SCRANTON – The Diocese of Scranton will celebrate its annual Mother’s Day Adoption Mass on Sunday, May 14, at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton. This liturgy prayerfully recognizes all mothers, with a special emphasis on adoptive and foster mothers. Bishop Joseph C. Bambera will be the principal celebrant and homilist.

The Mother’s Day Adoption Mass is open to the public and all faithful are invited to attend.

CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will broadcast the Mass live. A livestream will also be provided on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and across all Diocesan social media platforms.

“A life without challenges doesn’t exist,” and that is one reason a child needs a mother, Pope Francis suggested in a recent speech.

Mothers fulfill a vital role by helping children “look realistically at life’s problems,” without getting “lost in them,” the pope said. A mother helps her children “to tackle” problems courageously and to become strong enough to overcome the problems they inevitably confront.

Of course, in this role, a mother walks a fine line, seeking a “healthy balance” for a child, Pope Francis said. That means a mother “does not always take the child along the safe road, because in that way the child cannot develop, but neither does she leave the child only on the risky path, because that is dangerous.”

A mother, said the pope, “knows how to balance things.”

Pope Francis talked about mothers’ roles during a visit to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the oldest church in the West dedicated to Jesus’ mother. May is observed in the church as a month of Mary.

Mark your calendars for May 14 and join us for the Mother’s Day Adoption Mass as we pray for mothers, near and far, including Mary, Mother of the Church.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Conditions for religious freedom are “worsening” around the globe, a U.S. government body monitoring international religious freedom said in a recent report.

In its 2023 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom identified “regression” last year in countries including Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua and Russia. The annual report by the independent, bipartisan commission makes recommendations to the U.S. government for the promotion and protection of religious freedom abroad.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez of the Diocese of Matagalpa and Esteli, who has been critical of the Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, prays in May 2022 at a Catholic church in Managua, Nicaragua, where he took refuge, alleging he had been targeted by the police. He was arrested in August 2022 and in February 2023 was sentenced to 26 years in prison. (OSV News photo/Maynor Valenzuela, Reuters)

USCIRF recommended that the State Department designate 17 countries as “Countries of Particular Concern” due to governments that engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations” of religious freedom. Twelve of those nations — Burma (Myanmar), China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan – were designated as such by the State Department in November 2022. The report made five additional recommendations: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam.

“USCIRF is disheartened by the deteriorating conditions for freedom of religion or belief in some countries — especially in Iran, where authorities harassed, arrested, tortured, and sexually assaulted people peacefully protesting against mandatory hijab laws, alongside their brutal continuing repression of religious minority communities,” USCIRF Chair Nury Turkel said in a statement.

The report details difficult circumstances for some people of faith in those nations, such as China’s “attempts to eradicate Uyghurs,” human rights violations amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine including the suppression of some religious communities, and the regime of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s persecution of Catholic leaders.

Stephen Schneck, USCIRF commissioner, told OSV News that “the situation for religious freedom or freedom of belief around the world is worsening.”

“I liken it to a virus spreading around the world where religion is itself being weaponized and used in nationalistic and often authoritarian circumstances against other religions,” Schneck said. “It’s very worrisome to see this combination of religion and government working against the space in which religious freedom and freedom of belief have traditionally operated.”

Threats to religious freedom, Schneck said, also present threats to democracy and human rights more broadly.

“You could think of religious freedom, for example, as like the canary in the coal mine for all of the rest of the human rights and for democracy itself, and that canary in the coal mine is not doing very well around the world right at the moment,” said Schneck, a political philosopher now retired from The Catholic University of America in Washington, where he was the founder and longtime director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

Praising the federal government’s response to the persecution of Catholic leaders in Nicaragua, Schneck said the U.S. is responding correctly but should ramp up its efforts to include congressional hearings. He also called for a more vocal response from the Vatican.

“The Vatican, as always, is playing a long game in its foreign policy, and I understand, as always, that the Vatican would prefer to be operating behind the scenes, but I think that it would help the situation for the Holy See to speak out more publicly and more strikingly in its condemnation of the Nicaraguan government and what the Nicaraguan government is doing against Catholics in the country,” he said.

