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Vatican unveils logo, prayer, details of Holy Year of Mercy

The Holy Year of Mercy will be an opportunity to encourage Christians to meet people’s “real needs” with concrete assistance, to experience a “true pilgrimage” on foot, and to send “missionaries of mercy” throughout the world to forgive even the most serious of sins, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella.

The yearlong extraordinary jubilee also will include several individual jubilee days, such as for the Roman Curia, catechists, teenagers and prisoners, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, the office organizing events for the Holy Year of Mercy.

Year of Mercy LogoDuring a news conference at the Vatican May 5, Archbishop Fisichella unveiled the official prayer, logo, calendar of events and other details of the special Holy Year, which will be celebrated from Dec. 8, 2015, until Nov. 20, 2016.

The motto, “Merciful Like the Father,” he said, “serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive and to give love and forgiveness without measure.”

Pope Francis announced in March his intention to proclaim a holy year as a way for the church to “make more evident its mission to be a witness of mercy.”

One way the pope wants to show “the church’s maternal solicitude” is to send out “missionaries of mercy” — that is, specially selected priests who have been granted “the authority to pardon even those sins reserved to the Holy See,” the pope wrote in “Misericordiae Vultus” (”The Face of Mercy”), the document officially proclaiming the Holy Year.

Archbishop Fisichella said the priests will be chosen on the basis of their ability to preach well, especially on the theme of mercy, and to be “good confessors,” meaning they are able to express God’s love and do not make the confessional, as Pope Francis says, like “a torture chamber.”

The priests will also have to “be patient” and have “an understanding of human fragility,” the archbishop said.

Bishops can recommend to the council priests from their own dioceses to serve as missionaries of mercy, he said, and priests themselves can submit their request to serve, he said.

When a priest volunteers, however, the council will confer with his bishop to make sure he would be “suitable for this ministry” and has the bishop’s approval to serve temporarily as a missionary of mercy, he said.

The archbishop emphasized the importance of living the Holy Year as “a true pilgrimage” with the proper elements of prayer and sacrifice.

“We will ask pilgrims to make a journey on foot, preparing themselves to pass through the Holy Door in a spirit of faith and devotion,” he said.

More than a dozen individual jubilee celebrations will be scheduled in 2016, such as a jubilee for consecrated men and women Feb. 2 to close the Year of Consecrated Life; a jubilee for the Roman Curia Feb. 22; a jubilee for those devoted to the spirituality of Divine Mercy on Divine Mercy Sunday April 3; and separate jubilees for teenagers; for deacons; priests; the sick and disabled; and catechists.

A jubilee for “workers and volunteers of mercy” will be celebrated on Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata’s feast day Sept. 5 and a jubilee for prisoners will be celebrated Nov. 6.

Archbishop Fisichella said the pope wants the jubilee for inmates to be celebrated not only in prisons but also with him in St. Peter’s Basilica. He said the council is discussing the possibility with government authorities and is not yet sure if it can be done.

The Vatican is asking bishops and priests around the world to conduct “similar symbolic gestures of communion with Pope Francis” and his vision of reaching out to those on the margins.

“As a concrete sign of the pope’s charitable love,” he said, “effective measures will be taken to meet real needs in the world that will express mercy through tangible assistance.”

At the news conference, the council distributed copies in several languages of the Holy Year prayer and logo, which features Jesus — the Good Shepherd — taking “upon his shoulders the lost soul, demonstrating that it is the love of Christ that brings to completion the mystery of his incarnation culminating in redemption,” the archbishop said.

The image, created by Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, also shows one of Jesus’ eyes merged with the man’s to show how “Christ sees with the eyes of Adam, and Adam with the eyes of Christ.”

The council has joined with the United Bible Societies to distribute to pilgrims 1 million free copies of the Gospel of Mark; the texts will be available in seven languages.

The Jubilee of Mercy has an official website in seven languages at www.im.va; a Twitter handle @Jubilee_va; a Facebook page; and accounts on Instagram, Flickr and Google+.

— By Carol Glatz / Catholic News Service

Bishop Paul Sirba: Confirmation season a time of joy for me

One of the highlights of the Easter Season for me is the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Although I have the privilege of celebrating the Sacrament in most of the months of the year — even in January — many parishes choose the Easter Season to celebrate this great Sacrament of Initiation.

On one weekend I confirmed our largest class, 65 candidates at St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids; our smallest class of two, one from St. Anthony’s in Ely and one from St. Pius X in Babbitt; and a middle- size class of 23 at Holy Spirit in Virginia. All were worthy celebrations with remarkable young men and women of faith actively receiving the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit.

Bishop Paul Sirba

Bishop Paul Sirba
Fiat Voluntas Tua

I was moved by the authenticity and conviction of our young people.

They write to me about their desire to be confirmed. They speak about their faith, their families, their hopes and desires, their brokenness, and their questions.

They give examples of their Christian service and what they learned from their experiences. They are forthright about their desire to grow in their personal relationship with Jesus Christ through an active prayer life, regular attendance at Sunday Mass and mission.

