Blessed Sacrament Church

Pope Francis announced an extraordinary jubilee, a Holy Year of Mercy, to highlight the Catholic Church’s “mission to be a witness of mercy.”

“No one can be excluded from God’s mercy,” the pope said March 13, marking the second anniversary of his pontificate by leading a Lenten penance service in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“I frequently have thought about how the church can make more evident its mission to be a witness of mercy,” he said during his homily; that is why he decided to call a special Holy Year, which will be celebrated from Dec. 8, 2015, until Nov. 20, 2016.

The biblical theme of the year, he said, will be “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” an admonition that applies “especially to confessors,” the pope said with a smile.

Traditionally, every 25 years the popes proclaim a holy year, which features special celebrations and pilgrimages, strong calls for conversion and repentance, and the offer of special opportunities to experience God’s grace through the sacraments, especially confession. Extraordinary holy years, like the Holy Year of Mercy, are less frequent, but offer the same opportunities for spiritual growth.

The doors of the church “are wide open so that all those who are touched by grace can find the certainty of forgiveness,” Pope Francis said at the penance service, which featured individual confessions. It was part of a worldwide celebration of “24 Hours for the Lord,” in which Catholic churches were staying open for prayer, eucharistic adoration and confession.

At each of the dozens of confessionals in St. Peter’s Basilica, as well as in simple chairs scattered along the walls, priests welcomed people to the sacrament. The pope removed his liturgical vestments and went to confession before putting on a purple stole and hearing the confessions of others.

“God never ceases to demonstrate the richness of his mercy over the course of centuries,” the pope said in his homily, which preceded the confessions. God touches people’s hearts with his grace, filling them with repentance and a desire to “experience his love.”

“Being touched by the tenderness of his hand,” people should not be afraid to approach a priest and confess their sins, he said. In the confessional, one has “the certainty of being welcomed in the name of God and understood, despite our misery.”

“The greater the sin, the greater the love, which the church must express toward those who convert,” Pope Francis said.

The Gospel reading at the penance service was the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Every time one goes to confession, the pope said, “we feel the same compassionate gaze of Jesus” that she did.

Jesus’ love, he said, allowed her to draw near, to demonstrate her repentance and to show her love for him. “Every gesture of this woman speaks of love and expresses her desire to have an unshakable certainty in her life, that of having been forgiven.”

“Love and forgiveness are simultaneous” in the story of each person, just as in the story of the sinful woman, he said. “God forgave her for much — for everything — because he loved her much.”

Through Jesus, the pope said, God took the woman’s sins and “threw them over his shoulder, he no longer remembers them.”

Jesus’ encounter with the woman took place in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. Unlike the woman, the pope said, Simon “isn’t able to find the path of love. He remains stopped at the threshold of formality. He is not able to take the next step to encounter Jesus, who brings salvation.”

The Pharisee is concerned only with following God’s law, with justice, which is a mistake, the pope said. “His judgment of the woman distances him from the truth and prevents him from understanding who his guest is.”

Jesus scolds Simon, pointing out how the “sinful woman” has shown nothing but love and repentance, the pope said. “Jesus’ rebuke pushes each of us to never stop at the surface of things, especially when dealing with a person. We are called to look deeper, to focus on the heart in order to see how much generosity the person is capable of.”

Pope Francis said he asked the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization to coordinate preparations for the Holy Year so that it would be “a new stage in the church’s journey in fulfilling its mission of bringing the Gospel of mercy to each person.”

— By Cindy Wooden / Catholic News Service

When Bishop Paul Sirba approved a strategic plan in January 2012, it was presented as a flexible plan that would guide him on decisions like clustering and merging parishes for the following five years, with changes implemented as needed.

About halfway through the five-year period, Bishop Sirba writes in this month’s Northern Cross that by the time new clergy assignments start taking effect in July, about 90 percent of the plan will be in place.

“The pace of implementation has been faster than I anticipated,” said Father Peter Muhich, who has helped lead the strategic planning process and its implementation, as well as seeing the effects in his own parishes. “While these kinds of changes are not easy, the priests and parishioners of the diocese seem more than ready to deal with the challenges facing our diocese. I think we all get the fact that we can’t stand still.”

He said that there still remains some flexibility in what remains to be implemented, and there have been smaller, “common sense adjustments” to the plan too.

