Saint Thomas Indian Mission Church

Nicaraguan political prisoner Juan Sebastian Chamorro speaks to the press ouside a hotel in Herndon, Virginia, on Feb. 9, 2023, after he was released by the Nicaraguan government. / Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Washington D.C., Mar 23, 2023 / 17:14 pm (CNA).

Recently released political prisoners and human rights activists testified before members of Congress Wednesday about the ongoing persecution in Nicaragua, which one witness called an “unholy war against the Catholic Church.”

In recent years, the Nicaraguan government under Daniel Ortega has detained, imprisoned, and likely tortured numerous Catholic leaders, targeting at least one bishop and several priests. 

In addition, the Ortega regime has repressed Catholic radio and television stations and driven Catholic religious orders, including the Missionaries of Charity, from the country. 

Among those to testify March 22 was Juan Sebastian Chamorro, a former presidential candidate opposed to the Ortega regime who detailed his arrest and imprisonment.

“I was kidnapped by the police from my house the night of June 8, 2021. I was captured in front of my wife and my daughter … My family did not know anything about me until I was able to see my sister … almost three months after my arrest,” he said.

“Today, as the result of this authoritarian project in Nicaragua, there is no law, there is no media, and there are no civil rights.”

Other witnesses included Bianca Jagger, a Nicaraguan human rights activist and former actress, and Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan scholar and activist who is another recently freed political prisoner. It was Jagger who called the repression an “unholy war against the Catholic Church and civil society in Nicaragua.”

Dozens of other Nicaraguan exiles attended the hearing, held at the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill before members of two House subcommittees: the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and the Subcommittee on Global Health, Human Rights, and International Organizations. The latter body is chaired by Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey.

“Under President Ortega, Nicaragua has become a pariah dictatorship, in league with other human rights abusers like Cuba. Russia, Iran, North Korea, and the People’s Republic of China,” Smith said in his opening statements.

According to Chamorro, “the repression against the Catholic Church in Nicaragua is unprecedented in the history of Latin America … After putting all opposition in jail, repressing all forms of protest, the dictator had to deal with the last standing voice defending freedom, defending peace, and defending human dignity.”

“Ortega had to silence the voice of the Church in order to impose his own voice of hate and violence,” Chamorro added.

On Feb. 10, the Ortega regime struck at the heart of Nicaraguan Catholicism by sentencing one of the country’s foremost leaders, Bishop Rolando Álvarez Lagos, to 26 years and four months in prison for being a “traitor to the homeland.” 

Pope Francis condemned Alvarez’s arrest, likening Ortega’s regime to Nazi Germany. 

Last week the Vatican’s diplomatic headquarters in Nicaragua was forced to close and its last remaining diplomat, the chargé d’affaires (ambassador), left the country, officially cutting diplomatic ties with the Church in what is a deeply Catholic country. A little more than a year ago, Ortega expelled the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag.

“Alvarez is in prison because he was the only voice left free to preach an undeniable truth, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Maradiaga said during his Wednesday testimony. 

Members of Congress, including Smith; Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Florida; and Rep. French Hill, R-Arkansas, followed the testimony by focusing their questions to witnesses on the reasons beyond Ortega’s repression and how the U.S. can best respond to the Ortega regime’s oppression.

Salazar asked why Ortega has targeted the Catholic Church in particular.

“This guy is a tyrant. This guy is willing to bet anything to do anything to push his plan … and he knows that the Catholic Church is the only institution in his way,” Maradiaga answered.

“The message of the leaders of the Catholic Church was very powerful,” Chamorro said. “They defended with a strong voice and Ortega didn’t appreciate that; he doesn’t like criticism.”

Smith told CNA after the hearing that he “learned a lot” from the testimony, and he criticized what he called a lack of response from the Biden administration.

“Not enough is being done. I wish somebody would ask Biden … ‘You say what a great Catholic you are, what about Bishop Alvarez?’” Smith said.