After Confirmation in Virginia, I had the opportunity to share a meal with Father Brandon Moravitz, the pastor, and the small group leaders who helped facilitate their Confirmation program. They have piloted a new program called “Chosen.” The kids in the small groups were very fortunate — what a wonderful, faithful, fun group of catechists!

As one young man wrote: “When Father Brandon told us we were going to use ‘Chosen’ as the program for the upcoming year, I became immediately excited. After we watched the introduction, I was hooked! I have to admit that I was nervous about having to talk in small groups amongst my friends, but it got easier as the year progressed.”

I think it got easier because of the catechists. Some have been catechists for years, others were giving it their first try. Some were young parents, others more experienced. They all shared a love of Jesus and a willingness to share that love with our young people.

Around the diocese, I have similar experiences with the Sacrament of Confirmation. That is what makes the celebration of the sacrament such a highlight for me.

I meet great young people, dedicated catechists, directors of religious education, youth ministers, sponsors and parents who desire to pass on the Catholic faith in all its truth and beauty. The priests and deacons, in addition to providing their own example of lived faith, need your help to form the next generation of Catholics. Please prayerfully consider being a catechist.

As Pentecost approaches at the conclusion of our Easter Season, the great 50 days, keep our young people in your prayers. Fan into flame the gifts you have received in Confirmation, so you, too, may participate in the work of the New Evangelization. We have been marked with God’s grace and an indelible character which helps us witness to Jesus Christ. The gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord strengthen and guide us in our daily living of the Gospel of Jesus.

Our Blessed Mother was filled with the Holy Spirit. She is the spouse of the Holy Spirit. In her life Pentecost was a yet deeper experience of God’s love for her. Her life from her Immaculate Conception to her glorious Assumption was a continued growth in the ineffable gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Mary, Mother of the New Evangelization, pray for us!

Bishop Paul Sirba is the ninth bishop of Duluth.

Rain, rubble: With no help in sight, Nepalese try to salvage possessions

Five days after a powerful earthquake sowed death and devastation in Nepal, victims could be seen trying to salvage possessions from mountains of rubble in the suburbs of Kathmandu.

“Let such a calamity never happen to anyone anywhere,” Amrit Maharjan, standing on the rubble of his three-story house, told Catholic News Service April 29.

Nepal bishop meets with survivors

Bishop Paul Simick of Nepal talks with earthquake survivors and parishioners from St. Ignatius Church April 30 outside the church shelter near Kathmandu, Nepal. Members of 15 Catholic families have taken shelter in the church along with a dozen Hindu fam ilies following the April 25 quake. (CNS photo/Anto Akkara)

Soya, Maharjan’s 11-year-old daughter, was among 18 people who died in the congested village following the magnitude-7.8 earthquake that hit Nepal April 25.

“I and my wife were out in the field when the quake occurred, so, we were safe. My mother, who was with our youngest daughter in the house at the time, is in hospital,” Maharjan said.

While the official death toll surpassed 5,000, Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said April 28 that it could surpass 10,000 as reports of casualties from hundreds of remote villages were yet to be tallied.

But even in the suburbs of Kathmandu, Maharjan, a retired government employee, said: “Nobody has reached here for relief work so far. There is no point in waiting. We have to try to save whatever we can from this wreckage.”

As he spoke, three dozen people were busy salvaging whatever belongings they could retrieve from the remnants of the decades-old brick-and-mortar houses.

The similar scenes of even elderly quake victims retrieving their valuables, standing on top of layers of rubble, confirmed the widespread criticism that the relief and rescue work was confined to a few pockets of Kathmandu.

Five days after the quake flattened buildings in Bagdol village, no relief teams had arrived.

“We don’t know — where is the government? If we do not act, all our possessions will be damaged,” said Dev Maharjan, standing near a makeshift bamboo stand over which his possessions were being taken down from the collapsed third floor, with the help of his friends.

Unlike many quake victims, Sanu Lama was cheerful, holding her 17-month-old daughter Masun in front of her collapsed three-story house.

“I was on the middle floor when the quake happened and everything crumbled. I crawled out when it was over. I had not even a scratch on my body. I never thought I would be alive,” Lama told CNS.

However, she, too, complained that no relief team had reached the village to help salvage their possessions from the rubble amid intermittent rain. Her family was saying in a tent.

As Lama spoke, half a dozen Caritas Nepal staffers were using an axe to break open the door to the rented room of Bishu Tamang, a Caritas Nepal driver, in the four-story concrete flat that had developed wide cracks.

With Tamang busy driving church charity workers around, he could not find time to go to the rented house to retrieve valuable things from the apartment.

At Assumption Cathedral, Deacon Lalit Tudu said preparations had been completed for his ordination May 1. It has been postponed.

“Maybe God has different plans and wants me to wait longer,” said the deacon, who was busy organizing storage of relief material being brought to the cathedral compound under the direction of Caritas Nepal, which was coordinating the Catholic relief work.

