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International
Pope creates 22 new cardinals, including three from Canada, U.S.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:31
Cindy Wooden / CNS
 By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY
Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new cardinals from 13 countries, including three from the United States and Canada, placing red hats on their heads and calling them to lives of even greater love and service to the Church.
The churchmen who joined the College of Cardinals Feb. 18 included Cardinals Thomas C. Collins of Toronto, Timothy M. Dolan of New York; and Edwin F. O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and former archbishop of Baltimore.
In their first official act in their new role, the new cardinals were asked to join their peers in giving the Pope their opinion, in writing, on the canonization of seven new saints, including Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, an American Indian, and Blessed Marianne Cope of Molokai, Hawaii.
The Pope announced at the consistory that the canonization ceremony would be celebrated Oct. 21 at the Vatican.
Cardinal Collins said, "I am delighted that my first action as a cardinal was to join with the College of Cardinals in affirming the canonization of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, who has been such an inspiration for the people of our First Nations and so many others in Canada and the United States."
Cardinal Dolan also mentioned the consultation on the canonization of Blessed Kateri, who was born in what is now New York state, and Mother Marianne, who served there before going to Hawaii.
"As grateful as I am for being a cardinal," he told reporters later, "I really want to be a saint. I mean that, but I have a long way to go."
St. Peter's Basilica was filled to overflowing for the ceremony, and several thousand people sat in a sunny St. Peter's Square watching on large video screens. Choirs from New York and from several Italian dioceses provided music for the service.
At the end of the ceremony, the College of Cardinals had 213 members, 125 of whom were under the age of 80 and, therefore, eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new Pope.
The consistory took the form of a prayer service. After the Gospel reading, in what the Vatican described as an allocution, not a homily, the Pope told the cardinals that love and service, not an air of greatness, are to mark their lives as cardinals.
"Dominion and service, egoism and altruism, possession and gift, self-interest and gratuitousness: these profoundly contrasting approaches confront each other in every age and place," Pope Benedict said, but the cardinals must model their lives on that of Jesus, loving others to the point of giving up his life for them.
Cardinal O'Brien told reporters afterward that the ceremony and the Pope's remarks underlined that becoming a cardinal "is not a reward: it brings on greater responsibilities, something the Pope experiences every day."
He said that when he knelt before the Pope, "I thanked him; I said I'd serve him completely with my whole heart."
Cardinal Dolan, who had delivered the main address on evangelization at a meeting of the College of Cardinals the day before, said that when he knelt before the Pope, the Pope thanked him again for his presentation. "I said thank you, for this; I'm the one who is grateful," he said.
"The Gospel and the homily were very sobering," he said, because they recalled the words of Jesus that "we're not in it for the prestige, we're not in it for the honour, we're not in it for the glory. We're in it to serve."
In all things, Pope Benedict had told them, "the new cardinals are entrusted with the service of love: love for God, love for His Church, an absolute and unconditional love for His brothers and sisters, even unto shedding their blood, if necessary," a fact underlined by the red colour of the biretta, a three-cornered hat, and the red cardinal's robes.
"He is servant inasmuch as He welcomes within Himself the fate of the suffering and sin of all humanity. His service is realized in total faithfulness and complete responsibility toward mankind," the Pope said.
"The free acceptance of His violent death becomes the price of freedom for many," he told the new cardinals, praying that "Christ's total gift of self on the cross" would be "the foundation, stimulus, and strength" of their faith and that it would be reflected in their love and charity toward others.
During the ceremony, Pope Benedict placed rings on the fingers of the 22 new cardinals and assigned them a "titular church" in Rome, making them full members of the Rome clergy and closer collaborators of the Pope in governing the universal Church.
Cardinal Collins's titular church is the Church of St. Patrick in the Via Veneto neighbourhood, where an English-speaking congregation worships. Cardinal O'Brien was assigned the historic Church of St. Sebastian on the Palatine Hill, and Cardinal Dolan became the titular cardinal of the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Monte Mario neighbourhood.
The new cardinals, the Pope said, "will be called to consider and evaluate the events, the problems, and the pastoral criteria which concern the mission of the entire Church."
The Pope asked the new cardinals "to serve the Church with love and vigour, with the transparency and wisdom of teachers, with the energy and strength of shepherds, with the fidelity and courage of martyrs."