The strategic planning process lasted more than a year and involved the input of more than 250 people across the diocese. Its purpose was to address four challenges confronting the church: a possible lower number of clergy, shifting demographic trends across the diocese, the fiscal health and infrastructure of parishes and the health and well-being of clergy.

As the planning process began in 2010, there were 45 pastors assigned in parishes. The strategic plan projected that there would be a substantial decline (to 36 or 37) in the number available from 2012 to 2014, based on the number of priests who could retire after the age of 70. Scenarios suggested that the number of pastors available would rise back to 2010 levels by 2017 due to the ordination of the large group of seminarians that were studying at the time.

Currently, there are 43 pastors assigned to parishes in the diocese. An additional six young priests (currently associates or parochial vicars) will be qualified to be assigned as pastors in the next year or two. At the same time, there are several priests who will have reached retirement age and could retire.

Shifting demographic trends have also played a role. Officials say the greatest change in a small geographic area has been in the merger and clustering of the small parishes in the Hibbing Deanery, where changes in the mining economy have left once thriving communities with small parishes struggling to keep up with expenses. Such changes are projected to continue affecting parishes across the diocese.

The strategic plan outlined different changes parishes are facing.

Clustered parishes work together and share clergy and perhaps staff but maintain separate identities.

Merged parishes share clergy and staff and become one parish in church and civil law, with one or more church buildings. Parishes “merged with” each other maintain multiple church buildings, while the description “merged into” means two or more parishes become one parish with a single church building for worship.

The following changes have taken place so far:

Brainerd Deanery

There has been a re-alignment of the clusters: St. Francis, Brainerd; All Saints, Baxter; and St. Thomas, Pine Beach, now form one cluster while St. Andrew in Brainerd and St. Mathias in Ft. Ripley are another separate cluster.

St. Christopher, Nisswa; St. Alice, Pequot Lakes; and Our Lady of Lourdes, Pine River, have begun the process of merging with each other.

Cloquet Deanery

St. Joseph, Finlayson, has merged into St. Luke, Sandstone, and closed. Sacred Heart, Bruno, has also merged into St. Luke and closed.

St. Joseph, Beroun, is now clustered with Immaculate Conception, Pine City.

Duluth Deanery

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, Duluth, is clustered with St. Mary Star of the Sea and Our Lady of Mercy in Duluth.

St. James, Duluth, is clustered with St. Elizabeth, Duluth, and St. Margaret Mary, Duluth.

Hibbing Deanery

St. Ann, Bena, merged into St. Joseph, Ball Club, and closed.

St. John, Hill City, merged into St. Joseph, Grand Rapids, and closed. St. Paul, Warba, also merged into St. Joseph and closed. St. Joseph is clustered with St. Augustine, Cohasset.

St. Kevin, Pengilly, merged into St. Cecilia, Nashwauk, and closed. St. Mary, Keewatin, also merged into St. Cecilia and closed.

St. Mary, Marble, merged into Mary Immaculate, Coleraine, and closed. St. Joseph, Taconite, also merged into Mary Immaculate and closed.

St. Cecilia, Nashwauk, is clustered with Mary Immaculate, Coleraine.

Virginia Deanery

Queen of Peace, Hoyt Lakes, and St. John, Biwabik, have begun the process of merging with Holy Rosary, Aurora.

St. Mary, Cook, is clustered with Holy Cross, Orr, and St. Martin, Tower.

Sacred Heart, Virginia, and Sacred Heart, Mt. Iron, merged with Holy Spirit, Virginia.

Future planning

Father Muhich said initial conversations with Bishop Sirba include using the same kind of process for the next round of strategic planning, “because it worked well. Broad consultation in the deaneries brought our people together to face our common challenges, clarified issues and corrected misunderstandings. The process made the plan better and is making the plan’s implementation better, too.”

He said the next round will focus more specifically on the New Evangelization and will likely begin sometime in 2016.

Read a more detailed document on what has been done in implementing the plan so far here.

— By Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross

Pope Francis will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at a Rome prison and wash the feet of male and female inmates.

The Vatican announced March 11 that the pope will visit the Rebibbia detention facility on the outskirts of the capital April 2, then celebrate Mass in Our Father Church on the grounds of the complex. During the Mass, the pope will wash the feet of male inmates from Rebibbia and female inmates from a nearby women’s prison.