After a series of meetings with officials of more than a dozen international Catholic charities — including Caritas Internationalis and Catholic Relief Services — assessment teams were dispatched to several remote areas April 29. Church charities were awaiting final approval from the government’s Social Welfare Council to launch systematic relief work in four districts.

—By Anto Akkara / Catholic News Service

‘Honoring the gifts we’ve received’

About 70 Catholics gathered far up the North Shore of Lake Superior April 24-26 to honor St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first American Indian saint to be canonized.

Some traveled to Grand Portage from as far away as Ohio and South Dakota for a regional Mini- Tekakwitha Conference under the theme “Honoring the Gifts We’ve Received.”

conference

Lisa Yankton, from the Twin Cities, shares some thoughts on St. Kateri Tekakwitha at the end of Bishop Paul Sirba’s talk April 25 in Grand Portage. She was one of about 70 Catholics who had come to the regional Mini-Tekakwitha Conference. (Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

Duluth Bishop Paul Sirba, who was there to celebrate Mass and give one of the event’s two main talks on Saturday, noted in his homily at Holy Rosary Church that among those attending were artists and teachers, moms and grandmothers and students. Speaking of the New Evangelization, he said it is first and foremost to those near us, especially those who have left the church.

“We get to be bridges, hopefully, to reach out to them,” he said.

Father Seamus Walsh, the parish’s pastor, noted that the church is the oldest active log church in Minnesota and the location of a Catholic presence since the 1700s, when Jesuit missionaries accompanied the Voyageurs. He said Ven. Frederick Baraga had come “right in this spot” in 1838 and baptized eight people.

The Mass included prayers and hymns in Ojibwe as well as English.

Honoring the Gifts We’ve Received

Bishop Sirba’s hour-long address, given at the nearby community center in Grand Portage, focused on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and how St. Kateri exemplified them. He called the gifts of the Spirit “remedies, if you will, that strengthen the powers of our soul,” that are given in baptism and strengthened in the sacrament of confirmation.

Taking them one by one, he explained the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, pausing at the end of each to describe characteristics of the life of St. Kateri that showed them in action.

For instance, he introduced the gift of counsel by noting how no one has all the answers and so we must rely on other people and “listen to the wisdom of our elders.” As it relates to eternal salvation, God wills people to come together with their different gifts, he said.

“God wills that each receives what he needs from others.”

He said in St. Kateri’s life, she sought the advice of the elders and also sought out people in deep relationship with Jesus. “That’s the gift of counsel,” he said.

The gift of fortitude (or courage) he associated with the martyrs in Kenya, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and elsewhere “affected by the millions” and the supernatural courage many of them show in the face of persecution and death. St. Kateri faced many challenges, too, he said, including the threat of death, and had to leave her own country.

“She had strength and courage and boldness,” he said.

The gift of knowledge, Bishop Sirba said, is like a “supernatural instinct” for the truths of the faith, shown in St. Kateri despite her having little formal training.

Of ‘grandfathers’ and ‘rascals’

Bishop Sirba’s talk and the following talk by Father Tom Foster, a priest of the Duluth Diocese who is part Ojibwe, were meant to complement each other, with Father Foster focusing on seven teachings of the Ojibwe and how they were apparent in St. Kateri’s life.

Those seven teachings — what he called “seven grandfathers,” with “seven rascals” as their opposites — are honesty, humility, truth, wisdom, respect, bravery and love.

He said fear is often at the heart of the “seven rascals,” while love is at the heart of the “seven grandfathers.”

Father Foster said part of honesty is seeing the good God has put in each person, while humility poses the question, “Are we open to the mystery that is around us?”

“With humility, it also calls us to be willing to walk with others,” he said, a trait seen in St. Kateri’s life. By doing so, we can help others have hope, something Father Foster said comes up in his ministry as a hospital chaplain.

Speaking of respect, he said it includes respecting others and their beliefs and ourselves, but it goes beyond that. “We are called to grow in respect of other living beings,” he said, being good stewards.

A good response

Those in attendance said the event was well organized and the setting beautiful.

Hans Stockstead, a resident of the area, said a funeral had come up, so he was late and missed both Mass and the bishop’s talk, but he was looking forward to the afternoon and has a strong belief in the communion of saints, “that they’re all alive today in heaven, that they can see us,” he said.

Maureen Headbird came a bit further. She’s a trustee at Gichitwaa Kateri Catholic Church in Minneapolis and tries to attend both the regional Mini-Tekakwitha Conferences and the national ones. She said many of those in attendance hadn’t been to Grand Portage before, and there was a nice turnout.

“I’m just really impressed with the whole place,” she said.

She was also impressed that Bishop Sirba had traveled to speak to them.

Preserving Ojibwe language

Rick Gresczyk, formerly of Gichitwaa Kateri in Minneapolis, now teaches at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet, and he translated some of the hymns that were sung at the Mass. He said that’s a difficult task, because the Ojibwe language is very descriptive and uses many syllables. For instance one way to say “joy” in Ojibwe is “minawaanigoziwin,” he said.

Gresczyk said it is important for the church to try to help revitalize the language before it’s lost, especially since at some points in history the church went along with practices meant to eradicate it.