“Why aren’t we doing something with the [U.N.] Human Rights Council? Bring an action against Nicaragua right now, do it,” he continued. “Charles Taylor, the president of Liberia, has got 50 years for his crimes against humanity. It can be done. It takes a commitment and purpose, and it’s lacking.”

Pleuntje via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Boston, Mass., Mar 23, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee has stripped one of his priests of the faculty to hear confessions following the clergyman’s public support for civil laws mandating that priests break the seal of confession for sins of sexual abuse.

“I have informed Father James Connell that effective immediately he is to cease all such erroneous communications that distort the teachings of the Church about the confessional seal,” Listeicki wrote in a March 22 statement. 

“I have also immediately removed the canonical faculties of Father Connell to validly celebrate the sacrament of confession and to offer absolution, here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and thereby also in the Catholic Church around the world.”

Connell, a retired priest in the archdiocese and former vice chancellor, made comments March 13 in delawareonline.com advocating for a Delaware state bill that mandates priests break the seal of confession for penitents who confess sins of child sexual abuse. 

Connell wrote that “no institution in our society, not even a recognized religion, has a significant advantage over governments’ compelling interest and responsibility to protect its children from harm by abuse or neglect.”

“Thus, no valid freedom of religion argument rooted in the absence of truth can provide a moral justification for sheltering perpetrators of abuse or neglect of children from their deserved punishment, while also endangering potential victims,” he continued.

This isn’t the first time Connell, a canon lawyer, has spoken publicly on the issue. In 2018, he appealed to Pope Francis in an online article to “release from the seal of confession” all information regarding child or vulnerable adult sexual abuse so authorities can be notified.

The seal of confession “is not a matter of divine law,” he said in that piece. 

In the Code of Canon Law, Canon 983 says that “the sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”

In 2019, he filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court against Wisconsin and nine other states arguing that exemptions for the clergy from being mandatory reporters in cases when sexual abuse became known to them under the sacramental seal are unconstitutional.

That lawsuit was dismissed by the judge one day after it was filed.

Connell is a vocal advocate for victims of clerical sexual abuse. Following the August 2022 death of Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who covered up priestly sexual abuse and paid hush money to a former adult seminarian with whom he had a sexual relationship, Connell publicly called for clergy in the archdiocese to boycott the funeral.

Connell himself was accused in 2009 of covering up a sexual abuse case when he worked in the chancery, a claim that both he and the archdiocese denied.

In his recent column, Connell wrote that “all people in Delaware should support the proposed HB 74 that would repeal the Delaware clergy-penitent privilege statute.”

Listecki said that Connell’s comments on the confessional seal are “gravely contrary” to Church teaching and that the Church “firmly declares that the sacramental seal of confession is always, and in every circumstance without exception, completely inviolable.”

“The false assertions of Father James Connell have caused understandable and widespread unrest among the people of God, causing them to question if the privacy of the confessional can now be violated, by him or any other Catholic priest,” he said.

CNA reached out to Connell for comment but received no response by time of publication. 

Sandra Peterson, the archdiocese’s communications director, referred CNA to Listecki’s statement and added that she is unaware of any intervention against Connell for his prior comments against the seal of confession in the two years she has been working for the archdiocese.

null / Bilderstoeckchen/Shutterstock

St. Louis, Mo., Mar 23, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles will lead a six-mile eucharistic procession on Saturday through the city as part of the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year initiative of the U.S. bishops to renew Catholics’ devotion to Christ in the holy Eucharist.

The March 25 procession will go from a historic Los Angeles mission church, three miles down a main road to another parish, and back.

The day will begin with Mass at 8:30 a.m. PT at the historic Mission San Gabriel, which held its first Mass in more than two years last September after suffering severe damage in an arson attack in mid-2020. Following the Mass, the procession will begin at 9:30. The faithful are invited to walk along with the procession after signing up online.

The route will take the Eucharist through downtown Los Angeles to St. Luke the Evangelist Church before returning to Mission San Gabriel for Benediction. The total route is about 6.5 miles, according to the archdiocese.