Last year, Pope Francis presided over the Mass and foot-washing ritual at a rehabilitation facility for the elderly and people with disabilities on the outskirts of Rome. The year before, the first of his pontificate, he went to Rome’s Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, where he washed the feet of young male and female offenders.

Pope Francis changed papal tradition by moving the annual Holy Thursday evening ceremony out of either St. Peter’s Basilica or the Basilica of St. John Lateran. However, the new practice reflected the traditional way then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires marked the holy day: celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper — which reflects on the call to imitate Christ by serving one another — in prisons, hospitals or shelters for the poor and marginalized.

The pope will celebrate the Holy Thursday morning chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica as is customary and bless the oils used for sacraments in the Diocese of Rome.

— By Carol Glatz / Catholic News Service

Father Mike Schmitz, from the Diocese of Duluth, is in the National Catholic Register today, interviewed about confession. Noting that confession is widely misunderstood, he calls it a “place of victory,” a place to humble pride, a place of healing and a place to let God’s mercy win in your life.

Give it a close read today, and be strengthened and encouraged in your resolve to receive God’s mercy in the sacrament of reconciliation this Lent. The full interview is available on the website of the National Catholic Register.

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero will be beatified in San Salvador May 23, said Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator or chief promoter of the archbishop’s sainthood cause.

The ceremony, which moves the murdered archbishop a step closer to sainthood, will be in Plaza Divino Salvador del Mundo. The archbishop said Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, would celebrate the Mass.

A nun kisses the forehead of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador at the Hospital of Divine Providence in San Salvador. The archbishop was taken to the hospital with bullet wounds in the chest after being shot by four unidentified gunmen as he celebrated Mass in a chapel March 24, 1980. (Scan of CNS file photo)

“Romero, from heaven, wants every Salvadoran to walk the path of peace and justice,” Archbishop Paglia said March 11 at a news conference in San Salvador.

The archbishop called the beatification a gift for the world, but particularly for the people of El Salvador.

Pope Francis formally recognized Feb. 3 that the slain Salvadoran archbishop was killed “in hatred of the faith” — and not for purely political reasons.

While Archbishop Romero’s sainthood cause began in 1993, it continued for years as church officials combed through thousands of documents related to his life. The effort began moving forward under Pope Benedict XVI. In May 2007, he said: “Archbishop Romero certainly was a great witness to the faith, a man of great Christian virtue.”

The process advanced rapidly with the election of Pope Francis in 2013, the first Latin American pope in history. From the first moments of his papacy, he showed interest in declaring Archbishop Romero a saint.

Pope Francis signed the decree recognizing Archbishop Romero as a martyr, which meant there was no need to prove a miracle for his beatification. However, a miracle is ordinarily needed for canonization as saint.

Archbishop Romero, an outspoken advocate for the poor, was shot and killed March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in a hospital in San Salvador during his country’s civil war. Archbishop Paglia said in early February that the two decades it took to obtain the decree were the result of “misunderstandings and preconceptions.”

During Archbishop Romero’s time as archbishop of San Salvador — from 1977 to 1980 — “kilos of letters against him arrived in Rome. The accusations were simple: He’s political; he’s a follower of liberation theology.”

All of the complaints, Archbishop Paglia said in February, slowed the sainthood process.

However, promoters of the cause, he said, collected “a mountain of testimony just as big” to counter the accusations and to prove that Archbishop Romero heroically lived the Christian faith and was killed out of hatred for his words and actions as a Catholic pastor.

“He was killed at the altar,” Archbishop Paglia said, instead of when he was an easier target at home or on the street. “Through him, they wanted to strike the church that flowed from the Second Vatican Council.”

The archbishop announced the date of the beatification on the eve of the anniversary of the assassination of a close personal friend of Archbishop Romero: Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande, the first priest executed by death squads, March 12, 1977.

Father Grande was a fiery champion of the poor and oppressed and used the pulpit to denounce actions of the government, death squads in his country, violence from the outbreak of civil war and military occupation of churches. His death had a profound impact on Archbishop Romero, who later said, “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, ‘If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I, too, have to walk the same path.’”

— By Edgardo Ayala / Catholic News Service. Contributing to this story was Carol Glatz at the Vatican.