The United States’ role in protecting and promoting freedom of religion and belief across the globe, Schneck said, is not to “advance our own values, but rather to hold up the universal rights and values enshrined in international law established under the United Nations.”

In a statement about the report, Turkel said the panel urges the Biden administration “to implement USCIRF’s recommendations — in particular, to designate the countries recommended as CPCs, and for the Special Watch List, or SWL, and to review U.S. policy toward the four CPC-designated countries for which waivers were issued on taking any action.”

“We also stress the importance of Congress acting to prohibit any person from receiving compensation for lobbying on behalf of foreign adversaries, including those engaging in particularly severe violations of the right to freedom of religion of belief,” Turkel said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – World Youth Day is an antidote against indifference, isolation and lethargy, Pope Francis said.

Since World Youth Days were established by St. John Paul II in 1985, “they have involved, moved, stirred and challenged generations of women and men,” he said in the preface of a new book, “A Long Journey to Lisbon,” by Aura Miguel, a Portuguese journalist for Rádio Renascença. Vatican News published the preface May 2.

The initial intuition that inspired St. John Paul “has not faded,” Pope Francis wrote, as today’s world, especially its young people, is facing enormous changes and challenges.

Pope Francis greets the crowd before celebrating Mass for World Youth Day pilgrims at St. John Paul II Field in Panama City, Panama, Jan. 27, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Young people, he wrote, “risk self-isolation every day, living in a virtual environment much of their life, ending up as prey to an aggressive market that creates false needs.”

“Getting out of the house, heading out with fellow travelers, having important experiences of listening and prayer combined with moments of celebration, and doing it together, makes these moments precious for everybody’s life,” he wrote.

“We really need young people who are at the ready, eager to respond to God’s dream, to care about others, young people who discover the joy and beauty of a life spent for Christ in service to others, to the poorest, to the suffering,” the pope said.

Pope Francis repeated his call to young people not to live life “standing on a balcony watching life go by,” avoiding getting involved and getting their hands dirty, putting a screen between them and the rest of the world.

“Many times I have told (young people) not to be ‘couch potatoes,'” not to be “‘anesthetized’ by people who benefit from having them ‘dumb and numb,'” he wrote.

Being young is the time for dreaming, the pope wrote, and for being open to the real world, “discovering what is really worthwhile in life, struggling to conquer it; it is opening oneself to deep and true relationships, it is engaging with others and for others.”

But, he wrote, the world is facing so many challenges: the pandemic has shown that “we can only save ourselves together”; there is “the vortex of war and rearmament”; the arms race “seems unstoppable and threatens to lead us to self-destruction”; there is the war in Ukraine; and many wars and conflicts continue to be forgotten, “so much unspeakable violence continues to be perpetrated.”

How are young people to respond, the pope asked? “What are they being called to do with their energy, their vision of the future, their enthusiasm?”

“They are called to say, ‘We care.’ We care about what is happening in the world” and about “the fate of millions of people, of so many children, who have no water, no food, no medical care, while the rulers seem to be competing to see who can spend the most on the most sophisticated armaments,” he wrote. “We care about everything,” including all of creation and the digital world, “which we are challenged to change and make more and more humane.”

“World Youth Days have been an antidote to life on a balcony, to the anesthesia that makes people prefer the couch, to disinterest,” Pope Francis said in the preface.

“WYD is an event of grace that awakens, broadens horizons, strengthens the heart’s aspirations, helps people dream, to look ahead,” he wrote. “It is a planted seed that can bear good fruit.”

World Youth Day 2023 is scheduled to take place in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 1-6, and the motto for this year’s event is a passage from the Luke’s Gospel: “Mary arose and went with haste.”

In his formal message for WYD 2023, published in last year, Pope Francis said that the figure of Mary shows young people “the path of closeness and encounter” at a time when “our human family, already tested by the trauma of the pandemic, is racked by the tragedy of war.”

(OSV News) – When King Charles III is crowned May 6 in the gothic splendor of London’s ancient Westminster Abbey, it will be one of the year’s most watched events.