A eucharistic procession serves as a way to honor God by professing Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist in a public way. A priest carries a monstrance containing the Eucharist, and traditionally at least three altar servers — one carrying a cross, flanked by two others holding candles — lead the crowd of participants. Traditionally, the monstrance containing the Eucharist will be carried under a small canopy. The canopy serves as a reminder of the “tent of the presence” in which the Israelites of the Old Testament transported the bread of the presence — the prefigurement of the Eucharist — and also serves as a focal point for the procession.

The Los Angeles procession is part of the national revival’s Year of Diocesan Renewal, which kicked off last June with more than 100 eucharistic processions in dioceses across the country. During this stage of the revival, each U.S. diocese is invited to offer events to promote and inspire understanding of the Eucharist. The revival was launched, in part, in response to a 2019 Pew Research study that suggested that only about one-third of U.S. Catholics believe the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

A subsequent Year of Parish Revival launches on the solemnity of Corpus Christi on June 8. The bishops have said they want to encourage “grassroots creativity” and embrace diverse eucharistic traditions to help parishes foster a greater love for the Eucharist among their members. Parish-level initiatives could include offering teaching Masses and small-group formation, the leader of the initiative, Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, has said. 

The revival is set to culminate with the National Eucharistic Congress to be held in Indianapolis from July 17-21, 2024. More than 100,000 Catholics are expected to attend in person, with more joining remotely, to celebrate the Eucharist.

Father Carlo Crespi Croci (1891-1982) holding a crucifix from his ethnographic collection in Cuenca, Ecuador. / Credit: Salesianos de Don Bosco, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington D.C., Mar 23, 2023 / 15:11 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis on Thursday declared a priest, three religious sisters, and two laywomen as venerable servants of God, moving them each a step closer to canonization.

“Venerable” is the title given to a candidate for sainthood whose cause has not yet reached the beatification stage but whose heroic virtue has been declared by the pope. Each now needs a miracle attributed to his or her intercession to be approved by the Vatican in order to be beatified.

Here are their stories:

Father Carlo Crespi Croci (1891–1982)

Father Carlo Crespi Croci served as a priest for the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco throughout the 1900s. Born in Legnano, Italy, he died in Cuenca, Ecuador, where he evangelized the Catholic faith. He spent his time spreading the faith to young people and devoted himself to offering confession, at times spending 17 hours a day in the confessional, according to the Vatican. He was also a scientist who worked in the fields of botany and archaeology.

Mother Maria Caterina Flanagan (1892–1942)

Mother Maria Caterina Flanagan served as a religious sister for the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, also known as the Bridgettines. Born in London, she served in Stockholm, Sweden, where she was engaged in dialogue with the Lutheran community. She led a life “characterized by her total availability and sincere fidelity to God’s providence,” according to the Order of St. Bridget. 

Sister Leonilde of San Giovanni Battista (1890–1945)

Sister Leonilde of San Giovanni Battista was a religious sister for the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Born in Lisignano, Italy, she spent her days teaching and serving the poor, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication. During the Second World War, she went without many necessities so she could donate to the poor. 

Sister María do Monte Pereira (1897–1963)

Sister María do Monte Pereira, from Funchal, Portugal, served as a religious sister of the Congregation of the Hospitaller Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She spent her life caring for the sick.

Maria Domenica Lazzeri (1815–1848)

Maria Domenica Lazzeri was a lay Catholic from Capriana, Italy. In her childhood, she served the poor and suffering and cared for her sick mother. She then fell ill herself with severe anorexia that left her bedridden from age 19 until her death at the age of 33. In 1835, it is believed, she received the stigmata on her hands, her feet, and her ribcage as well as the sign of the crown of thorns on her head, which dripped blood every Friday, according to the Vatican. She reportedly lived most of the time she was bedridden without eating any food, except for the holy Eucharist. 

Teresa Enríquez de Alvarado (1456–1529)

Teresa Enríquez de Alvarado was a lay Catholic and mother. Born to a noble Spanish family, she was an attendant to Queen Isabella of Castile. She is known for having donated much of her wealth to charity, caring for the sick and the poor, and educating boys who were orphaned from the plague. She worked to revive the worship and adoration of the Eucharist. 

null / Krisana Antharith/Shutterstock

St. Louis, Mo., Mar 23, 2023 / 14:50 pm (CNA).

