdiocesan newspaper.

The internationally recognized Season of Creation was proclaimed in 1989 for Eastern Orthodox Christians by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople.

In 2015, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to welcome the season, the same year the pope wrote his encyclical on faith and the environment, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.”

In his encyclical, Pope Francis calls on people to address pollution, waste and misuse of natural resources. He promotes “integral ecology,” that is, a realization that all things in the natural world are connected, and everyone has a responsibility to promote a healthful planet.

The season starts Sept. 1 with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and closes with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4.

The archdiocesan calendar takes this year’s Season of Creation theme, “Listen to the Voice of Creation,” and logo, the burning bush of Exodus 3:1-12, and includes suggestions for each day, such as pastors introducing the season to parishioners at Sunday Masses Sept. 4.

Suggestions for Sept. 6 are using cloth bags instead of single-use plastic and declining to use a straw when drinking a beverage. Sept. 29 recognizes the feast of the Archangels Sts. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, while urging people to join an environmental group to help protect the earth.

Copies of the calendar can be requested at creation@archspm.org. Calendars also are available through parishes in the archdiocese and a public resources tab at tinyurl.com/24pdk9et, according to Care for Creation Team leaders.

The calendar is one of several efforts by the Archdiocesan Care for Creation Team — which consists of about 15 volunteer leaders and a network of parish-based Care for Creation teams — to bring “Laudato Si'” to life, said Adam Fitzpatrick, leader of the effort and social mission outreach coordinator for the Center for Mission in the archdiocese.

Leaders of the archdiocesan team held their first meeting in February 2020, before COVID-19 and pandemic restrictions hit. They did not meet in person again until October 2021, when they held a leadership team retreat. That experience led to developing retreats now being offered for parishes.

The Archdiocesan Care for Creation Team also recently worked with the University of St. Thomas’ Sustainable Communities Partnership through the school’s Office of Sustainable Initiatives to produce an online survey last spring that resulted in 82 usable responses from students averaging age 20. The survey gauged their knowledge and concern about climate change.

The archdiocesan team also collaborated with a theology and the environment class at the university last spring that reviewed reports and data indicating climate vulnerabilities in the Twin Cities.

It found that the region’s population faces health risks from significant changes in temperature and precipitation, including unsafe, hot temperatures and exposure to new diseases.

Minnesota is among states across the country experiencing the most significant temperature changes, the study found, with the state an average of 3 degrees warmer than 124 years ago.

Weather fluctuations also have increased, with 10 of Minnesota’s warmest years and 10 of the state’s wettest years all occurring since 1998, the study said.

In the past 20 years, only 59% of Minnesota’s winters have reached 40 below zero, while that temperature was reached in 88% of the winters between 1944 and 1994, the students found. Minnesota’s growing season has increased by two weeks since 1950, increasing crop pest problems and allergen production such as pollen.

Students concluded their nine-page report on climate vulnerabilities by stating: “Helping to restore sustainable environmental stewardship is essential to protect God’s creation and most vulnerable populations.”

Among other findings, students’ feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger and helplessness over climate change rose more frequently than positive feelings of hope, optimism and empowerment, the University of St. Thomas’ survey said.

More than 77% of the students surveyed said they expect climate change to affect their daily lives in the future, while about 51% said climate change already affects their lives.

Depending on the question, 40% or fewer of the respondents said climate change influences their current decisions about politics, energy use, community engagement, course of study, spirituality and relationships. Percentages in those areas increased when asked about future decisions.

Those responses appear to indicate students believe there is still plenty of time to address climate change, Fitzpatrick said. However, he emphasized that the time to do so is now.

“The importance of responding early and being proactive is vital, especially if looking at long-term problems that will grow if current trends stay where they are,” Fitzpatrick said.

For those concerned about climate change and climate vulnerabilities, one survey result held particular promise, Fitzpatrick said.

