Category: Diocese of Scranton News

(OSV News) – During the six months following the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline launch in July, more than 2 million calls, texts and chat messages have streamed into its 200 call centers coast-to-coast, the Associated Press recently reported. As suicide continues to be a leading cause of American deaths, Catholics may also turn to their church for spiritual support in the midst of a mental health episode — but dioceses are discovering they need to sprint to catch up and keep pace with this deadly epidemic.

“This is a brand new ministry in the church,” Deacon Ed Shoener, president and founding member of The Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers, told OSV News. “And I think it’s growing fairly rapidly for a new ministry like this, in a very ancient institution.”

While some dioceses have staff therapists and counselors that are mental health professionals, through organizations such as Catholic Charities or Catholic Social Services, Deacon Shoener categorized those services as “professional mental health care” as opposed to “mental health ministry.”

An essential distinction, according to The Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers, is that mental health ministry is not the same as mental health treatment, but it is complementary to the work of mental health professionals. Ministry takes the form of faith-based, God-centered and trained volunteer-led journeying with those experiencing mental wellbeing challenges, “without direct implementation of psychological interventions.”

Mental health ministry is spiritual and social support – not medical diagnosis or care – for those suffering in their mental health. And it’s a field that’s growing.

“I would say about 40 dioceses or so across the U.S. have some level of mental health ministry,” Deacon Shoener said, adding these efforts are generally “either being organized at a diocesan level out of one of the offices of the chancery, or a couple of parishes on their own have started to offer a mental health ministry.”

There are 194 territorial dioceses and archdioceses in the U.S., not including the Archdiocese for Military Services USA and the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

The need for mental health ministry is acute. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide was responsible for nearly 46,000 American deaths — one about every 11 minutes — in 2020. Another 12.2 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan, and 1.2 million attempted suicide. The National Alliance on Mental Illness indicates that one in five U.S. adults experience mental illness each year, while 17% of youth (6-17 years) annually experience a mental health disorder.

“Mental health in the church: It’s not a problem of supply, it’s a problem of demand,” said Wendell Callahan, the executive director of the Catholic Institute for Mental Health Ministry at the University of San Diego, which the university established after receiving a 2019 grant. “You have many, many people in the pews sitting there dealing with mental health issues,” Callahan shared, “and not coming forward seeking help.”

Callahan told OSV News he believes stigma and shame explain people’s unwillingness to ask for help.

“Nobody has any concerns asking for prayers — or even individual accompaniment — dealing with a cancer diagnosis, for example,” he said. “But if it’s schizophrenia, or major depression, or PTSD, then the stigma pops up. And the shame around that. And that’s what we really need to work on — reducing that.”

As “Hope and Healing,” a 2018 pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops of California, observes, “Christian faith and religious practice do not immunize a person against mental illness.”

Seeking to address an evident need in the church, USD’s Catholic Institute for Mental Health Ministry launched a pilot program — now almost complete — of three-year start-up grants to support the implementation of mental health ministries in selected dioceses.

The response at the time was something less — a lot less — than what Callahan had hoped.

“There was generally very little interest in this,” he remembered. “We sent the call for proposals out to every diocese; every bishop in the country … multiple times. And we had a total of, I think, 12 responses.”

Callahan said he understands the church is also grappling with other issues of human suffering, such as poverty. “But this can be as crippling. And certainly, it can hinder a person’s everyday functioning, and indeed be fatal.”

Ultimately — through the USD grants — mental health ministry pilot programs were introduced in the archdioceses of Hartford and San Francisco, and in the dioceses of Orange, Rapid City and San Jose.

“Our bishop — Bishop Kevin Vann — has been a strong supporter and proponent for mental health ministry for many years,” said Linda Ji, director of the Office for Family Life in Orange, California. Bishop Vann was also instrumental in the drafting of “Hope and Healing.”

Following the 2013 suicide death of Protestant pastor Rick Warren’s son, Bishop Vann partnered with Warren, whose Saddleback Church is also based in Orange County, to twice host a “mental health and the church” conference. Awareness and commitment rose, but the diocese’s mental health ministry was still in its nascent stages. The USD start-up grant offered much-needed capacity-building resources. “It only made sense that we go for it,” Ji said.