The U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee on Thursday issued a statement reiterating the Church’s preference for burial of the deceased and stating that newer methods — namely alkaline hydrolysis and human composting — do not show respect for the human body.

“In recent years, newer methods and technologies for disposition of the bodies of the deceased have been developed and presented as alternatives to both traditional burial and cremation. A number of these newer methods and technologies pose serious problems in that they fail to manifest the respect for last remains that Catholic faith requires,” the bishops wrote March 23.

“Unfortunately, the two most prominent newer methods for disposition of bodily remains that are proposed as alternatives to burial and cremation, alkaline hydrolysis and human composting, fail to meet this criterion.”

The Catholic Church teaches that one day, at the final resurrection, the souls of the dead will be reunited with their bodies. Catholics are “obliged to respect our bodily existence throughout our lives and to respect the bodies of the deceased when their earthly lives have come to an end. The way that we treat the bodies of our beloved dead must always bear witness to our faith in and our hope for what God has promised us,” the bishops wrote.

Noting the upcoming celebration of Easter, when Christians celebrate Christ’s bodily resurrection, the bishops reiterated that “the Church has always taught that we must respect the bodies of the deceased.” Thus, a traditional burial is “considered by the Church to be the most appropriate way of manifesting reverence and respect for the body of the deceased because it ‘honors the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit,’ and clearly expresses our faith and hope in the resurrection of the body.”

The process of human composting — also known as natural organic reduction — is a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S. and has been legalized in a handful of states, most recently California. When a body is composted, it is placed in a reusable container where microbes and bacteria decompose it into soil over the course of 30-45 days. Alkaline hydrolysis is a process whereby a human body is broken down in a tank of chemicals at high pressure and heat, resulting in a few bone fragments and a large quantity of wastewater.

Although the practices of cremation, human composting, and alkaline hydrolysis all involve the acceleration of the decomposition of the body, the latter two do not allow for all parts of the body to be “gathered together and reserved for disposition,” the bishops noted.

“There is nothing distinguishably left of the body to be placed in a casket or an urn and laid to rest in a sacred place where Christian faithful can visit for prayer and remembrance,” the bishops said.

The Catholic Church as a whole does not have an official teaching on the composting of human bodies but has weighed in many times over the years on the practice of cremation. While strongly discouraged, cremation can be permissible under certain restrictions; notably, the remains are not to be scattered and must be kept in a sacred place out of reverence for the Church’s teaching on the eventual resurrection of the body.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s October 2016 instruction Ad Resurgendum Cum Christo states that while cremation “is not prohibited,” the Church “continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased.”

In that same document, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clarified that a person’s ashes are not to be scattered nor kept in the home or preserved in mementos or jewelry but instead must be “laid to rest in a sacred place,” such as in a cemetery or church. As the document explains, “by burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity.”

California legalized the practice of human composting in 2022, and it is set to become available in the state by 2027. Ahead of the legalization, the California Catholic Conference said the use of a body composting method originally developed for farm animals creates an “unfortunate spiritual, emotional, and psychological distancing from the deceased.” In addition, executive director Kathleen Domingo said, the process “reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity.”

Bishops in states such as Texas, Missouri, and New York have expressed opposition in recent years to the legalization of alkaline hydrolysis.

Pope Francis waves at pilgrims from China at the general audience in St. Peter's Square on Sept. 7, 2016. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.

Washington D.C., Mar 23, 2023 / 14:08 pm (CNA).

In another crackdown on religious freedom, local authorities in an eastern Chinese city ordered parents of kindergarteners to sign a pledge that affirms they are not religious. 

Guardians of children at schools in Wenzhou, a city in the Zhejiang province, were asked to sign a “pledge form of commitment for family not to hold a religious belief,” according to the human rights group China Aid.