The coronation has attracted controversy – not least over its $125 million price tag during a cost-of-living crisis – even as opinion polls show dwindling public interest in the monarchy. But despite controversies, it will still be an opportunity to project the soft-power of British royal pageantry and reaffirm Christianity’s place in public affairs, including the presence of Britain’s small but significant Catholic minority.

King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, attend a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London on April 27, 2023. (OSV News photo/Yui Mok, Reuters)

“Being anti-Catholic has been an element of British identity for centuries,” Father Timothy Radcliffe, former master of the Dominicans and one of Britain’s best-known Catholic preachers, told OSV News. “I’d hope an event like this will help our church become yet more integrated into national life at a time when, like most countries, we face threats of disintegration, increasing inequality and a declining sense of the common good.”

King Charles inherits the duties and prerogatives of head of state in an unbroken line of monarchs dating back to the 10th century. He also assumes the role of supreme governor of the Church of England, along with the traditional title of “fidei defensor,” or “defender of the faith,” bestowed in 1521 by Pope Leo X on King Henry VIII.

And while he’s long declared his wish, in a modern multicultural society, to be defender of all faiths, not just one, King Charles III reaffirmed his Protestant identity in speeches after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 — and will reaffirm it again during the coronation service.

This has caused some disappointment, not least among Britain’s Catholics.

The Catholic Church will be represented at the abbey by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, who will share a blessing with Protestant and Orthodox leaders. Catholic bishops from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also will join the congregation, along with the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the newly appointed apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, Spanish Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía.

But Catholic prelates were not included among 50 public figures assigned formal roles in the order of service, published April 28. This will include a Bible reading by Britain Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a practicing Hindu, and the presentation of regalia by Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu leaders.

Susan Doran, an Oxford University monarchy historian, said she regretted the bulk of the ceremony will be exclusively Protestant, with Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and other Anglican prelates playing a dominant role.

“With its plummeting membership and many problems, it’s not surprising the Church of England seeks to hold on to its link with the monarchy, and sees the coronation as an opportunity to proclaim this,” Doran told OSV News.

“But at a time when the monarchy seems to be losing meaning for many people, I think it will fuel further alienation if they go too far down a narrow Protestant route — particularly among the young and people of other faiths,” she added.

That could be the reaction of some Catholics, too, especially those conscious of how bitter past conflicts have defined modern Britain’s religious outlook.

Relations with Rome, dating from the first mission to Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the sixth century, were broken off under Henry VIII in 1536 during the Reformation conflicts. After a brief restoration under Henry’s Catholic daughter, Mary I, hostility reared again under the Protestant Elizabeth I, who was declared excommunicated and deposed as a “servant of wickedness” in 1570 by Pope Pius V.

Persecution of Catholics intensified under Elizabeth’s successor, James I, particularly after the infamous 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the king and his parliament. Some historians now dispute whether such a plot really existed. But it sealed the fate of English Catholics for the next 250 years as perceived heretics and traitors.

Even in the late 19th century, the Catholic Church was treated as an alien element in national life, deprived of equal rights. Although a church hierarchy was reestablished in 1850, it took until 1871 for Catholic academics even to be admitted to Oxford and Cambridge universities, and until St. John Paul II’s historic 1982 visit for formal diplomatic ties to be established.

Since then, the Catholic Church’s profile has been rebuilt, bringing it closer to full acceptance as a British institution.

Recent statistics show that Catholics make up around 13% of the United Kingdom’s 67 million inhabitants, with Anglicans at 14%, although religious affiliations have declined sharply across the country, with only around half of citizens declaring themselves Christian in recent surveys, compared to more than 70% two decades ago.

Although King Charles’s consort, Queen Camilla, was baptized a Protestant, she was married by a Catholic priest in 1973 to her Catholic first husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles, and brought up her son and daughter as Catholics.

Technical formalities aside, Charles has shown personal openness to Catholics, postponing his own wedding to Camilla in 2005 to attend St. John Paul’s funeral.

Before his fourth Vatican visit in October 2019 for the canonization of St. John Henry Newman, Charles published an article in L’Osservatore Romano and The Times of London hailing the event as a celebration “not merely for Catholics, but for all who cherish the values by which he was inspired.”