The Bible reading at the service was taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark and recounted how the disciples were tempted by the idea of honour, but Jesus told them that greatness means becoming the servant of all.
"Serving God and others, self-giving: this is the logic which authentic faith imparts and develops in our daily lives and which is not the type of power and glory which belongs to this world," the Pope told them.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 February 2012 10:12
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Mexican Catholics: Religiosity with disconnect between faith, practice
Monday, 20 February 2012 12:22
David Argen / CNS
.jpg) By David Agren
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Catholic News Service
President Felipe Calderon came to this border city to boast of improvements in public safety and witness the destruction of a cache of illegal guns, grenades, and ammunition, which he blamed for contributing to more than 10,000 deaths in Ciudad Juarez since 2008.
He also received an inadvertent reminder of some of the extreme expressions of faith in Mexico when an army colonel showed him a sample of the assembled arsenal: pistols plated in gold and silver and engraved with images of saints and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Professions of piety are common and diverse in Mexico, where a quasi-religious drug cartel teaches from its own text, the downtrodden venerate pseudo-saints such as Santa Muerte (St. Death), and Our Lady of Guadalupe and her role in Mexican life and history form part of the national identity -- even in a country with an official secular ethos and government.
In a country where 84 percent of 2010 census respondents identified themselves as Catholic, questions arise over the commitment of Mexicans to a faith that has played a defining role throughout their nation's history -- from the Spanish conquest and evangelization to the independence movement promoted by Father Miguel Hidalgo to the 1920s Cristero Rebellion against anti-clerical laws.
Auxiliary Bishop Victor Rodriguez Gomez of Texcoco, secretary-general of the Mexican bishops' conference, told Catholic News Service dioceses across the country have worked to promote catechism classes and ministries with a missionary focus. He estimates between 10 percent and 20 percent of Catholic are committed church-goers and involved in parish life.
"There's a large group of people that participate sporadically in church life," he said, "even though they bring "a great religiosity."
This common form of professing the Catholic faith in a sporadic, yet seemingly pious way, perplexes church leaders and religious observers, who point to a disconnect in the way so many Mexicans identify themselves as Catholic, but fail to bring church teaching into their daily lives.
The disconnect is especially visible in the ways corruption, income inequalities and violence have been common in a heavily Catholic country.
"The religious expression ... is not very connected to a commitment to social transformation," said Victor Ramos Cortes, a professor at the University of Guadalajara. "A person can go Mass, but be a thief, or be unfair with the people around them."
Or be a drug dealer.
Cartel kingpins have made donations known as "narcolimosnas," or drug alms, which have built and repaired churches, including a chapel in the state of Hidalgo, bearing a plaque thanking the generosity of Los Zetas founder Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano.
The mixture of the criminals and church seems improbable, but it makes sense in the Mexican context, said Ramos.
"There's very little relationship between symbolic religious practices and daily living," he said.
Over the past five years, conflicts among drug cartels, criminal gangs and the Mexican military have left more than 45,000 people dead, yet many of those involved in the conflicts are baptized Catholics.
Bishop Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo considers such figures proof that the church has fallen short in its pastoral work.
He expressed frustration with the church's inability to draw the faithful into the parishes for more than just special occasions and provide ongoing training that would produce laypeople ready to play productive roles in Mexican public life.
"The administration of sacraments is when (priests) give a little formation to lay members," Bishop Vera said.
The church role in Mexican public life has been polemic for decades as church and state were officially estranged and anti-clerical laws limited priests to nothing more than preaching spiritual matters inside authorized houses of worship.
Bishop Rodriguez said these restraints prevented priests from fulfilling a more communitarian and social vision for the church like that encouraged by the Second Vatican Council.
The less-cordial period of the Cristero Rebellion led to the closing of churches and seminaries, altering the way the Catholic faith was practiced in Mexico.
This led people to follow the faith in their own way and develop a sort of "homemade religion," said Father Robert Coogan, an American priest in Saltillo and a diocesan prison chaplain.
"The way Catholicism has stayed alive in Mexico is through the rosary, not Mass," he said, explaining that most of the people he serves consider themselves Catholic, but only attend church for things like baptisms and weddings. "They don't see Mass as part of their Catholic identity."
Father Coogan sees devotion in the inmates he works with and the neighbors in the subdivision surrounding the prison in Saltillo, an industrial city 190 miles from the border with Laredo, Texas. Much of the devotion is informal, however.