Four nationally circulated Catholic publications called for abolishing the death penalty in the United States in a jointly published editorial.

America, National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor urged their readers, the U.S. Catholic community and people of faith to “stand with us and say, ‘Capital punishment must end,’” the editorial stated.

The editorial was published online March 5 by each publication and was to appear in the printed versions of each journal in the coming weeks.

Dennis Coday, editor of National Catholic Reporter, said the effort evolved after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January to hear arguments in an Oklahoma death penalty case.

The case, Glossip v. Gross, involves the use of a lethal-injection protocol widely used across the country that resulted in three botched executions in 2014.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the constitutionality of lethal-injection executions in Oklahoma by the end of its term in June.

“Our hope is that [the court] will hasten the end of the death penalty in the United States,” the editorial said.

“There’s been a growing consensus among the public and especially among Catholics of the need to bring an abolition, or at least a moratorium, to the death penalty in the country,” Coday told Catholic News Service. “I think that’s perfectly clear from public opinion surveys, especially in the last year that execution after execution has failed or been botched.”

Coday cited a statement from Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City after the failed execution in April of Clayton Lockett, for driving the desire among the editors to develop the joint editorial. Lockett writhed in pain for more than 40 minutes after being injected with a deadly cocktail of chemicals before dying of apparent heart failure.

After the incident, Archbishop Coakley said the execution “highlights the brutality of the death penalty,” and should bring the nation to “consider whether we should adopt a moratorium on the death penalty or even abolish it altogether.”

Reading the National Catholic Register’s coverage of the archbishop’s statement, Coday said he was struck “that this is an issue that crosses the full spectrum of Catholic opinion in this country.”

With the Supreme Court agreeing Jan. 23 to hear arguments in Glossip v. Gross, the editors of the four publications agreed to tackle the death penalty in a joint editorial, Coday explained.

Other editors said the cooperative effort demonstrates the unity across the Catholic Church to end capital punishment.

“The unity among Catholics in defense of life can send a powerful message,” Jeanette De Melo, editor in chief of National Catholic Register, told CNS. “This is an issue that we can find unity with our colleagues in the Catholic press. That’s why we chose to do this in a joint statement.

De Melo decried the rising assault on human life through abortion, euthanasia and war in addition to capital punishment.

“Even though they are of different moral weight, they all threaten human dignity and we must work to end them,” she said.

Gretchen C. Crowe, editor of Our Sunday Visitor, said the four publications “wanted to make sure to have our combined voices heard.”

“The death penalty is an important pro-life issue in this country for all Catholics,” she said. “This was a real opportunity for a show of solidarity for Our Sunday Visitor and these other national Catholic publications to stand strong and united against the death penalty.”

Jesuit Father Matt Malone, editor of America, said in an email: “This is an excellent example of how Catholic teaching and the Catholic conscience transcend the tired categories of left and right. On these grave matters of faith, life and death, we speak with one voice, one purpose, one hope.”

The editorial was translated into Italian and appeared in the March 6 edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

The editorial cited St. John Paul II’s work to amend the Catechism of the Catholic Church to effectively prohibit capital punishment and the words of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote in 1997 that “where other means for the self-defense of society are possible and adequate, the death penalty may be permitted to disappear.”

The editorial also noted Pope Francis’ 2014 call “to fight ... for the abolition of the death penalty.”

Comments from Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the bishops’ Pro-Life Activities Committee, welcoming the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Oklahoma case were cited in the editorial.

In addition, it quoted Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who commended Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf for declaring a moratorium on the death penalty when he assumed office in January.

“Archbishop Chaput reminds us that when considering the death penalty, we cannot forget that it is we, acting through our government, who are the moral agents in an execution. The prisoner has committed his crime and has answered for it in this life just as he shall answer for it before God. But it is the government, acting in our name, that orders and perpetrates lethal injection. It is we who add to, instead of heal, the violence,” the editorial said.

“We join our bishops in hoping the court will reach the conclusion that it is time for our nation to embody its commitment to the right to life by abolishing the death penalty once and for all,” the editorial concluded.

— Catholic News Service

During Lent we pray. Our prayer invites us to a deeper communion with Jesus. We offer him ourselves in an ever-growing relationship.

We fast. We give up things and stuff, the clutter, so as to rediscover the value and worth of all the good gifts we have been given by God.