Gresczyk said St. Kateri’s canonization should draw attention to other potential saints. “There are other Native men and women who are being considered for canonization,” he said, citing Black Elk as one of the most well-known.

Sister Marie Rose Messingschlager, CDP, diocesan director of Indian ministry, emceed the event. She said that there were both Natives and non- Natives in attendance, including people from the White Earth Reservation, Fond du Lac, Deer River and Duluth.

— Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross

Pope: Everyone loses when culture doesn’t care about marriage, family

God’s plan for fruitful, everlasting unions between a man and woman has been lost in a world filled with skepticism, distrust and hostility, Pope Francis said.

A culture that does not value “the stable and life-giving covenant between a man and woman is certainly a loss for everyone. We must bring honor back to marriage and the family,” he said April 22 during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

But much also must be done to return respect and dignity to women, who are often exploited, objectified and understandably skeptical of the possibility of harmony between men and women, he said.

The pope continued his catechesis about the family with the second of two talks on the complementary nature of men and women.

The Book of Genesis shows how God created the heavens and earth, and then a special creature made in his likeness to care and watch over the earth. Even though man was “the culmination” of God’s creation, still “something was missing,” the pope said.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam “is free, is master, but he is alone and God sees that this ‘is not good.’ It’s like a lack of communion, a communion is lacking, a lack of fullness,” he said.

God, therefore, creates a woman whom Adam instinctively and “joyfully” recognizes as “part of him: ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ Finally there is a mirrored reflection, a reciprocity,” the pope said.

As an example, he said it is like extending a hand to greet someone, but no one is there. “That’s how man was, something was missing in order for him to reach his fullness and he was missing reciprocity.”

Eve was not an exact “replica” of man, he said, but was made by another original creative act by God.

The image of a woman being made from a man’s rib “does not at all express inferiority or subordination, but on the contrary, that man and woman are made of the same substance and are complementary,” Pope Francis said.

In fact, he said, it is significant that God formed the woman while man slept to “underline exactly how she is not in any way a creature of man, but of God.”

Speaking off-the-cuff, the pope said it also shows the secret to encountering a woman as well as love: “to find the woman, man must first dream about her and then he will find her,” he said to applause.

While God generously entrusts the earth to this man and woman, the evil one “introduces suspicion, disbelief, distrust in their minds,” which leads to their disobedience, he said.

“They fall into that delirium of omnipotence that pollutes everything and destroys harmony and we, too, feel that inside lots of times — all of us,” he said.

“Sin generates diffidence and division between man and woman. Their relationship will be undermined by thousands of forms of abuse of power and subjugation, of deceptive seduction and humiliating arrogance,” he said.

People can still see traces of “the negative excesses of patriarchal cultures” and chauvinism, which view women as second-class citizens, he said.

Other lingering effects of this original sin can be seen in “the exploitation and commercialization of the female body in today’s media,” as well as in “the recent epidemic of distrust, skepticism and even hostility that has spread in our culture — in particular starting from an understandable skepticism by women — concerning the covenant between man and woman being able to perfect the intimacy of communion while at the same time safeguarding the dignity of differences.”

If people cannot “jump-start” a renewed drive for God’s intended covenant of communion and harmony, protecting young people from “mistrust and indifference, then children will come into the world even more uprooted from this [covenant] starting from the mother’s womb,” he said.

Pope Francis said the church has an important task in safeguarding this covenant even if men and women are “sinners and wounded, confused and humiliated, discouraged and unsure.”

In fact, the Book of Genesis shows how even after Adam and Eve disobeyed and sinned, God reached out to alleviate their sudden shame of being naked and “made for the man and his wife garments of skin with which he clothed them.”

“It is an image of tenderness toward this sinning couple that leaves us dumbfounded — God’s tenderness for the man and woman. It is an image of fatherly protection of the human couple. God himself takes care of and protects his masterpiece.”

— By Carol Glatz / Catholic News Service

Arriving late, leaving Mass early are abuses of Communion

Church history is certainly my favorite subject to study. There is so much in our past that can help us today. And in the case of our history, it is accurate to say that truth is stranger than fiction.

Any trip to Europe will make clear that parish churches were plentiful even in small towns. They indicate how important the faith was to our ancestors. Many of the cities here in the United States also have several Catholic parishes within a few city blocks of each other, most often split up by nationality.

Father Richard Kunst

Father Richard Kunst
Apologetics

Because of the close proximity of churches, there grew up an abuse that the church had to correct, which we can still feel today. Often, due to misguided piety, people would travel from one parish to another on any given day so that they could receive Communion several times. They would figure out what time priests might be saying Mass and then get to that church and altar even if only in time for Communion. They would receive the host, then run off to the next parish to do the same, all while rarely, if ever, fully participating in the Mass.

It does not take a rocket scientist or a canon lawyer to see the abuse of such activity.

Because of this behavior, the church established the policy allowing Communion only twice in any given day. It is not uncommon for me to get a question about this before Mass. Someone walking in might ask, “Father, I went to Communion at a funeral this morning, can I go again?” The answer is “yes,” as long as you fully participate in both liturgies.