Survey respondents who considered themselves spiritual said climate change had a significantly greater influence on their current and anticipated decisions compared to those who did not consider themselves spiritual, he said.

Among other ways being considered by the Archdiocesan Care for Creation Team to respond and spread the word about the students’ environmental study and survey, Fitzpatrick said, is continuing to emphasize that “nature has always been a key part of the exercise of Catholic spirituality.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – As Ukraine approached the 31st anniversary of its independence Aug. 24, it did so while embroiled in a bitter fight for that freedom, as it hit the six-month mark of defending itself against a Russian invasion.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S., used the occasion to thank U.S. Catholics and other people of goodwill for material and spiritual shows of solidarity as the nation fights to remain free from Russian control.

“I want to thank all of you for your solidarity: all Americans, all American Catholics, all people of goodwill. It is with your help that Ukraine is making this biblical stance (of) David against Goliath,” he said in a recorded video message posted on YouTube Aug. 23.

“And Ukrainians are saying to you and to me and to everybody in the world, ‘We will not be a colony,'” he said. “(Just as) Algeria will not be a colony of France, like Peru and Uruguay will not be a colony of Spain, like the United States will not be a colony of Great Britain, so Ukraine will never again be a colony of Russia.”

“This is what independence means today for Ukraine,” added Archbishop Gudziak, who heads the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

And while Ukrainians remain defiant, some Catholic organizations sounded the alarm about the difficulties on the ground that have only increased since the Feb. 24 invasion by Russian forces.

“The current state of stress is not sustainable — not for Ukraine, not for its neighboring countries, not for the larger global community,” said Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services in an Aug. 22 statement.

“I had a chance to visit Lviv this summer and saw the steps people have taken to protect their homes and communities — lining their parks with sandbags, digging pits in case they have to defend their streets from invasion,” he said. “It’s devastating to know they’ve had to live in this constant stress.”

Catholic aid organizations such as CRS, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, as well as Cross Catholic Outreach have distributed aid from donations by U.S. Catholics, not just in Ukraine, but in neighboring Poland, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro — nations that have taken in Ukrainian refugees.

Some of that help has included financial, spiritual and other material assistance to families, as well as securing ambulances, generators, clothing and food for those affected inside and outside of Ukraine. Some also have been able to receive therapy through the organizations to deal with the trauma.

CRS, in its statement, said that “the war has created an extraordinary refugee and displacement crisis.”

More than 11 million have crossed the Ukrainian border since the invasion began but as some of the fighting has decreased in other parts, nearly 5 million people have returned to remake their lives, even as the future is not certain, CRS said.

“The race is on to make those repairs now,” said Conor O’Loughlin, CRS country representative in Moldova and Ukraine, according to the organization’s statement. “The cost of living has skyrocketed in Ukraine putting enormous economic pressure on families. It’s imperative that we do as much as we can now to make sure people are ready for winter.”

The end of the conflict doesn’t seem to be on the horizon anytime soon.

Archbishop Gudziak asked that, along with their prayers and help, people try to have a “correct understanding of what is happening” in Ukraine, saying it is a “struggle for the God-given right to be free, to live in dignity, to celebrate.”

He said he would remember those who have been hurt and those who have died “defending freely, voluntarily, their independence,” and urged that hearts, hands and homes be open to those who have fled the violence.

The story of Ukraine’s fight for independence, he said, is “the story of the whole world.”

On Ukraine’s Independence Day, the Biden administration announced the U.S. would be sending $3 billion to Ukraine for arms and equipment as part of a $40 billion aid package that lawmakers approved earlier this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a recorded address to mark the country’s celebration, said that “every new day is a new reason not to give up.”

“Having gone through so much, we have no right not to reach the end,” he added. “What is the end of the war for us? We used to say, ‘Peace.’ Now we say, ‘Victory.'”

He recently faced criticism for not acknowledging that he knew Western intelligence warning of a Russian invasion was real just before the conflict began Feb. 24.