Behind bars, Father Coogan estimates fewer than 25 percent of the inmates attend Mass, but more than half of them come to pray -- daily.
"Do they have a relationships with God? I say they do," he said of the inmates. But Father Coogan added, "I haven't found a way to make the sacramental life of the church important to them."
Informal expressions of faith date back decades and even centuries as evangelization in Mexico often involved some adapting of Catholicism to existing pre-Hispanic customs.
These informal expressions are often known as "religion popular" (people's religion).
One popular expression is the skeletal-looking Santa Muerte, which Father Coogan says is venerated by 40 percent of the prisoners in Saltillo and is looked to for miracles.
That search for miracles is common in Mexico, along with short-term thinking, Ramos said. That thinking, he said, is shared by criminals and their targets, who seek protection and intervention from the same source -- sometimes Santa Muerte.
"The Catholic religion, mixed with the indigenous perspective ... results in a sort of magic thinking," Ramos said. "At the end of the day, I'm not responsible, rather, if I invoke something magical, some rite, I'll be saved in some way."
Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:43
Some Catholics come home during Lent
Monday, 20 February 2012 00:00
Mary Shovlain and Mark Pattison (CNS)
By Mary Shovlain and Mark Pattison
VATICAN CITY (CNS)
In his Lenten message, Pope Benedict XVI called on the faithful to be concerned for one another and "not to remain isolated and indifferent" to the fate of others.
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, which this year is Feb. 22.
A day of fast and abstinence, it is not a holy day of obligation, but is one of the top three solemn occasions in the Church that draws the biggest crowds.
Materialism and a sense of self-sufficiency are obstacles to a Christian life of charity, the Pope's message said.
Instead of looking first to God and then to the well-being of others, people often have an attitude of "indifference and disinterest born of selfishness and masked as a respect for 'privacy.'"
He said that God's commandment to love "demands that we acknowledge our responsibility toward those who, like ourselves, are creatures and children of God."
The annual Lenten message was presented during a Vatican news conference Feb. 7.
The theme of the 2012 Lenten message was taken from St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews: "Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works."
The Pope outlined his message with three points taken from St. Paul's letter: "concern for others, reciprocity, and personal holiness."
Some U.S. dioceses make concerted efforts at Lent to invite Catholics who have stopped going to church back into the fold.
Some dioceses have reported success with the "Catholics Come Home" campaign, while others have set their focus on using the sacrament of reconciliation during Lent to draw Catholics back who have drifted away from the practice of their faith.
Catholics Come Home, an organization based in Atlanta, has been used in 33 dioceses with television commercials reaching an estimated 250 million in national campaigns, said the organization's founder and president, Tom Peterson.
Not all dioceses have before-and-after numbers, but "in those dioceses that have had historical census data and have been able to track since Catholics Come Home, Mass attendance has increased an average of 10 per cent," Peterson said.
Waging such a campaign, especially with TV ads, can seem costly, Peterson admitted.
"Bishops and dioceses don't have extra money to do things like this, but when families and parishioners are asked if they have a relative, a friend, a neighbour or a co-worker away from the Church, nearly 100 per cent say yes," he said.
"When they're asked, 'Would you like them to come home?' tens of thousands of people say yes" by contributing to the cost of such a campaign.
Peterson said a campaign can be undertaken "that would be bringing souls home for about $11 dollars apiece, a pretty good investment, in my view."
Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:41
Catholics must know truth if they are to share it, Pope tells cardinals
Friday, 17 February 2012 14:39
Cindy Wooden / CNS
 By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY
If objective truth does not exist, "there is no compass and we won't know where to go," Pope Benedict XVI told members and almost-members of the College of Cardinals.
An awareness of the truth of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ makes life "rich and beautiful" and is essential for sharing the Christian faith with others, the Pope said Feb. 17 at the end of a daylong meeting of the College of Cardinals.
The Pope thanked Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who gave the day's main presentation on missionary activity and the new evangelization. The Pope said the New York prelate's talk was "enthusiastic, joyful and profound."
In his morning address to the group, which included most of the 21 other churchmen who were to be made cardinals with him Feb. 18, Cardinal-designate Dolan said secularism has had an easy time spreading through many traditionally Christian cultures because so many Christians do not know their faith and do not grasp the truth it teaches.