While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted initial expansion plans, roughly a quarter of the Orange diocese’s almost 60 parishes now have a mental health ministry. “It’s a part of our answer to the command to ‘Love one another as I have loved you,'” Ji said, referring to John 13:34.

Another source of inspiration can be found in the Diocese of San Diego, now regarded as a pioneer in mental health ministry programs. The present ministry launched in 2018 at the request of then-Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan. Still, Deacon Bill Adsit, mental health ministry coordinator in the diocese’s Office for Family Life and Spirituality, admitted he and his colleagues felt daunted by the task at the outset. However, today, almost 20 San Diego parishes either have mental health ministries or are working toward that goal. The diocese also celebrates annual Masses for suicide awareness and mental health awareness.

Bishop Dolan, now bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, himself lost three siblings and a brother-in-law to suicide, and ministered to family members who attempted it. He and Deacon Shoener are co-editors of “When a Loved One Dies by Suicide,” which has a complementary film series, and “Responding to Suicide: A Pastoral Handbook for Catholic Leaders” — both published by Ave Maria Press in 2020.

Addressing a 2022 mental health ministry conference in Los Altos, California, Bishop Dolan reminded his hearers that, “Our sisters and brothers coping with mental illness are sitting next to us in the pews during Mass as well as sleeping in the church parking lot at night. … As Catholics, we are called to reach out and embrace all of our brothers and sisters suffering from illnesses, and we need not treat mental illness as different from any other medical condition.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Lengthy, abstract homilies are “a disaster,” so preaching should be limited to 10 minutes, Pope Francis said.

Speaking off the cuff to diocesan liturgical directors Jan. 20, the pope said homilies are not academic conferences. “I sometimes hear people say, ‘I went to this parish, and yes it was a good philosophy lesson, 40, 45 minutes,'” he said.

Pope Francis encouraged priests to keep their homilies to “no more than eight to 10 minutes” and always include in them “a thought, a feeling and an image,” so that “the people may bring something home with them.”

Homilies are “sacramentals” to be “prepared in prayer” and “with an apostolic spirit,” he said.

But, in the Catholic Church, he said, “in general, the homilies are a disaster.”

The liturgical directors were in Rome to participate in a formation course on liturgy, “Living Liturgical Action Fully,” at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy.

Pope Francis also warned against the liturgical master of ceremonies assuming too central a role during Mass. “The more hidden a master of ceremonies is, the better,” he said. “It is Christ that makes the heart vibrate, it is the meeting with him that draws in the spirit.”

Beyond a “deep knowledge” of religious celebrations, the pope said that experts on liturgy must have a strong pastoral sense to improve a community’s liturgical life, and that religious celebrations must foster the “fruitful participation of the people of God” and not just of the clergy.

A pastoral approach to the liturgy allows religious celebrations to “lead the people to Christ, and Christ to the people,” which the pope said is the “principal objective” of liturgy and an essential principle of the Second Vatican Council.

“If we neglect this, we will have beautiful rituals, but without vigor, without flavor, without sense, because they do not touch the heart and the existence of the people of God,” said Pope Francis.

The pope encouraged them to spend time in parishes, observe liturgical celebrations and help pastors reflect on how they prepare liturgy with their communities.

If teachers of liturgy are “in the midst of the people, they will immediately understand and know how to accompany their brothers and sisters, how to suggest what is suitable and feasible to communities, and what the necessary steps are to rediscover the beauty of the liturgy and celebrating together,” he said.

The job of a diocesan liturgical director, said Pope Francis, is to offer parishes a liturgy “that is imitable, with adaptations that the community can take to grow in liturgical life.”

A liturgical director should not care about a parish’s liturgy only when the bishop comes to visit and then let the liturgy go back to how it was after he leaves, the pope said.

“To go to parishes and not say anything when faced with somewhat sloppy, neglected, poorly prepared liturgies means not helping the community, not accompanying them,” he added.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Tens of thousands of pro-life advocates descended upon the nation’s capital for the 50th March for Life Jan. 20 – the first national march since the overturn of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that initially prompted the annual demonstration.