The pledge states that the parents affirm they “do not hold a religious belief, do not participate in any religious activities, and do not propagate and disseminate religion in any locations.” It also makes them affirm “exemplary observance of the [Chinese Communist] Party discipline and the country’s laws and regulations [and to] never join any Falun Gong and other cult organizations.” 

Falun Gong, a religious movement founded in China in the 1990s, is openly critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

The order came from Chinese Communist Party officials in the Longwan district of the city of Wenzhou, according to ChinaAid. The nonprofit is a Christian human-rights organization that received the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy for its commitment to religious freedom in China in 2019.

The district is home to about 750,000, people. Christians represent about 10% of the city’s population and have grown in number over the past decade. This is much higher than the national average, which is less than 1% Christian. 

One preschool teacher anonymously said the local authorities had never gone this far before, ChinaAid reported.

“In the past, the higher-level education department made it compulsory for kindergartens not to be superstitious and not to participate in cult organizations but did not mandate kindergarten children’s families not to believe in religion or participate in any religious activities,” the teacher said.

The Chinese constitution states that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief” but limits religious practices to “normal religious activities,” according to the U.S. Department of State. The Chinese government recognizes five religions, which it calls “patriotic religious associations”: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. However, the city and the nation as a whole have repeatedly been accused of violating the rights of those who practice these religions as well.

In Wenzhou, Christians have faced persecution in several ways. The city banned children from attending religious services and engaging in religious activities in 2017. The following year, the city forbade teachers, hospital workers, and other city employees from holding religious beliefs.

The Vatican signed a deal with the Chinese Communist Party in 2018, but much of the deal has remained secret. The deal was meant to unify the underground Catholic Church with the more public Catholic Church in China by allowing the Chinese Communist Party to play a larger role in the appointment of bishops. This ultimately led to crackdowns on Catholics in the underground churches, which resulted in priests, bishops, and even cardinals being detained or arrested. 

One of the fiercest critics of the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on Catholics is Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was arrested for helping operate the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund to help Hong Kong citizens who protested the Chinese Communist Party. In a 2020 interview with WION, Zen said the Vatican’s deal with China only emboldened the Chinese Communist Party to crack down harder.

“We have only the moral strength to resist peacefully against the persecution,” Zen said. “It’s [important] for us to keep our faith, not to surrender our faith; we can even sacrifice the sacraments — when you are arrested you cannot keep the sacraments but your faith is in your hearts to help you but you cannot deny your faith.”

null / SiljeAO/Shutterstock

Denver Newsroom, Mar 23, 2023 / 13:48 pm (CNA).

Some forms of contraceptive use have “a significant increase in risk of breast cancer,” a new study says, and one fertility specialist believes that women deserve to know the risks — and the alternatives.

“If it increases risk, women simply need to be informed of this. They need to be able to make an informed choice,” Dr. Marguerite Duane, MD, a family physician who specializes in women’s health and restorative and reproductive medicine, told CNA.

“Without birth control, their risk is lower. It is lower, and that is a fact,” she said. Some women may choose to take that risk, while other women with risk factors like a family history of breast cancer may choose not to.

Duane is an adjunct associate professor at both Georgetown University and Duquesne University School of Medicine. She is also executive director of the Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach the Science, a group of physicians, health care professionals, and educators who provide information on natural or fertility awareness-based methods of family planning.

She responded to news coverage of a study published in the PLOS Medicine journal by Oxford researchers. The study shows a 20% to 30% relative risk for breast cancer associated with progestogen-only contraceptives, according to CNN. The study drew on data from almost 10,000 U.K. women who were diagnosed with invasive breast cancer over a 21-year period and from more than 18,000 women who were not diagnosed with breast cancer.

Progestogens, also known as progestin, are synthetic hormone drugs that mimic progesterone, a natural hormone vital for menstruation and pregnancy. Progestogen-only contraceptives are provided in various ways: an implant, a hormonal intrauterine device, a contraceptive injection, or the “minipill.”

These contraceptives differ from the most popular contraceptive, a combined oral contraceptive pill that includes estrogen.