While the New York prelate did not downplay the challenges the Church faces in reviving the faith of its members and bringing the Gospel to those who have never heard it, he delivered his assessment with his characteristic smile and broad gestures, telling Pope Benedict and the cardinals that evangelization requires joy and love.
"When I became the archbishop of New York, a priest told me, 'You better stop smiling when you walk the streets of Manhattan or you'll be arrested,'" he said, but he still believes Christians must show the world that faith is saying yes "to everything decent, good, true, beautiful and noble."
The meeting was attended by 133 prelates, including at least 20 of the 22 who were to receive their red hats from the Pope the following morning.
During the morning session, Pope Benedict did not address the assembly and was not one of the seven participants who commented on the presentation by Cardinal-designate Dolan, although the Pope did laugh when the New York archbishop made fun of his speaking Italian "like a child."
The morning session also featured a brief presentation by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, on plans for the 2012-2013 Year of Faith.
The Pope spoke at the end of the evening session, after another 20 cardinals and cardinals-designate had taken the floor to speak.
Pope Benedict told the assembly that the teachings of the Second Vatican Council were important for "rediscovering the relevance of Jesus and of faith" today, and he echoed Cardinal-designate Dolan's call for a true renewal of catechesis to combat what has been defined as "religious illiteracy."
In his morning presentation, Cardinal-designate Dolan said that when Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, asked him to be the main presenter, he hinted that he did so because New York "might be the 'capital of secular culture.'"
"New York, without denying its dramatic evidence of graphic secularism, is also a very religious city," he said, where even those "who boast of their secularism" exhibit an openness to the divine and have questions about God.
While secularism "is invading every aspect of daily life," the New York prelate said, it also is true that most people, on some level, still question the ultimate meaning of life and still ponder the idea of God.
"Even a person who brags about being secular and is dismissive of religion has within an undeniable spark of interest in the beyond, and recognizes that humanity and creation is a dismal riddle without the concept of some kind of creator," he said.
The cardinal-designate said those people don't want to be considered objects of missionary activity, but Christians have an obligation to help them maintain their search for meaning in life.
Humility, joy and love are key to the success of the evangelization efforts of the Church and its members, he said.
"Triumphalism in the Church was dead" after the Second Vatican Council, he said, but "so was confidence."
Catholics recognize that they and their Church need conversion, too, he said. And, they must be convinced that what they are sharing with others is not a doctrine, but the person of Jesus.
At the same time, because Jesus is the truth, Catholics must make a commitment "to combat catechetical illiteracy," he said.
"True enough, the new evangelization is urgent because secularism has often choked the seed of faith, but that choking was sadly made easy because so many believers really had no adequate knowledge or grasp of the wisdom, beauty and coherence of the truth," he said.
Cardinal-designate Dolan said that on the eve of receiving his red hat from the Pope, he also had to speak of the fact that Christians are called to love and serve the Church and their neighbours, even to the point of shedding their blood if necessary.
The cardinals, he said, "are but 'scarlet audiovisual aids' for all our brothers and sisters," who also are called "to be ready to suffer and die for Jesus."
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, did not release the names of the 27 cardinals who intervened in the discussion, but he summarized the points that were made. Several of the cardinals, he said, spoke about the difficulties evangelizing in their specific countries or cultures.
Mention was made of the growing number of Christians in China, "despite the difficulties," presumably with government control over religion; about interreligious dialogue and the fight against poverty in India; the important role of popular religious devotions for evangelization in Latin America; and about secularism's attempts to marginalize religion in the West.
Participants insisted on the importance of ecumenism for fostering a common Christian witness to the faith, on the continuing relevance of the Second Vatican Council as a guide for the Church today and on the value of Christian joy and holiness for evangelization, he said.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:42
Revised contraceptive mandate prompts reaction from Catholic groups
Friday, 17 February 2012 09:40
Carol Zimmermann / CNS
 By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON
A former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and the president of The Catholic University of America were among 300 signers of a letter who called President Barack Obama's revision to a federal contraceptive mandate "unacceptable" and said it remains a "grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand."
On Feb. 10, Obama said religious employers could decline to cover contraceptives if they were morally opposed to them, but the health insurers that provide their health plans would be required to offer contraceptives free of charge to women who requested such coverage.