Get thee to the church on time!

In all my years of priesthood I have never known of anyone running around to hit the tail end of Masses in order to repeatedly receive Communion, but I will tell you what I do see often: tardiness. Some people have a bad habit of being perpetually late to Mass, even very late. It is not uncommon, even at a weekday Mass, for people show up at the Lord’s Prayer or later and then come to Communion. That is not right.

It is understandable to be late for Mass occasionally — fussy kids, bad traffic or some other unforeseen issue can arise that could cause someone not to make it on time. But when it becomes a regular habit, it becomes a problem. There are people in our parishes who have no idea we start Mass with a hymn, because they are never there to hear it.

There is no hard, fast rule as to how late one can be and still receive Communion, but I generally tell people that if they have missed the first reading, perhaps it would be best that they do not receive during that Mass. That’s because we are expected to fully participate in the liturgy. If we miss that much of the Mass, we are not fully participating.

This is not a legalistic hoop to jump through. It is meant to spur on a proper spirituality. St. Alphonsus de Liguori wrote that if we had 100 years to properly prepare ourselves for our first Communion, it would be an insufficient amount of time. Coming to Mass early will help put us in the right frame of mind for what we are about to enter into.

Then there is the other end of Mass, where I see an even more common abuse, and that is leaving immediately after receiving Communion. I have often thought to myself that if I gave a crisp new $10 bill to everyone as I was shaking hands with them after Mass, I don’t think a single person would ever leave early! We would never go to a movie and then leave right before it ended, so why in the world would we do that at the Mass, which is the source and summit of our faith?

Again, I know that certain circumstances arise that may cause people to have to leave early, but not every week! And as in the case of the people who come late, the people who leave early tend to be “repeat offenders.” The same St. Alphonsus de Liguori made reference to this behavior, as well. He said that after we have received Communion, 12 angels surround us adoring the one we just received. The parking lot is not the proper place for us to give thanks to God for the gift of his Son in the Eucharist.

All of this might seem harsh to some, and perhaps that is all right. The point is that receiving the Eucharist is the most sacred thing we do. Even if we are not aware of it, it is the most significant undertaking of our week. It is right that we allow ourselves the time to prepare to receive Christ and the time to thank God for his Son after we have received.

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Duluth and St. Joseph in Gnesen. Reach him at rbkunst@q.com.

Cardinal George, 78, dies after long fight with cancer

Cardinal Francis E. George, the retired archbishop of Chicago who was the first native Chicagoan to head the archdiocese, died April 17 at his residence after nearly 10 years battling cancer. He was 78.

His successor in Chicago, Archbishop Blase J. Cupich, called Cardinal George “a man of peace, tenacity and courage” in a statement he read at a news conference held outside Holy Name Cathedral to announce the death.

Cardinal George
Cardinal Francis E. George

Archbishop Cupich singled out Cardinal George for overcoming many obstacles to become a priest, and “not letting his physical limitations moderate his zeal for bringing the promise of Christ’s love where it was needed most.”

A childhood bout with polio had left the prelate with a weakened leg and a pronounced limp throughout his life.

With the cardinal’s death, the College of Cardinals has 223 members, of whom 121 are under 80 and thus eligible to vote for a pope.

Cardinal George was a philosophy professor and regional provincial then vicar general of his religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, before being named a bishop in 1990.

He was named bishop of Yakima, Washington, in 1990, then was appointed archbishop of Portland, Oregon, in April 1996. Less than a year later, St. John Paul II named him to fill the position in Chicago, which was left vacant by the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in November 1996.

By retiring in 2014, Cardinal George accomplished what he often joked was his aspiration, to be the first cardinal-archbishop of Chicago to step down from the job, rather than dying in office, as his predecessors had. In the last few months the archdiocese had issued a series of press releases about changes in Cardinal George’s health status as it declined.

At an event Jan. 30 where he received an award from the Knights of Columbus, Cardinal George spoke frankly about living with terminal illness, saying that his doctors had exhausted the options for treating his disease and that he was receiving palliative care.

“They’ve run out of tricks in the bag, if you like,” he said. “Basically, I’m in the hands of God, as we all are in some fashion.”

In a catechesis session during World Youth Day in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2005, Cardinal George told the youths that having polio at the age of 13 left him, “a captive in my own body. I soon learned that self-pity got me nowhere. Faith was the way out, because in faith I was not alone, and good can come of something that appears bad at that time.”

Archbishop Cupich in his statement also noted that when the U.S. church “struggled with the grave sin of clerical sexual abuse, [Cardinal George] stood strong among his fellow bishops and insisted that zero tolerance was the only course consistent with our beliefs.”

He observed that Cardinal George had offered his counsel and support to three popes, serving the worldwide church. In Chicago, Archbishop Cupich noted, the cardinal “visited every corner of the archdiocese, talking with the faithful and bringing kindness to every interaction.”

Funeral arrangements for the cardinal were pending.