The researchers used data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and combined these results with previous research on contraceptives, CNN reported. They estimated “absolute excess risks,” which means “the additional number of women who would be expected to develop breast cancer in those who used oral contraceptives compared to those who did not,” according to the March 21 news release from Oxford Population Health’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit.

They reported “a significant increase in risk of breast cancer” regardless of which contraceptive drug was used.

In high-income countries, five years of use of combined or progestogen-only contraceptives has a 15-year “excess risk” of breast cancer dependent on age, according to researchers. They estimated that for women ages 16 to 20, this excess risk means 8 in 100,000 contraceptive users will develop breast cancer, while for women aged 35 to 39 it is 265 per 100,000 users.

“This, I think, further supports the argument that there are risks associated with hormonal birth control,” Duane told CNA. “Cancer is just one of the risks. There is also a significant risk of blood clots that can lead to stroke and heart attack in women. And I will tell you, I have personally met families who have buried their daughters due to the side effects of hormonal birth control, who felt anger and frustration that they were never informed.”

Any evaluation of the elevated relative risk of breast cancer should be based on each woman’s “baseline risk,” according to Duane.

“I do not have a family history of breast cancer. So I have a lower baseline risk. I also breastfed my children for nearly 10 years. Breastfeeding is a known factor that reduces a woman's risk,” she said. “For example, I might have a risk of breast cancer of 1%, whereas a person who has a strong family history and who also smokes, which is a known risk factor for breast cancer, might have a 10% risk of breast cancer.”

A 30% risk increase for Duane might mean a risk of breast cancer rising from 1% to 1.3%, whereas another woman could see a risk increase from 10% to 13%.

While birth control proponents will argue that contraceptives are safer than pregnancy, Duane said that just because someone is not on birth control does not mean that she will be pregnant. Duane herself has been pregnant for 36 months out of 30 years in which she has not used birth control.

Kirstin Pirie, a researcher at the University of Oxford, was the lead author of the progestogen-only contraceptive study. She told CNN that excess risks must be seen in light of the “well-established benefits” of contraceptive use for women of reproductive age, including birth control and hormone regulation.

Duane objected to this description.

“Pregnancy is not a disease, and the purpose of birth control is to prevent pregnancy. So hormonal birth control is synthetic steroid hormones that are given to healthy women to essentially create a diseased state, to make them infertile,” she said. “It does not regulate hormones; to be very clear, it suppresses normal hormone production.”

“The World Health Organization [WHO] recognizes hormonal birth control, specifically combination hormonal birth control, as a class one carcinogen. It is in the same category of cancer risk as tobacco, and asbestos,” she said. “And yet, it is considered a preventive health service that should be provided for free, again, to prevent pregnancy, which itself is not a disease.”

WHO’s International Association for Research of Cancer on its website lists estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives as among 122 carcinogenic agents. It also notes “convincing evidence” that the drug has a “a protective effect against cancer in the endometrium and ovary.”

“Natural methods of family planning or fertility awareness-based methods can be used and can be used very effectively with effectiveness rates comparable to hormonal birth control. I think that’s really important,” Duane said. “The World Health Organization recognizes fertility awareness-based methods as the only form of family planning with no medical side effects.”

Catholic ethics rejects the use of contraceptives.

John F. Brehany, executive vice president of the National Catholic Bioethics Council, warned that Catholics should not adopt a “contraceptive mentality.”

“We should understand and respect the fertility of our bodies through the lens of faith — knowing that we are part of a created order designed by the God of love and life,” Brehany told CNA. “Life and sex are best approached within God’s plan (and using medicine and technology consistent with that plan), not as a series of risk mitigation calculations.”

null / Credit: Twitter/Ministry of Education of Bolivia

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 23, 2023 / 10:35 am (CNA).

Auxiliary Bishop Pedro Fuentes of La Paz, Bolivia, charged that  ideologies are being imposed on Bolivian society, especially in education.

In his homily on the healing of the man born blind for Sunday Mass at St. Francis Minor Basilica in La Paz on March 19, the prelate reflected on how to pass from darkness to light, from lies to truth, and heal “spiritual blindness.”