Standing on the event stage at the National Mall, with the U.S. Capitol visible in the background, Jeanne Mancini, March for Life president, told attendees at a rally prior to the march that “the country and world changed” when Roe was reversed in June 2022. But she said the annual March for Life would continue in Washington until abortion is “unthinkable.”

“While the March began as a response to Roe, we don’t end as a response to Roe being overturned,” Mancini said. “Why? Because we are not yet done.”

The march took place on a sunny and unseasonably warm day in Washington. A headcount of attendees was not immediately available, as the National Park Service does not release crowd size estimates.

The national March for Life first took place in Washington in 1974 in response to the Roe decision legalizing abortion nationwide the previous year. The protest has taken place in Washington each year since, with a smaller-in-scale event during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

The 2023 event was the first national March for Life since the high court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe and returned the matter of regulating or restricting abortion to state legislatures.

At the pre-march rally, the Christian band “We Are Messengers” performed, followed by a number of speakers, including Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as “Jesus” in the television series “The Chosen,” former Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy, Democratic Connecticut State Rep. Trenee McGee, and Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla. Canonized in 2004, St. Gianna gave her life for Giana Emanuela, choosing to move forward with her fourth pregnancy even after doctors discovered a tumor in her uterus.

Molla told the rallygoers that she thanks her “saint mom” for the gift of life. “I would not be here now with all of you if I had not been loved so much,” she said.

Roumie took a picture of the crowd behind him from the stage, telling marchers to tag themselves on social media, and quipping he is the “TV Jesus,” not the real one.

“God is real and he is completely in love with you,” he said, adding that each person is individually loved by God.

“Remember my dear friends, we know how the story ends: God won,” Roumie said.

The rally also featured some lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, a Catholic Republican and co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, said at the rally, “Future generations will someday look back on us and wonder how and why a society that bragged about its commitment to human rights could have legally sanctioned” abortion.

“The injustice of abortion need not be forever, and with your continued work and prayers, it will not be,” Smith said.

Prior to speaking to the sea of pro-life marchers on the National Mall, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who argued the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court, told OSV News that “empowering women and promoting life” were the next steps post-Roe.

“Some of the things that we’re talking about in Mississippi and promoting legislation on are workplace flexibility options, particularly for mothers,” she said. “We lose young mothers because they don’t have any options. They don’t have that flexibility. We’ve got to have childcare. It’s got to be affordable, accessible and quality.”

Fitch said she wants to see the pro-life movement do “some heavy lifts” to push laws enhancing child support enforcement and reforming the adoption or foster care systems.

“(These systems) are failing our children; they’re broken,” Fitch said. “We’ve got to make those (changes) happen and put those children in these loving families.”

Speaking with OSV News at the march, Kristan Hawkins, president of the pro-life group Students for Life of America, said the next front of her organization’s activism will focus on fighting the spread of medication abortion. Hawkins said the pro-life movement should also focus on broadening the social safety net and its remaining goals at the federal level, such as stripping Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest single abortion provider, of taxpayer funds.

“We’re walking and running and chewing gum all at the same time,” she said.

“There is a lot for us to do as a nation, especially raising awareness among its citizens,” Isalyn Aviles Rodríguez, who came to the march from Miami, told OSV News. Rodríguez said she was motivated to march because “the nation needs to know that children are part of God’s plan from conception until natural death.”

As in prior years, the March drew teenage advocates for life as well. Angeline Moro, 14, from Trenton, New Jersey, attended the event to learn how to raise her voice in defense of the most vulnerable.

“We all need to have a chance to live,” Moro said.

At various events leading up to the march, pro-life advocates joined together in prayer and solidarity.

At the Jan. 19 opening Mass for the annual National Prayer Vigil for Life, the night before the march, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, said in his homily that the pro-life movement has “much to celebrate” because Roe v. Wade “is no more.”

But, he added, a “new important phase” for the cause of life “begins now.”

“Our efforts to defend life must be as tireless as ever” not only to change laws but also hearts “with steadfast faith in the grace and power of God to do so,” said Bishop Burbidge, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

The event, held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, drew between 6,000 and 6,500 people, with most of the congregation filling the Great Upper Church. Dozens also viewed the Mass via screens in the lower level of the basilica.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., read a message from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, issued on behalf of Pope Francis, who imparted his blessing on all those participating in the March for Life.