Cardinal George was president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for three years, from 2007 to 2010, which made him the public face of the bishops’ efforts to help shape what became the Affordable Care Act. In his final address to the body of bishops as their president in November 2010, he criticized those who define the church’s usefulness by whether it provides “foot soldiers for a political commitment, whether of the left or the right.”

He recalled at length the public debate over what the legislation should include and referred to the “wound to the church’s unity” caused by disagreements over the final bill.

The USCCB opposed the final version of the bill, saying it would permit federal funding of abortion, inadequately protect the conscience rights of health care providers and leave out immigrants. Other Catholic groups, including the Catholic Health Association and many groups of women religious disagreed and supported the bill. The bishops’ also objected to the federal contraceptive mandate that is part of the health care law, requiring most employers, including religious employers, to cover contraceptives over their moral objections.

In that same speech, Cardinal George also touched on worries about Christians in the Middle East, his voice catching as he related the story of a child who was murdered during a massacre at a Baghdad Catholic church.

The future cardinal was born in Chicago Jan. 16, 1937, to Francis J. and Julia R. (McCarthy) George. He attended St. Pascal elementary school on Chicago’s northwest side, the parish where he would be ordained a priest Dec. 21, 1963.

After being rejected by the archdiocesan seminary because of his disability, he instead attended the Oblate-run St. Henry Preparatory Seminary in Belleville, Illinois. He entered the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Aug. 14, 1957.

His formal education continued through a string of academic degrees including: bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theology from the University of Ottawa in Canada, a master’s in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington; a doctorate in philosophy from Tulane University, New Orleans; and a doctorate of sacred theology in ecclesiology from the Pontifical Urban University in Rome.

After his ordination, much of Cardinal George’s work was in academia, teaching at the Oblate Seminary in Pass Christian, Mississippi, at Tulane University and Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1973, he became provincial superior of the Midwestern province of the Oblates, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. The following year he was elected vicar general for the order, and served in that post in Rome from 1974 to 1986.

When he returned to the United States, he became coordinator of the Circle of Fellows for the Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture in Massachusetts from 1987-1990.

His term as bishop of Yakima lasted five and a half years before he was named to the Portland Archdiocese and soon after to Chicago. A year later, in 1998, St. John Paul elevated him to the College of Cardinals. As a cardinal, he served in the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.” He also served in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church; and the Pontifical Council for the Study of the Organizational and Economic Problems of the Holy See.

Cardinal George participated in two conclaves. The first was in 2005 to elect a successor to St. John Paul II in 2005 — Pope Benedict XVI — and the second in 2013 in which Pope Francis was elected.

Besides his term as president of the USCCB, Cardinal George served on its committees on Divine Worship, Evangelization and Catechesis, Doctrine, Latin America, Missions, Religious Life and Ministry, Hispanic Affairs, Science and Values, African-American Catholics and was the USCCB representative to the International Committee on English in the Liturgy from 1997 to 2006.

Among other activities, Cardinal George served as chancellor for the Catholic Church Extension Society and the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein; as a member of the board of trustees of The Catholic University of America, the Papal Foundation, the National Catholic Bioethics Center, the National Catholic Office for Persons with Disabilities and numerous other organizations.

In addition to English, he spoke French, Italian, Spanish and German.

Cardinal George is survived by one sister, Margaret Cain of Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as nieces and nephews.

— By Catholic News Service

Vatican, LCWR announce successful conclusion of process to reform group

The Vatican approved new statutes and bylaws for the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious, ending a seven-year process of investigating the group and engaging in dialogue with its officers to ensure greater harmony with church teaching.

Conference officers met April 16 with Pope Francis, the same day the Vatican announced the conclusion of the process, which included oversight for three years by a committee of three bishops.

LCWR has more than 1,500 members, who represent more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious in the United States.

Four LCWR officers spent 50 minutes with Pope Francis, discussing his apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” which, they said, “has so deeply impacted our lives as women religious and our mission in the world. Our conversation allowed us to personally thank Pope Francis for providing leadership and a vision that has captivated our hearts and emboldened us as in our own mission and service to the church.”

“From the beginning, our extensive conversations were marked by a spirit of prayer, love for the church, mutual respect and cooperation,” said a joint statement of the LCWR officers and the U.S. bishops appointed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to oversee the conference’s reform.

LCWR promised that materials it publishes first will be reviewed to “ensure theological accuracy and help avoid statements that are ambiguous with regard to church doctrine or could be read as contrary to it.” In addition, programs sponsored by the conference and speakers chosen for its events will be expected to reflect church teaching, the statement said.

In addition, it said, the doctrinal congregation, the bishops and LCWR officers had “clarifying and fruitful” conversations about “the importance of the celebration of the Eucharist; the place of the Liturgy of the Hours in religious communities; the centrality of a communal process of contemplative prayer practiced at LCWR assemblies and other gatherings; the relationship between LCWR and other organizations; and the essential understanding of LCWR as an instrument of ecclesial communion.”

The new statutes, the statement said, sought “greater clarity in expressing the mission and responsibilities” of the conference as a body “under the ultimate direction of the Apostolic See” and as a group “centered on Jesus Christ and faithful to the teachings of the church.”