Fuentes also called for “light so that the education of the new generations not be manipulated.”

The bishop focused on a problem that afflicts Bolivian society: the educational curriculum imposed by the Ministry of Education.

Fuentes asked that the authorities be sensible and see “the damage that can be done if an educational curriculum goes forward that doesn’t have consensus and input from all those concerned.”

The bishop said that the design of the curriculum represents an “ideological slant that wants to get into the heads of children and young people.”

Addressing the faithful, he stated: “No one can tell us how we should think, no one can force us to think or believe in something, no one, no ideology, because the characteristic of the human being is freedom, and when we are free, we have the option to choose.”

“No one can give themselves the right to say ‘this is the best for the education of children and young people.’ No. You have to have consensus and get input from those concerned. We cannot impose, because when we do impose, the reactions are negative,” he added.

“Ideologies pass, and ideologies that want to get inserted into education significantly damage our society,” he said.

When the new curriculum was presented, the bishops of Bolivia charged that it was “unilaterally” determined by the government, without taking into account the contributions of the organizations that participated in the previous meetings, and called it “not education — it’s indoctrination.”

The bishop also prayed for “more trust” in the Lord, especially “in the most complicated circumstances of life such as the political situation that Bolivians are experiencing.”

“We ask for light for those who govern us” and also for “justice, which should be blind and thus be able to be impartial and not instrumentalized by those in political power.”

He also asked for “light so that there are no prisoners without a conviction, that there are no political prisoners, victims of revenge.”

In recent months, the bishops of Bolivia have denounced persecution by the government, which announced that it would call them to testify for the alleged 2019 “coup d’état,” the same reason why the governor of the district of Santa Cruz, Fernando Camacho, was arrested in December 2022.

In 2019, violent protests broke out following Evo Morales’ election to a fourth consecutive term as president amid accusations of election fraud. 

When Morales fled the country, Jeanine Áñez, vice president of the Senate, became interim president, following the constitutional order of succession to the presidency.

However, when Morales’ political party won the presidential election to replace Áñez, the new government arrested her in 2021 on charges of terrorism, sedition, and conspiracy in an alleged coup d’état to oust Morales.

The bishops pointed out that they participated in the meetings to bring peace to the country then embroiled in the 2019 crisis because the government itself asked them to help find a solution “in those difficult and critical moments that our country had to go through.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Archbishop Ángel Sixto Rossi. / Credit: Cathedral of Córdoba

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 23, 2023 / 08:08 am (CNA).

Archbishop Ángel Sixto Rossi of Córdoba, Argentina, condemned an attack in his city on a home where young people recovering from addictions live.

The prelate warned about the violent situation and its similarities to the city of Rosario, some 230 miles to the southeast, where there has been a sharp escalation of violence involving clashes between rival drug gangs.

“It depends on us for this to not become Rosario,” Rossi said.

The attack occurred March 14 in the Campo de la Ribera neighborhood of Córdoba, where Father Mariano Oberlin runs an addiction rehabilitation and social reintegration center.

The priest decided to make the episode public on social media, posting: “Yesterday afternoon around 4 p.m a guy looked over the perimeter wall of the rehabilitation center that we have in Campo de la Ribera where 40 kids live and fired two shots with a sawed-off shotgun.”

The car the attacker was riding in, the priest said, left at a high speed, passed in front of police officers, and almost caused a collision. As the car sped by, “the police acted as mere spectators,” he commented.

Oberlin criticized “the inactivity of the police” given the seriousness of the incident, “which could have ended in someone’s death.”

The priest himself and those with him went out to look for the perpetrators of the attack, found them, and pursued them, but they escaped again.

“We’re talking about a car clearly identified by make and color, which is driving around with an altered license plate and at least yesterday after committing the act with a sawed-off shotgun in the possession of its driver, who until two hours later was still cruising around the vicinity,” he noted.

“I was very hesitant to post this, for fear of reprisals,” the priest acknowledged, but he considered that the incident was “too much to keep quiet.”