Heading a 12-member Catholic delegation to pledge allegiance to the new king March 9, Cardinal Nichols duly paid tribute to Charles’s “commitment to religious faith” and assured him of Catholic support.

On April 19, the pope himself reciprocated, donating two splinters from the Cross of Christ, preserved among relics in the Vatican Museums, for incorporation into a new Cross of Wales, which will lead the king’s coronation procession.

The king will be crowned as he sits on a 700-year-old chair with the solid-gold St. Edward’s Crown, made for Charles II in 1661. He will be presented with the orb and scepter pictured last autumn sitting atop the late queen’s coffin.

Holy oil for anointing the monarch and Camilla was consecrated March 4 at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.

Cardinal Nichols and other British Catholic bishops urged Catholics to take a full part in coronation events, including special weekend Masses and a May 3-5 triduum of prayer, as well as a nationwide day of volunteering and charity work set for May 8.

“The world has immeasurably changed since 1953 (coronation of Queen Elizabeth II), with many more opportunities and challenges,” Cardinal Nichols acknowledged in a prayer card circulated to all parishes in April. The prayer asks God to help Charles III “constantly secure and preserve for the people entrusted to his care the freedom that comes from civil peace.”

Father Radcliffe, the Dominican preacher, hinted at his own disappointment, all the same, that the Catholic Church won’t be assigned a fuller part, given the “godly role” it’s always tried to play in society.

“Catholic social teaching could be a precious gift for a nation needing to renew its social bonds and rediscover a common life and purpose,” Father Radcliffe told OSV News.

Cardinal Nichols’ spokesman, Alexander DesForges, was more sanguine. Although Catholic clergy aren’t playing a significant role in the coronation, they’ll at least be present – for the first time since Henry VIII and his Reformation.

“We have to be realistic. The king has a formal role in the Anglican Church of England, and this service is taking place in Westminster Abbey,” DesForges told OSV News. “The fact that six bishops will be present, including the Vatican’s Cardinal Parolin, whereas there was no Catholic representation at all 70 years ago, clearly shows things have changed.”

BUDAPEST, Hungary (CNS) – Praising the piety and charity of Hungarian Christians and their commitment to supporting traditional family life, Pope Francis said Christ also calls them to open their hearts — and perhaps their borders — to others in need.

When it comes to the church or to society, isolationism is not Christian, the pope said in a variety of ways during his visit to Budapest, Hungary, April 28-30.

Pope Francis accepts the offertory gifts from Hungarians dressed in traditional clothes during Mass in Budapest’s Kossuth Lajos Square April 30, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Because of the 86-year-old pope’s mobility issues, the trip was confined to the capital and the official schedule was lighter than usual. But, as is normal for the pope, he used part of his long midday breaks and early evenings for private meetings, including with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary.

Flying back to Rome April 30, the pope confirmed that he and Metropolitan Hilarion had spoken about Russia’s war on Ukraine, and he said the Vatican has some special “mission” underway, but he declined to provide details.

The pope also spoke about the war with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who, despite being a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has condemned the war. But within the European Union, he has consistently voted against sanctioning Russia and against sending weapons to Ukraine.

Orbán has claimed his position makes him the only European leader siding with Pope Francis, although the pope has insisted Ukraine has a right to defend itself.

In his first speech in Hungary – to government and civic leaders and diplomats serving in Budapest – the pope encouraged the leaders to foster greater European unity rather than going their own way.

The “passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past,” he said April 28 in his speech at the former Carmelite monastery that now houses Orbán’s office.

“More and more,” the pope said, “enthusiasm for building a peaceful and stable community of nations seems to be cooling, as zones of influence are marked out, differences accentuated, nationalism is on the rise and ever harsher judgments and language are used in confronting others.”

Ukraine is one of Hungary’s eastern neighbors and Hungarians have assisted some 2.5 million Ukrainians who have crossed the border since Russia’s war on Ukraine began in February 2022. About 35,000 of the Ukrainian refugees have remained in Hungary.

Pope Francis repeatedly praised Hungarians for opening their country and their hearts to the Ukrainians, but in several speeches and at his Mass April 30 in Budapest’s Kossuth Lajos Square, he urged them to be open to everyone in need.