“His Holiness trusts that Almighty God will strengthen the commitment of all, especially the young, to persevere in their efforts aimed at protecting human life in all its stages, especially through adequate legal measures enacted at every level of society,” the message said.

The Mass was followed by a “Holy Hour for Life” at the basilica, which launched a series of Holy Hours of Eucharistic devotion throughout the night in dioceses across the country. Auxiliary Bishop Joseph L. Coffey of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services celebrated Mass at 8 a.m. Jan. 20 to close the vigil.

Meanwhile, hundreds of teens and young adults from the Archdiocese of Washington gathered at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle for the Youth Mass of Celebration and Thanksgiving for Life, where homilist Father Robert Kilner of Solomons, Maryland, urged them to be “witnesses to life, witnesses to the truth that every life matters.”

“Pray and be confident that God can and will do great things,” he said. “Witness by the way you love your family, and especially the smallest, most helpless around you. Witness by your words in defense of the unborn, witness to God’s mercy, inviting everyone back to the joy of confession.”

Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington, the principal celebrant of the Mass, said it was “a special joy for me to be able to celebrate this Eucharist with you, our young, youthful, joyful, happy Church.”

Across town, at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington’s Congress Heights neighborhood, another new pre-march event welcomed a sold-out crowd of pro-lifers. Sponsored by the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus, the early morning Life Fest drew some 4,200 people – most of them teens and young adults – for a program of prayer, worship music, and personal testimonies that concluded with Eucharistic adoration and Mass.

“The law has changed … (but) hearts need to change toward advancing a culture of life in this nation,” Sister of Life Mariae Agnus Dei told OSV News. “Some of the biggest battles are in front of us.”

Celebrating “the gift of life and the beauty of the human person” is essential to that task, she said.

The thousands of attendees at these events then streamed into the National Mall, where they assembled at the noon rally and prepared to begin marching an hour later.

With the overturn of Roe, organizers had planned for a reworked march route, resulting in a new final destination: the East Front of the U.S. Capitol, symbolizing the movement’s new goals. However, restrictions on the use of sticks for signage put in place by the U.S. Capitol Police after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol resulted in the route instead passing by the West Front. For the 50th time, the national march ended in the same spot: before the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Morgan Ehlis, a student from the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, told OSV News that being in Washington with “like-minded people” was an “overwhelming experience.”

“I’m grateful to be pro-life,” said Ehlis. “It’s swimming upstream for sure, but (this is a) big support group we have.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Word of God, which heals and raises people up, is meant for everyone, Pope Francis said.

Jesus “wants to reach those far away, he wants to heal the sick, he wants to save sinners, he wants to gather the lost sheep and lift up those whose hearts are weary and oppressed,” the pope said.

“Jesus ‘reaches out’ to tell us that God’s mercy is for everyone,” he said in his homily during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 22, the church’s celebration of Sunday of the Word of God.

During the Mass, the pope also formally installed seven men and women in the ministry of catechist and three others in the ministry of lector. Pope Francis gave each of the lectors a Bible and the catechists a crucifix.

In his homily, the pope said the Lord invites everyone to conversion and invites his disciples to actively “spread the light of the word” to everyone.

Jesus is “always on the move, on his way to others,” the pope said. “On no occasion in his public life does he give us the idea that he is a stationary teacher, a professor seated on a chair; on the contrary, we see him as an itinerant, we see him as a pilgrim, traveling through towns and villages, encountering faces and their stories.”

Jesus preaches in places where there are “people plunged into darkness: foreigners, pagans, women and men from various regions and cultures,” showing that his word “is not only destined for the righteous of Israel, but for all.”

“Moreover, if salvation is destined for all, even the most distant and lost, then the proclamation of the Word must become the main priority of the ecclesial community, as it was for Jesus,” he said.