After asking Archbishop Leonard P. Blair of Hartford, Conn., in 2008 to carry out the doctrinal assessment of LCWR, in April 2012 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called for the revision of LCWR’s statutes and bylaws. The reform, the Vatican said, was meant to ensure the conference’s fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality. The organization’s canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

The assessment said, “Addresses given during LCWR annual assemblies manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors.” LCWR members and even officers had been known to protest Vatican decisions, including those “regarding the question of women’s ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry to homosexual persons.” And, it said, there was “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith in some of the programs and presentations sponsored by the LCWR.”

Releasing the assessment, the Vatican had appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of the conference and its reform efforts. Archbishop Blair and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, were named to assist him.

The process of arriving at new statutes and bylaws was not always smooth.

Meeting conference officers last year, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, said, “We are glad to see that work continue (on the statutes and bylaws) and remain particularly interested that these foundational documents reflect more explicitly the mission of a conference of major superiors as something centered on Jesus Christ and grounded in the church’s teaching about consecrated life.”

The cardinal also said the doctrinal assessment was accurate and the reforms were necessary to ensure that the LCWR remain solidly in harmony with the teaching of the church.

Responding to Cardinal Muller’s remarks in 2014, the LCWR said it was “saddened to learn that impressions of the organization in the past decades have become institutionalized in the Vatican, and these institutionalized perceptions have led to judgments and ultimately to the doctrinal assessment.”

“We do not recognize ourselves in the doctrinal assessment of the conference and realize that, despite that fact, our attempts to clarify misperceptions have led to deeper misunderstandings,” the officers said.

As the Vatican announced the conclusion of the process, it released a statement from Cardinal Muller saying his office was “confident that LCWR has made clear its mission to support its member institutes by fostering a vision of religious life that is centered on the person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the tradition of the church.”

Such a vision, he said, “makes religious women and men radical witnesses to the Gospel, and, therefore, is essential for the flourishing of religious life in the church.”

Sister Sharon Holland, LCWR president and vice president of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was unable to attend the meeting at the Vatican April 16. However, the Vatican released a statement from her expressing pleasure that the process had reached a successful conclusion.

The process involved “long and challenging exchanges” that were “conducted always in a spirit of prayer and mutual respect,” she said. The process brought the sisters, the bishops and Vatican officials “to deeper understandings of one another’s experiences, roles, responsibilities and hopes for the church and the people it serves. We learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences.”

Archbishop Sartain said, “Our work together was undertaken in an atmosphere of love for the church and profound respect for the critical place of religious life in the United States, and the very fact of such substantive dialogue between bishops and religious women has been mutually beneficial and a blessing from the Lord.”

— By Cindy Wooden / Catholic News Service

Joy & courage: They were watchwords of the day at the Catholic Women’s Conference

By Kyle Eller
The Northern Cross

Two high-energy, quick-talking speakers with a message of joy and courage had the third annual Catholic Women’s Conference buzzing March 7 at Marshall School in Duluth, and by the end, organizers say, feedback from those in attendance rated it one of the best conferences yet.

Themed “The Joy of Our Faith,” the conference presented those in attendance with a copy of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel.”

Conquering fear

Hallie Lord, a married mother from Charleston, South Carolina, pregnant with her seventh child, was the first speaker. A writer and a regular guest on Catholic radio and television, Lord said she was the child of hippie parents and a convert to the faith, full of joy.

Kelly Wahlquist

Speaker Kelly Wahlquist called joy a bridge between hearts for the New Evangelization during one of her two presentations at the annual Catholic Women’s Conference in Duluth. (Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

She said she didn’t take it too much to heart when a kind priest tried to prepare her for the fact that it wouldn’t always feel that way. But a bout with infertility followed by several children in quick succession and her husband facing unemployment left her in a cycle of struggling to trust in God, then turning back to trust him only to find it happening all over again.

Then, while driving a small Saturn car with four children in it, she encountered three friars of the Little Brothers of the Lord along the side of the road and gave them a ride.

“And I had the most transformative experience I’ve ever had,” she said. They had “spiritual fizz” and an infectious joy and had taken an extreme vow of poverty.

Despite Lord’s fears that God wasn’t with her, their message to her was that he loved her. As she pondered their lives, with all the uncertainty of their vow of poverty, and their happiness, she came to some realizations.

“They had figured out that fear is joy’s Kryptonite,” Lord said.

She realized all the challenges she had experienced had been full of blessings she hadn’t noticed and that a lot of her fears were about things that hadn’t even happened yet.

“God does not give grace for the imagination, he gives grace for the situation,” she said.

She said learning to trust God is a lifelong process, but she offered some tips, turning to the Blessed Mother and then recognizing and naming a fear, rejecting it and pouring love in.

“Every single one of you, you are the apple of God’s eye,” she said.

Joy, courage and the New Evangelization

Kelly Wahlquist, assistant director of the Archbishop Harry J. Flynn Catechetical Institute in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and founder of WINE: Women in the New Evangelization, gave two talks, one to close out the morning and one to finish the afternoon.