“If we don’t confront those who want to take over the neighborhood, there will come a time when it will be very difficult to go back to the way things were. The vast majority of the people in our neighborhoods want to live with dignity and honestly,” he said.

As a result of what happened, the provincial authorities put the priest as well as the home he runs under police protection.

In a statement to Radio Mitre, Rossi expressed his appreciation for Oberlin’s pastoral work and considered that the attack was “an almost caricatural symbol of the daily situations experienced in poor neighborhoods.”

The archbishop announced that he will meet with the political authorities. The idea, he explained, is “to be able to sit down and talk, sit down and think about a more real and more aggressive strategy in the good sense of the word.”

“The fact that [Father] Mariano has decided to make it public, it was a decision, it’s a question for everyone,” Rossi said, anticipating that in coming days there will surely be “actions, conversations, with the aim of seeking solutions.”

“We usually say that this is not Rosario, it’s not Rosario yet. We are at a moment where it almost depends on us for this to not be Rosario, but if we are careless, it will be Rosario in three months, or it already is and it will be more blatant to see,” he warned.

“This has to be a joint effort, where some have more responsibilities than others, and Pope Francis often repeats ‘together we succeed or together we sink,’” he said.

Rossi also earnestly hoped that there would be a willingness “from each one of us, from the different areas” to do “a more serious, more aggressive job, not denying reality.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

The Frauenkirche, the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. / Diliff via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.5)

CNA Newsroom, Mar 22, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).

A potential legal case against Pope Benedict XVI over his handling of abuse during his time as archbishop of Munich has been dropped.

The public prosecutor’s office in Munich said on Tuesday it had “discontinued its investigations” against Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger and Friedrich Wetter, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The accusations had been investigated in the wake of the Munich abuse report, which raised allegations that “there could be misconduct on the part of Church officials in positions of responsibility.”

Cardinal Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI, served as archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982.

The Munich abuse report was released in January 2022 and faulted Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and his successors, Cardinals Friedrich Wetter and Reinhard Marx.

The study criticized the late German pope’s handling of four cases during his time in charge of the southern German archdiocese.

Benedict XVI, who strongly denied cover-up allegations, sent 82 pages of observations to investigators compiling the report.

On Tuesday, the public prosecutor’s office in the Bavarian capital of Munich said: “Insofar as suspicions arose from these events with regard to possible criminally relevant conduct by Church officials, separate preliminary investigation processes were initially entered.” 

The office examined “in particular whether an ecclesiastical responsible person could have aided and abetted, through a personnel decision, an act of abuse committed later by a priest that was subject to the statute of limitations.”

In addition to Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Wetter, who served as Ratzinger’s successor until 2007 and has issued an apology, former vicar general Gerhard Gruber also had been named an accused.

Cardinal Marx, the current archbishop, last year apologized and said he considered offering Pope Francis his resignation for a second time. Marx was not subject to the investigation now dropped.

On Tuesday, the public prosecutor’s office said: “In each case, the investigations did not reveal sufficient suspicion of criminal activity on the part of those responsible for personnel, which is why the preliminary proceedings were discontinued.”

In two cases in which Cardinal Ratzinger was considered an accused, “the examinations led to the conclusion that either no main offense eligible for assistance could be proven or, in any case, such an offense could no longer be prosecuted due to the occurrence of the statute of limitations.”

“From a legal point of view, it must be emphasized that the object of investigation of the prosecutor’s investigations was not acts of abuse committed by the Church personnel managers themselves, but possible acts of aiding and abetting by active action or omission,” the prosecutor’s office said.

“The prerequisite for criminal aiding and abetting is first that a prosecutable offense (such as sexual abuse of children) is committed by another perpetrator (in this case by a priest). In a second step, it must then be examined whether and in what form an ecclesiastically responsible person aided and abetted this act.”

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, in a reaction, reaffirmed “its unconditional desire to clarify the matter and its unrestricted willingness to cooperate and support any state investigation,” CNA Deutsch reported.

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising called upon “victims and all those who have information about abuse in this and other contexts in the area of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising to contact the independent contact persons for suspected cases of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.”