Bishop Paul Sirba Fiat Voluntas Tua

We give alms. We see the face of Christ in others and respond to our brothers and sisters in need. In giving we become free and generous. What we have received we are to give as a gift.

Getting back to the basics, the fundamentals, what is essential, informs our Lent.

Lent is a blueprint for the implementation of our strategic plan. The image presented in St. John’s Gospel 15:1-4 is, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.”

Over the past few years we have implemented a good part of our strategic plan.

With the upcoming assignments in July, I hope to have implemented 90 percent of the plan. The implementation began in 2012 and will mature in 2017. You can review our strategic plan and implementation on our diocesan website (www.dioceseduluth. org).

Conversations have already begun for the next phase of strategic planning, which opens us up to “the how” of the New Evangelization.

While the process has been at times painful — it hurts, initially, to make the cut — overall it has been fruitful. Your spirit of sacrifice and the new seeds planted in the offering are already beginning to bear fruit. Fertile soil is being cultivated. The New Evangelization is taking root. Pope Francis is leading us to go to the fringes and invite people to the wedding banquet.

Some of our priests and parishioners are already going door to door. Surprised but receptive neighbors are saying, “We didn’t expect Catholics to be doing this!” Let’s continue to surprise!

Large agenda

Planning for our Eucharistic procession, at the conclusion of our 125th anniversary on Sept. 12, will give us another level of witness. Our theme, “Celebrating 125 years: Our Story, Our Faith,” provides an opportunity to thank Almighty God for all he has done for us and to trust where he is leading us.

As the people of God, we will continue to address the availability of priests and deacons and ask how we can help them live healthy lives.

We will pray for vocations to the priesthood, permanent diaconate, religious life and holy marriages in our diocese.

We will consider changing demographic trends and the available resources with which we have been entrusted and discern how we can best announce the Kingdom of God.

Like our Lent, the implementation of our strategic plan is not a diminishment but an opening to growth in the Holy Spirit. God calls us to ongoing conversion so as to open us to his will and the spread of the Good News.

Saints are the people who really change our world. By our Baptism we are all called to be saints. Lent at its core is about becoming the people we are meant to be in the mind of God.

Bishop Paul D. Sirba is the ninth bishop of Duluth.

Just a quick reminder that the diocesan Women’s Conference is tomorrow! While online registration is now closed, walk-in registration will still be accepted. On-site registration is $40 and begins at 7:30 a.m, Due to the large volume of registrants, lunch and book are not guaranteed. Hope to see you there, and bring a friend.

A recent Associated Press poll shows that while a plurality of Americans support the legalization of same-sex marriage, a majority believe that the religious liberty of those who object to such marriages, including owners of wedding-related businesses, should still be respected.

The poll, which was conducted between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2, shows that 44 percent of Americans favor legalization of same-sex marriage, 39 percent oppose it and 15 percent “neither favor nor oppose” legalization of such marriages.

Respondents also were asked this question: “In states where same-sex couples can be married legally, do you think that wedding-related businesses with religious objections should be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples, or not?” Fifty-seven percent of those polled said that “they should be allowed to refuse service,” and only 39 percent said “no, they should not be allowed” to do so. Four percent refused to respond.

The poll’s results on legalizing same-sex marriage show “that support for the truth about marriage is too low and, thus, we all must renew our efforts at explaining what marriage is and why marriage matters,” said Ryan T. Anderson, William E. Simon fellow in religion and a free society at the Heritage Foundation.

“It’s not that people have heard the case for marriage and rejected it — it is just that they have never heard it,” he told Catholic News Service.

“The majority of Americans rightly recognize that everyone should be free from government penalties for believing and acting on the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife,” Anderson said. “We must continue to defend our freedoms to speak and act in the public square in accord with the truth about marriage.”

The Catholic Church upholds marriage as a union between one man and one woman and teaches that any sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful. The church also teaches that homosexual attraction itself is not sinful and that homosexual people “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.”

The issue of whether a business owner has the right to refuse services to a same-sex couple came to the forefront of public discussion over two years ago when the owners of the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham, Oregon, were threatened with fines of up to $150,000 for refusing to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple because of the owners’ religious beliefs.

Refusing the sale violated the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, which imposed a nondiscrimination order that prohibited businesses from refusing services based on a patron’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Following two years of subsequent lawsuits and the closing of their business, the former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa were found guilty of discrimination, meaning they will face up to the maximum $150,000 fine.