“If we had communicated that,” the nation’s economy “would have been losing $7 billion a month since last October, and at the moment when the Russians did attack, they would have taken us in three days,” Zelenskyy told The Washington Post in mid-August.

And though some Ukrainians said lives could have been saved if Zelenskyy had shared the information, they also said this was not the time to deal with that controversy.

The country feared potential attacks on Independence Day, because Russia President Vladimir Putin has blamed Ukrainians for setting off a car bomb in Moscow that killed the daughter of a close associate.

Pope Francis continued to call for dialogue and said he was praying for peace to prevail amid the “insanity” of war.

“I think of the children, the many dead, and the many refugees of the war in Ukraine. There are so many wounded and many Ukrainian children and Russian children who have become orphans,” Pope Francis said in his general audience Aug. 24.

CRS’ Callahan expressed worries about the ramifications beyond Ukraine and its neighboring countries.

“We’re very concerned about the long-term implications of this war,” Callahan said. “It’s already done immeasurable damage not only to the Ukrainian people, but also to so many countries that rely on Ukrainian exports. Our fear is that it will be years before those affected can recover from this.”

The United Nations has said the conflict in particular will affect the poor in Africa, a continent whose nations rely on wheat and sunflower imports from Ukraine and Russia.

Millions of lives at stake as African nations deal with the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic, drought and now a scarcity of staples produced by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

“While Africa is yet to fully recover from the socioeconomic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict poses another major threat to the global economy with many African countries being directly affected,” the U.N. said in an early May statement.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The world needs lawmakers who are capable, inspired by love and dedicated to serving the most vulnerable, Pope Francis told Catholic and Christian legislators.

“I encourage your ongoing efforts, on the national and international levels, to work for the adoption of policies and laws that seek to address, in a spirit of solidarity, the many situations of inequality and injustice threatening the social fabric and the inherent dignity of all people,” the pope said during an audience at the Vatican Aug. 25.

“If we are to heal our world, so sorely tried by rivalries and forms of violence that result from a desire to dominate rather than to serve, we need not only responsible citizens but also capable leaders, inspired by a fraternal love directed especially toward those in the most precarious conditions of life,” he said.

Pope Francis was speaking to members and representatives of the International Catholic Legislators Network, who were in Rome for an annual conference. The network is an independent, nonpartisan initiative founded in 2010 “to bring together practicing Catholics and other Christians in elected office on a regular basis for faith formation, education and fellowship,” according to its website. It has headquarters in Vienna and an office in Washington, D.C.

Those in attendance included Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna and Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II, both honorary patrons of the network.

The pope told those in attendance that so many people today “cry out for justice, particularly the most vulnerable who often have no voice and who look to civic and political leaders to protect, through effective public policy and legislation, their dignity as children of God and the inviolability of their fundamental human rights.”

Among those who are most vulnerable, he said, are “the poor, migrants and refugees, victims of human trafficking, the sick and elderly and so many other individuals who risk being exploited or discarded by today’s ‘throwaway’ culture.”

The challenge facing lawmakers is “working to safeguard and enhance within the public sphere those right relationships that allow each person to be treated with the respect, and indeed the love, that is due to him or her,” he said. Jesus offers the best reminder, “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” he added.

But, for there to be a just society, “the bond of fraternity” is needed, that is, the “sense of shared responsibility and concern for the integral development and well-being of each member of our human family,” the pope said.

Finally, the pope said, “the path to lasting peace calls for cooperation,” especially among leaders, with a clear objective of “pursuing goals that benefit everyone.”

“Peace results from an enduring commitment to mutual dialogue, a patient search for the truth and the willingness to place the authentic good of the community before personal advantage,” he said.

This means their work as lawmakers and political leaders “is more important than ever. For true peace can be achieved only when we strive, through far-sighted political processes and legislation, to build a social order founded upon universal fraternity and justice for all.”