The change came after three weeks of intensive criticism that Department of Health and Human Services' contraception mandate would require most religious institutions to pay for coverage they find morally objectionable, despite a limited religious exemption.
Now questions have been raised over how the revision announced by the president will pertain to the many dioceses and Catholic organizations that are self-insured and whether it could still force entities morally opposed to contraception to pay for such services.
The letter signed by former Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard and Catholic University's John Garvey, along with professors and other academics, and Catholic and other religious leaders, said it was "an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept an assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick."
Other critics also said the change was a matter of semantics and still failed to address the conscience rights of faith groups and the issue of religious liberty.
Supporters, who included organizations such as Catholics United and Catholic Democrats, said it was a viable response that would keep conscience rights intact and address the health care needs of women.
Still others who opposed the contraceptive mandate said the revision could be a step in the right direction but needed more study because many questions "remained unanswered."
Catholic Charities USA said Feb. 16 that contrary to media reports the organization has "not endorsed" the revision announced by Obama.
"We unequivocally share the goal of the U.S. Catholic bishops to uphold religious liberty and will continue to work with the USCCB (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) toward that goal," it said in a statement posted on its website.
Michael Galligan-Stierle, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, told Catholic News Service that his organization has "conveyed to the administration that we are interested and deeply committed to ongoing conversation" about the issue.
"We look forward to more in-depth, serious negotiations based on religious liberty being the primary issue on the table," he added.
Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, who has called the HHS mandate "profoundly disturbing on many levels," said Obama's revision was a "welcome step toward recognizing the freedom of religious institutions to abide by the principles that define their respective missions."
In a Feb. 10 statement on the university's website, he said that a "number of unclear and unresolved issues" must be addressed and he hoped they would be discussed in future meetings of U.S. bishops and other religious leaders and White House officials.
An Obama administration official who asked not to be named told CNS in an email Feb. 13 that the White House planned in the coming weeks to convene "a series of meetings with faith community leaders" about the HHS mandate. A particular focus of the meetings, he said, would be self-insured group health plans that cover the employees of many Catholic dioceses and institutions.
The Catholic Health Association, in a Feb. 13 statement on its website, said it was looking forward to "reviewing the specifics of the changes in the mandated benefits."
"On Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, we were notified that our organizations would not have to buy or refer employees for contraception and other services. We were also told that the self-insured plans would be accommodated in this," the CHA statement said. "At this time, there are many unanswered questions about specifics. We now have the challenging work of reviewing the proposed rules, examining their impact and giving input before they are finalized.
"As more is known about this, we will be getting that information out to the membership as quickly as possible."
As published in the Federal Register Feb. 15, the final rule said HHS "will work with stakeholders to propose and finalize this policy" before it takes effect in August 2013.
A Feb. 10 statement by the Cardinal Newman Society said it would "continue to work with Catholic colleges and universities to find the most acceptable solution to this violation of their religious liberty. But there can be no compromise that does not eliminate the mandate."
Last fall, 18 Catholic colleges asked the Obama administration to exempt all religious individuals and institutions from being forced to participate in the federal contraception mandate.
The Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Mich., issued a Feb. 13 statement taking the Obama administration to task for failing to "comprehend Catholic moral reasoning and the full-meaning of the principle of religious liberty." They called it "insulting" that the Obama administration suggested the revision would be "net cost neutral."
"It is simply impossible to ensure that the insurance companies will not pass on those costs to the organizations and individuals who conscientiously object to their insurance policies covering abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and artificial contraception," the statement said.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, based in Silver Spring, Md., called the revised mandate "fair and a helpful way for us to move forward."
"This ruling is a major victory for religious liberty and women's health," said a statement signed by several professors at Catholic universities and other religious leaders including Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who leads Network, the Catholic social justice lobby.
In San Francisco, a group of Catholics planned to protest the HHS contraception mandate with a demonstration across the street from an auditorium where Obama was to attend a fundraiser the evening of Feb. 16.
In Michigan, the Catholic conference of the state's bishops applauded the state House of Representatives for passing a resolution that calls on the Obama administration to rescind the HHS mandate, highlights the administration's "attack on religious freedom" and urges the U.S. House and Senate to pass the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.
Contributing to this story was Dennis Sadowski.
Last Updated on Saturday, 18 February 2012 01:47
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