“How sad and painful it is to see closed doors,” he said in his homily. He cited “the closed doors of our selfishness with regard to others; the closed doors of our individualism amid a society of growing isolation; the closed doors of our indifference toward the underprivileged and those who suffer; the doors we close toward those who are foreign or unlike us, toward migrants or the poor.”

Orbán and President Katalin Novák, who have promoted the migration restrictions, were among the estimated 50,000 people attending the Mass in the square in front of the Hungarian Parliament building.

The pope also preached openness April 28 during a meeting with Hungary’s bishops, priests, religious, seminarians and catechists.

He called Hungarian Catholics to embrace “prophetic welcome” or “prophetic receptivity,” which, he said, “is about learning how to recognize the signs of God in the world around us, including places and situations that, while not explicitly Christian, challenge us and call for a response.”

Christians grow in “prophetic receptivity,” he said, by “bringing the Lord’s consolation to situations of pain and poverty in our world, being close to persecuted Christians, to migrants seeking hospitality, to people of other ethnic groups and to anyone in need.”

Pope Francis met with more than 10,000 Hungarian young people in a sports arena April 29 and listened to four of them share how they have overcome obstacles and grown in their faith.

One of them, Tódor Levcsenkó, a 17-year-old student in Miskolc, Hungary, and the son of an Eastern Catholic priest from the Eparchy of Mukachevo in Western Ukraine, told his peers that their sense of mission and purpose can be “numbed by the fact that we live in safety and peace,” but only a few miles away, across the border, “war and suffering are the order of the day.”

“May we have the courage to defend our faith and take up our call to be peacemakers,” he said.

Pope Francis echoed his call, telling the young people, “This is the real challenge: to take control of our lives in order to help our world live in peace. Each one of us should ask the uncomfortable question: What am I doing for others, for the church, for society? Do I think only about myself?”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Biden administration announced April 27 new steps it would take in an effort to reduce migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border when Title 42 expires in May.

In remarks at the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration would set up migrant processing centers in Latin America to screen those seeking entry as to whether they have a legal pathway.

The administration also will expand legal pathways for entry, while increasing deportations of those who enter the United States unlawfully.

Blinken said the centers would “improve qualified individuals’ access” to refugee resettlement, family reunification and lawful settlement in the U.S. or other countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, pictured with President Joe Biden in a March 1, 2021, file photo. Blinken and Mayorkas made issued a statement April 27, 2023, on steps the Biden administration will take in an effort to reduce migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border when Title 42 expires May 11. (OSV News photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters)

“These centers will take a hugely important step to prevent people from making the dangerous journey to the border by providing a much safer, legal option to migrate that they can pursue in and from their own countries,” Blinken said.

Mayorkas said that “when people have safe and orderly pathways to come to the United States, and face consequences for failing to do so, they use those pathways.”

Title 42 is a part of federal U.S. public health law granting the federal government some authority to implement emergency action to prevent the spread of contagious diseases by barring some individuals from entry.

Then-President Donald Trump implemented the policy in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the move was seen as part of his administration’s broader attempts to reduce migration. The use of Title 42 to expel migrants at the southern border was criticized by some public health experts, who argued it was politically motivated rather than evidence-based.

Since then, Title 42 has been invoked more than 2.7 million times to expel migrants, including those seeking asylum, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Title 42 is set to end May 11.

In a statement issued late April 28, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, said the bishops “strongly support increased refugee resettlement from Latin America and the Caribbean as a reliable pathway to lasting safety for those who have been forcibly displaced.”

He said the bishops “look forward to its close coordination with civil society and Congress to ensure the successful integration of these newcomers.” Bishop Seitz added that resources used for this “should not undermine existing access to resettlement for other refugees or impede the proper functioning of immigration processes generally.”

The bishops “are relieved that the Administration does not plan to detain vulnerable families, given the unjustifiable and immoral harms of doing so,” Bishop Seitz continued, but they also “are greatly concerned that such families, including those with young children, and others will be subjected to rushed proceedings without meaningful due process.”