She began with an image she had heard from a talk about the Shroud of Turin, that the image on the shroud was created by a sudden burst of light at the Resurrection. “We need to be that sudden burst of light that brings Christ to the world,” she said.

That, she added, is what evangelization is.

Wahlquist said Catholics have “evangelophobia” but that evangelism shouldn’t be scary. It’s really about love, she said, sharing one’s heart more than one’s head, but you need a bridge between hearts.

“I think that bridge is joy,” she said, and joy that is not giggly but found in Christ.

“Some of the most joyful people I know are people who suffer,” she said.

She noted that evangelization is a call for everyone in the church and, interweaving personal stories to illustrate, cited three ways God is with us in evangelization: the Holy Spirit, Sacred Scripture and the Eucharist.

She encouraged conferencegoers to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and particularly to pray to him when encountering someone with questions about the faith.

She also encouraged people to pray with Scripture. “Evangelization is really the fruit of a prayerful and meditative life with the Holy Scripture,” she said.

The Eucharist, she said, helps us to “become little Christs.”

Wahlquist’s second talk was about courage, a virtue she said is necessary to live the other virtues.

She said for women, courage is often lived out in compassion and endurance, exemplified by a mother’s heart. “Courage comes from a heart that loves,” she said.

She gave several examples of courageous women from the Bible, such as the wife of Noah, Hannah and Mary Magdalene, who each offer lessons.

But the greatest example, she said, is Mary, as seen in her Seven Sorrows. “She lived with the greatest courage because she lived with the greatest love,” Wahlquist said.

A full day

The day began with Mass and a short address by Duluth Bishop Paul Sirba, and it was emceed by Benedictine Sister Lisa Maurer of St. Scholastica Monastery.

The day included time for adoration and confession, as well as book signings by the speakers and halls filled with vendors.

After lunch, there was also a personal testimony from Mary Lou Jennings, who spoke of her work with the Sister Thea Bowman Foundation.

Pope says children are never a mistake, calls adults to responsibility

Children are never a “mistake” and no sacrifice is too great for an adult to make so that children can feel their worth, Pope Francis said.

During his weekly general audience in a chilly, but sunny St. Peter’s Square April 8, the pope continued his series of talks about the family, dedicating a second catechesis to children. He described the great suffering and difficulties many children around the world experience as “a Passion.”

Children are the greatest blessing God has bestowed upon men and women, he said. Yet, many children are “rejected, abandoned, robbed of their childhood and of their future,” the pope noted, adding that it is “shameful” when people say it is “a mistake” to bring a child into the world.

“Please, let’s not unload our faults on children,” he said. “Children are never ‘a mistake.’”

The hunger, poverty, fragility and ignorance of some children “are not mistakes” but “only reasons for us to love them even more, with more generosity,” he said.

Pope Francis wondered aloud about the value of international declarations of human and children’s rights if children are then punished for the mistakes of adults.

“All adults are responsible for children and for doing what we can to change this situation,” he said.

“Every marginalized and abandoned child, who lives by begging on the street for every little thing, without schooling or healthcare, is a cry to God,” he said. Their suffering is the result of a social system, created by adults, he added.

Children who are victims of such poverty often “become prey to criminals who exploit them for immoral trade and commerce or train them for war and violence,” he said.

Even in rich countries, “many children live dramas that scar their lives heavily” due to family crises or inhuman living conditions, he said. They suffer the consequences of “a culture of exaggerated individual rights” and become precocious, he added. And often, they absorb the violence they are exposed to, unable to “dispose of it,” and “are forced to become accustomed to degradation,” the pope said.

“In every case, these are childhoods violated in body and soul,” the pope said. “But none of these children is forgotten by the Father in heaven. None of their tears are lost.”

The pope also said children, too often, suffer the effects of their parents’ precarious and poorly paid work or unsustainable work hours. Children, he said, “also pay the price of immature unions and irresponsible separations; they are the first victims.” He underlined the social responsibility of each person and government toward children.

The pope offered a reflection on the Scripture passage when Jesus calls the children to him so that he can bless them, Mt 19:13-15. “How beautiful was the trust of these parents (to bring their children to him) and this response of Jesus,” he said.

The pope said many children with serious problems benefit from “extraordinary parents, ready for every sacrifice and generosity.” The church must accompany these parents in their efforts, he said.

“The church places her maternal care at the service of children and their families,” he added. “It brings God’s blessing to the parents and children of this world, maternal tenderness, firm reprimand and strong condemnation. Brothers and sisters, think carefully: You don’t mess with the lives of children.”

He concluded by inviting his listeners to imagine a society that bases itself on the principle that “no sacrifice on the part of adults would be considered too costly or too great, anything so as to avoid that a child thinks they are a mistake, that they have no value and that they are abandoned to the wounds of life and to the arrogance of men.”

“How beautiful such a society would be,” the pope said.

The text of the pope’s audience remarks in English is available online here and in Spanish here.

— By Laura Ieraci / Catholic News Service