“May it not happen that we profess a God with an expansive heart yet become a church with a closed heart — this, I dare say, would be a curse,” he said. “May it not happen that we preach salvation for all yet make the way to receive it impractical; may it not happen that we recognize we are called to proclaim the kingdom yet neglect the Word, losing ourselves in so many secondary activities or discussions.”

“Place your life under the Word of God,” he said. “All of us, even the pastors of the church, are under the authority of the Word of God. Not under our own tastes, tendencies and preferences.”

The word of God “molds us, converts us and calls us to be united in the one church of Christ,” so the faithful must ask themselves, “Where does my life find direction”? “From the many ‘words’ I hear, from ideologies, or from the word of God that guides and purifies me?”

When people recognize God’s presence and make room for his word, “you will change your outlook on life.”

After the Mass, the pope prayed the Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square. Before the prayer, he said that following Jesus is a journey that requires leaving the status quo behind.

“What must we leave behind? Our vices and our sins, certainly, which are like anchors that hold us at bay and prevent us from setting sail,” he said, but also those things that keep one from “living fully, for example, fear, selfish calculations, the guarantees that come from staying safe, just getting by.”

He asked people to reflect on “what are the material things, ways of thinking, attitudes I need to leave behind so as to truly say ‘yes'” like Mary and to follow Jesus better. “We will always find that we are better.”

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (OSV News) – “With the whole family of God here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, I am praying for the victims of this violence,” Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement following a mass shooting that left 10 people dead and at least 10 more wounded in Monterey Park, California, late Jan. 21.

Archbishop Gomez, who was already scheduled to celebrate Mass at 10 a.m. local time to mark the Lunar New Year at St. Bridget Chinese Catholic Church in LA’s Chinatown, added: “We pray for those killed and injured in this shooting; we ask that God stay close to their families and loved ones. We pray for the wounded to be healed, and we ask that God give strength and guidance to the doctors and nurses who are caring for them.”

A shooter fired into the crowd at a dance ballroom as guests celebrated on the eve of the Lunar New Year. The wounded were taken to local hospitals around the city, which is east of Los Angeles. Their condition ranged from “critical to serious,” said Capt. Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

He told reporters in a news briefing early Jan. 22 that it was too early in the investigation to know the motive of the shooter.

According to data from the city’s website, the population of Monterey Park is 65.6% Asian. Festivities throughout the day drew thousands of people to the city neighborhood where the dance studio is located.

In his statement, the archbishop prayed for God to give “wisdom and prudence to law enforcement and public officials working to make sense of the violence and keep our communities safe.”

The archbishop said they were also praying for peace: “Peace in the hearts of those who are troubled. Peace in the hearts of those who are afraid and hurting today, and peace for those whose faith has been shaken.”

“We pray also for peace in our own hearts,” he said. “We pray that we might feel God’s love and know that he will deliver us from every evil.”

The archbishop concluded by asking for the intercession of Mary, the Blessed Mother, “to be a mother to us in this hour of pain and uncertainty.”

The mass shooting took place just a half mile from St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Monterey Park. A parishioner involved in the parish, who asked not to be identified, told OSV News the morning of Jan. 22 that the parish community “woke up to the news and is still pulling everything together and getting information from the police.” She confirmed the parish still planned to continue to celebrate Mass according to its regular Sunday schedule as the pastor “thinks it is important [for Mass] to continue” following this horrible event.

President Joe Biden was informed of the shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet: “The President has been briefed by the Homeland Security Advisor on the mass shooting in Monterey Park. He directed her to make sure that the FBI is providing full support to local authorities, and to update him regularly today as more details are known.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Not in Washington for the 2023 March for Life? Have no fear. Pro-life advocates from around the country can mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by virtually participating in events being held in the nation’s capital in conjunction with the national march.

The opening and closing Mass of the National Prayer Vigil for Life Jan. 19-20 in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception will be livestreamed at www.nationalshrine.org/mass.

An all-new morning rally, Life Fest, sponsored by the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus, takes place Jan. 20 from 7:30-10:30 a.m. EST and can be followed at www.lifefest2023.com.

The National Prayer Vigil for Life is hosted by the national shrine, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-life Activities and The Catholic University of America’s Office of Campus Ministry.