The administration’s continued “reliance on expedited removal” coupled with “severe restrictions on asylum eligibility and access” is concerning, Bishop Seitz said, adding that those “most desperately in need of relief” will “bear the brunt of these measures.”

He acknowledged the “challenge of forced migration facing our country and hemisphere” is “complex” and said that achieving “the conditions necessary to sustainably reduce irregular migration” will only happen by overhauling the U.S. immigration system and making a long-term commitment to address root causes of migration and promote “integral human development throughout the Americas.”

J. Kevin Appleby, interim executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, told OSV News April 27 that the Biden administration’s announcement seems “a positive step forward.”

“Of course, as always, it depends on how something is implemented and what resources are devoted to the implementation that will decide whether it’s successful or not,” Appleby said.

“But it gives asylum- seekers an opportunity to tell their stories and have their cases adjudicated without taking a dangerous journey north.”

Appleby, a former adviser on migration policy for the U.S. bishops, said that for the last quarter century, “Congress has not had the political courage to reform the immigration system.”

“So it’s left to the executive branch to come up with these responses, when Congress should be working with the administration to pass legislation to overhaul our immigration laws,” he said.

Republicans have made immigration a key part of their criticism of the Biden administration, accusing him of lax policies. In a statement reacting to Biden’s 2024 reelection bid, former President Donald Trump, in the midst of his third bid for the White House after Biden defeated him in 2020, said, “Under Biden, the Southern Border has been abolished — and millions of illegal aliens have been released into our communities.”

A fact sheet from the State Department about the new actions said, “The lifting of the Title 42 order does not mean the border is open.”

The fact sheet said that any individuals who unlawfully cross the U.S. southern border after Title 42 is lifted will be processed for expedited removal, barred from reentry for at least five years if they are ordered removed and would be ineligible for asylum “absent an applicable exception.”

“To avoid these consequences, individuals are encouraged to use the many lawful pathways the United States has expanded over the past two years,” the fact sheet said.

The U.S. bishops and other Catholic immigration advocates have criticized Title 42 as well as the Biden administration’s continued use of the Trump-era policy.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (CNS) – Paying homage to Hungary’s history, culture and location in the heart of Europe, Pope Francis pushed against the notion that the country needed to insulate itself to protect its identity.

Hungarian children in traditional dress present Pope Francis with salt and bread, a customary welcome for honored guests, as he arrives at the international airport in Budapest, Hungary, April 28, 2023. The pope was beginning a three-day trip to Hungary’s capital. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

As expected, in his first speech in Hungary — to government and civic leaders and diplomats serving in Budapest — the pope acknowledged efforts to protect traditional values, but insisted those values include supporting European unity, welcoming migrants and working to end the war in neighboring Ukraine.

The “passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past,” he said April 28 in his speech at the former Carmelite monastery that now houses the office of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

“More and more,” the pope said, “enthusiasm for building a peaceful and stable community of nations seems to be cooling, as zones of influence are marked out, differences accentuated, nationalism is on the rise and ever harsher judgments and language are used in confronting others.”

The 86-year-old pope, who was released from the hospital April 1 after what the Vatican said was a bout of bronchitis and who frequently has been using a wheelchair or walker because of knee problems, simply used a cane when he walked the length of the ITA Airways plane to greet journalists during the two-hour flight from Rome.

He joked about his health – “weeds never die” – and, in response to a Polish journalist who thanked him for defending St. John Paul II, the pope described as “foolishness” rumors that the Polish pope was somehow involved in the disappearance in 1983 of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican resident.

Pope Francis continued using the cane instead of a wheelchair as he walked down the red carpet at the Budapest airport and around the presidential Sándor Palace where he met privately for 25 minutes with Hungarian President Katalin Novák and then for 20 minutes with Orbán.

Novák, welcoming Pope Francis to the meeting with government and civic representatives, told him Hungarians expected to receive encouragement from him in their quest to help make Europe “more peaceful, more democratic and stronger.”

“Over the past 30 years,” she told him, Hungarian Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants have joined forces in “the ecumenism of the preservation of Christian values,” specifically regarding marriage, family life and abortion.