The situation of Sweet Cakes illustrates the dilemma of Catholic employers who oppose providing certain services on the grounds that, according to church teaching, it would be a form of “material cooperation” with evil.

“The question of whether baking a cake for a same-sex wedding — to use an example in the news recently — constitutes a material — and therefore, culpable — cooperation (with) evil would depend on several circumstances, including intent,” said Stephen P. White, a fellow of Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “But even if such a case constituted remote cooperation — which might be permissible — there is no requirement to cooperate against the dictates of conscience. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Thankfully,” said White, “most Americans understand that the burden of proof falls on those who would force their fellow citizens to violate their religious beliefs, not on those whose rights of conscience are protected by common sense, common decency, and, as it so happens, the Constitution.

In Oklahoma, lawmakers Feb. 12 approved a bill to protect clergy who refuse to preside over a same-sex wedding or to recognize a same-sex marriage. It passed by an 88-7 vote in the House of Representatives and now goes to the state Senate for consideration.

The measure would protect members of the clergy against same-sex marriage from being sued over their stance.

In Washington, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, both Texas Republicans, introduced the State Marriage Defense Act of 2015 in their respective chambers. It would allow states to define marriage and block the federal government from imposing its definition of marriage on the states.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, sent letters to both lawmakers strongly supporting the measure.

Same-sex marriage is legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Eleven of those states legalized such unions either through either popular vote (three) or the state legislature (eight). For the rest, same-sex marriage has been legalized by court decisions. Thirteen states ban same-sex marriage — one by constitutional amendment and 12 by constitutional amendment and state law.

In April the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in four same-sex marriages cases it agreed to take — from Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky and Ohio. The court is consolidating them into one hearing, tackling the questions of whether the 14th Amendment requires states to allow such marriages and whether it requires them to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states.

The AP poll, which was conducted by Gfk Public Affairs, showed an even split among Americans about whether the high court should rule that same-sex marriage must be legal nationwide — 48 percent said it should, but 48 percent said it should not.

The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

— By Nate Madden / Catholic News Service

The 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by Islamic State militants died as martyrs, invoking the name of Jesus, said an Egyptian Catholic bishop.

In line with Pope Francis’ assertion at morning Mass Feb. 17, Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina of Giza told the Fides news agency that the “diabolical” video of the Christians’ massacre, intended to “spread terror,” was a testament to their martyrdom in the faith.

The video of their beheading, released Feb. 15, shows that “in the moment of their barbaric execution,” some of the Christians were repeating the words “Lord, Jesus Christ,” he said.

“The name of Jesus was the last word on their lips,” said Bishop Mina. And like the early church martyrs, “they entrusted themselves to the one who would receive them soon after. That name, whispered in the last moments, was like the seal of their martyrdom.”

Following the news of their assassination in Libya, Christians in the various dioceses of Egypt began praying and fasting, as the government called for seven days of national mourning. Several Egyptian bishops have spoken about constructing churches, dedicated to the 21 martyrs, in their dioceses.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab announced President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would arrange state funds for the construction of a church dedicated to the 21 martyrs in the Egyptian city of Minya, from which many of the victims hailed. In addition, by presidential decree, the victims’ families will receive financial compensation for the death of their loved ones (about $13,000), as well as a monthly stipend. The families are asking that the remains of their loved ones be returned to Egypt for burial.

Al-Sisi, who also has referred to the 21 Christians as “martyrs,” paid a personal visit to Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II Feb. 16 to extend his condolences. Pope Francis extended his condolences to Pope Tawadros in a phone call the same day.

Back in Libya, members of the Catholic community resolved to stay put, despite the killings and the emphatic calls from various authorities to evacuate the country.

“Few of us remain,” said Latin-rite Bishop Giovanni Martinelli of Tripoli, Libya. He told Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Feb. 17 that many of those who remain are female Philippine nurses, who have decided to stay because of the dire medical needs in the city after the evacuation of the medical staff at the private St. James Hospital.

“It is for them that I remain,” the bishop said. “At this time, the situation is calm, but we do not know how things will evolve. Anyway, as I have said many times, so long as there is one Christian here, I will remain.”

— By Laura Ieraci / Catholic News Service