The vigil “is a time to praise God for the great gift of the recent Supreme Court Dobbs decision, overturning the tragic Roe v. Wade decision made almost a half-century ago,” said Kat Talalas, assistant director of pro-life communications at the USCCB.

In its June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court reversed its prior jurisprudence in its Roe decision, which had declared abortion a constitutional right.

“State and federal legislators are now free to embrace policies that protect preborn children and their mothers,” Talalas said in a statement. “Yet, there is still a great need for prayer and advocacy from the faithful, as there will be intensified efforts to codify Roe in legislation and policies at the state and federal levels.”

The opening Mass for the vigil takes place at 5 p.m. EST Jan. 19 with Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, as the principal celebrant and homilist.

The Mass will be immediately followed by a Holy Hour for life. This will start off a series of nationwide Holy Hours throughout the night broadcast from dioceses across the country listed on the USCCB’s website, www.usccb.org.

The nationwide vigil concludes at 8 a.m. EST Jan. 20 with a closing Mass to be celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Joseph L. Coffey of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.

Life Fest is a three-hour rally taking place ahead of the National March for Life at the 4,200-seat Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington. The welcome begins at 7:30 a.m. (EST), and the event will feature speakers, music, Mass and Eucharistic adoration. 

The speakers include Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life; Sister Mary Casey, who also is a Sister of Life, and her twin, Casey, who has Down syndrome; David Scotton, who was placed for adoption after his birth mother left an Indiana abortion clinic in 1993; and Tricia and Pete DeMaios, who work to educate people about the suffering inflicted by abortion by sharing their own story about abortion and the toll it took.

Singer and guitarist Father Isaiah Hofmann, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, and worship leader and songwriter Sarah Kroger will perform for the crowd.

In a Dec. 20 news release announcing the inaugural event, the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus said their hope is Life Fest will “inspire and educate a new generation on the next steps for a new spirituality of love and life, one foundational to building a culture of life in the post-Dobbs era.”

“We see a profound opportunity to build the culture of life in a new way,” said Sister Maris Stella, a Sister of Life. “We want to serve the church in her most urgent need — that of the cause of human life, sharing the good news of God’s plan for life and love.”

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly called the end of Roe “a crucial milestone, but we should not mistake the ruling as the end of abortion. The fight to protect life will now evolve at the state level but a united stand before national lawmakers is still essential.”

Kelly noted that 50 years ago the Knights helped launch the National March for Life, which has become “the largest annual human rights demonstration in the world.” 

A March for Life Rally begins at noon on the National Mall, followed by the March for Life along Constitution Avenue to the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. The March for Life organization will livestream the rally via Facebook and its YouTube channel.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The annual observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began as an octave of prayer, sermons and conferences encouraged by Pope Leo XIII and Anglican leaders. But the celebration picked up steam following the Second Vatican Council committing the Catholic Church to this path.

During his 53 years as a priest — and even before that — Father James Gardiner, director of special projects at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, has had something to do with promoting the annual Week of Prayer. The week was first celebrated Jan. 18-25, 1908, by Father Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White, Episcopal co-founders of the Franciscan friars and sisters of the Atonement, who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church the following year.

Father Gardiner highlighted a number of documents promulgated by the Catholic Church since Vatican II, which created a “great ecumenical ferment as we trooped and snooped through one another’s sacristies and sanctuaries,” he said.

“There was a kind of ecumenical euphoria that set in” in the U.S. and around the globe, he noted.

Among the Catholic Church’s many documents on ecumenism and interfaith relations is Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism (“Unitatis Redintegratio”), promulgated Nov. 21, 1964, which taught that ecumenism — the restoration of unity among all Christians — should be everyone’s concern. It stated genuine ecumenism involves a continual personal and institutional renewal.

The following year, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (“Nostra Aetate”) was issued, defining the church’s position on interreligious dialogue.

In 1999, the Catholic Church’s “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” with the Lutheran World Federation provided a common basis for understanding how people are justified and saved.

Ten years later came Pope Benedict’s “Anglicanorum Coetibus,” the papal constitution that created the personal ordinariates enabling Anglicans and Episcopalians to enter the Catholic Church and have a permanent home for their Anglican heritage, which the late pope called a “treasure to be shared.”