In his speech, Pope Francis told those gathered that around the globe politics is showing signs of an “adolescent belligerence” that seems more about stirring up emotions than resolving problems.

“Peace will never come as the result of the pursuit of individual strategic interests, but only from policies capable of looking to the bigger picture, to the development of everyone: policies that are attentive to individuals, to the poor and to the future, and not merely to power, profit and present prospects,” Pope Francis said.

That attention, he said, must allow room for the different countries of the European Union and the different communities within each nation to assert their own identities but not at the cost of denigrating or denying the rights of others.

Mentioning some areas of common ground with Orbán’s government, Pope Francis described as “ideological colonization” efforts to promote acceptance across Europe of “so-called gender theory,” which sees gender as a social construct rather than a biological fact, and “reductive concepts of freedom, for example by vaunting as progress a senseless ‘right to abortion,’ which is always a tragic defeat.”

“How much better it would be to build a Europe centered on the human person and on its peoples,” he said, pointing positively to Hungary’s pro-family policies that encourage married couples to have children.

But Pope Francis also used the words of St. Stephen, the 11th-century king of Hungary, to draw attention to the theme of migration, a major area of difference with Orbán who, since 2015, has promoted a “no migrants” policy.

The sainted king, the pope said, told his people: “I urge you to show favor not only to relations and kin, or to the powerful and wealthy, or to your neighbors and fellow countrymen, but also to foreigners and all who come to you.”

Migration, Pope Francis said, is a “heated” topic in today’s world, but “for those who are Christians, our basic attitude cannot differ from that which St. Stephen recommended,” a lesson learned from Jesus, “who identified himself with the stranger needing to be welcomed” in Matthew 25.

Pope Francis said it was “urgent” that Europe as a whole devise “safe and legal ways” for those fleeing violence, poverty and climate change to enter its borders.

Migration cannot be stemmed by a general attitude of rejecting the possibility, he said, “but must be embraced in order to prepare for a future that, unless it is shared, will not exist.”

 

A relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis — author of the Eucharistic Miracle website as well as the first millennial to be beatified — will be available for veneration at several locations in the Diocese of Erie beginning May 23.

In addition, a relic of St. Manuel González García, known as the Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle, will be included in this event offered as part of the national Eucharistic Revival.

All are invited to take advantage of this inspirational opportunity before the relics leave the United States to continue their global tour in the coming weeks. Find dates, locations and times for public veneration at www.eriercd.org/relics.html.

For information on group visits, please contact amwelsh@eriercd.org.

CLICK HERE FOR RELIC SCHEDULE

 

Shown are Men’s Conference Committee members: Left to Right, 1st row: John Witkosky, Raphael Micca, Dr. Chris Carr, Dr. Lou Guarnieri, Tony DePaola, Bill Leandri, Kevin Burleigh, Rev. Brian Van Fossen Chaplain for the Men’s Conference, 2nd row: Dennis Shovlin, Mike Kilmer Chairman for the Men’s Conference, Henry Pospieszalski, Jim Gerichten, Ralph Marino, Joe Adcroft, Joe Alinosky, and Gerard Schmidt. Also present were Chris Calore and Ed Niewinski.

The Eighth Annual Be A Man Catholic Men’s Conference Will Be Held Saturday, October 7th, 2023, at Holy Redeemer High School, 159 S. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 18701. This Year’s Theme Is “Stand Fast In The Faith.” Registration begins at 7:00 am (coffee available). A 7:15 am Rosary will be prayed. The Conference will be between 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. Three outstanding Catholic Speakers have been scheduled. There will be Eucharistic Adoration, Confessions, and Mass Offered by Bishop Joseph Bambera.

The fee is $40 (Early Bird $30), Students $15, Priest/Deacons FREE.

Register on line at www.BeACatholicMan.com. Or mail your check (payable to “Be a Catholic Man”) to: Be a Catholic Man c/o William Leandri, Treasurer 239 Hayfield Rd. Shavertown, PA 18708 Attn: Men’s Conference, Also put Men’s Conference on the memo line of the check.

For further information contact Mike Kilmer 570-746-0100 or michaelkilmer71@gmail.com