Pope Francis later authorized all the ordinariate liturgical books known collectively as “Divine Worship,” marking the first time the Catholic Church had officially adopted into its public worship liturgical elements that had developed within a Reformation church context.

This year’s observance has as its theme “Do Good; Seek Justice,” taken from the Book of Isaiah, which is a timely one, Father Gardiner noted but he also remarked on the significance of last year’s theme to churches’ ecumenical. It was selected by the Middle East Council of Churches: “For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him” (Mt 2:2).

“I remember proposing that ecumenists, like the Magi, would do well to find yet another route back to Christian unity,” Father Gardiner told OSV News, “not because enormous progress has not already been made, but because too many of the faithful and their pastors are laboring under the impression that we’ve gone about as far as we can go.”

Ecumenical relationships “need to be studiously nourished throughout the year,” he remarked.

He also emphasized that “the role of prayer” needs to be prioritized during the Week of Unity, because “as we know,” prayer “changes not God, but the one who prays to God.”

TOULON, France (OSV News) – Sister André, a Daughter of Charity and the world’s oldest known person, died at age 118, a spokesman of the nursing home where she died told AFP agency on Tuesday.

“There is great sadness but … it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it’s a liberation,” David Tavella, speaking for the Sainte-Catherine-Labouré nursing home, told AFP.

Sister André, a Catholic convert raised in a Protestant family, was born Lucile Randon Feb. 11, 1904. It was 10 years before World War I, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States, New York opened its first subway line and U.S. Army engineers began work on the Panama Canal. She also lived through the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and through 10 pontificates.

Sister  André died Jan. 17 in her sleep at her nursing home in Toulon, on France’s Mediterranean coast, Tavella said.

An avid listener of Vatican Radio, the French nun sent well wishes to the radio operation on the occasion of its 90th anniversary in 2021. Sister Andre, who was blind, was a “dedicated listener of the radio that offers her a window of the world” and supports her prayer life, Vatican News reported Feb. 11, 2021.

Last year, for her 118th birthday, Sister André received a birthday card from French President Emmanuel Macron. 

In April 2022, she met reporters over tea in the house where she lived. 

“People say that work kills. For me, work kept me alive,” she said. “I kept working until I was 108.”

Sister  André used to say the biggest joy of her life was when two of her brothers returned home from World War I.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christians must develop a pastoral heart to care for those who have not heard the Gospel or who have left the fold, Pope Francis said.

“By being with Jesus, we discover that his pastoral heart always beats for the person who is confused, lost, far away,” the pope said at his weekly general audience Jan. 18. “Jesus never said, ‘Let them sort themselves out,’ he went out to find them.”

Pope Francis encouraged Christians to model themselves on Jesus, the Good Shepherd, longing for those who have left the church just as a shepherd longs for lost sheep, rather than treating them as “adversaries or enemies.”

“When we meet them at school, work or on the streets of our city, why don’t we think instead that we have a beautiful opportunity to witness to them the joy of a Father who loves them and has never forgotten them?” the pope asked.

Being a shepherd is not merely a job, but a “true and proper way of life: 24 hours a day,” he said. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, “does not just do something for us, but he gives his life for us.”

The pope encouraged the pilgrims and visitors gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall to reflect on how God seeks out those who distance themselves from him, saying that many Christians may have followed Jesus for a long time but “have never wondered if we share his feelings, if we suffer and we take risks.”

“The Lord suffers when we distance ourselves from his heart,” he said, “but in response to this suffering he does not withdraw, rather he risks. He leaves the 99 sheep who are safe and ventures out for the lost one.”

“Do we feel similar emotions?” the pope asked.

Without a love that suffers and takes risks for others, Pope Francis said, “we risk being pastors only for ourselves.”

At the end of his catechesis, the pope greeted a group of pilgrims from Congo, where he will travel Jan. 31, and asked for prayers for the country.

He also remembered Father Isaac Achi, who was killed Jan. 15 when bandits set fire to his parish rectory in Minna, Nigeria.

“So many Christians continue to be the target of violence, let us remember them in our prayers,” said the pope.