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September 12, 2011
ANCONA, Italy - Remembering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pope Benedict XVI appealed to government leaders and all people of good will to work toward a future marked by solidarity and peace. The pope marked the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States after celebrating the closing Mass for the Italian National Eucharistic Congress in Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast. Before leading the midday Angelus prayer with about 80,000 people gathered at a shipyard, the pope recalled the anniversary. "In commending to the Lord the lives of the victims of the attacks carried out that day and their families, I ask leaders of nations and people of good will always to refuse violence as a solution to problems, to resist the temptation of hatred and to work in society, drawing inspiration from the principles of solidarity, justice and peace," the pope said.
September 13, 2011
OTTAWA - Fr. Bill Burke notices a similar pattern in the workshops he has held over the past year on the new English translation of the Roman missal. At first those attending greet the changes with anger, trepidation and fear the new translation will take back the reforms of Vatican II, he said. They’ve heard rumours from the blogosphere or elsewhere that the “translations is terrible.” But as Burke exposes priests, music directors and diocesan staff to the new texts, they warm up to the richness of the new translation. He’s travelled to 27 dioceses so far, and plans to visit four more before the new missal is to be used everywhere in English-language parishes in Canada beginning the first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 27. During his workshops, Burke gives attendees copies of the collects for Advent and Christmas according to the new translation and asks them to follow the new turns of phrase while he reads aloud the current translation.
Thomas Dowd became the second youngest bishop in the world last week when, a day before his 41st birthday, he was ordained along with Christian Lépine as auxiliary bishop to the archdiocese of Montreal. Dowd is affectionately known as the “Blogfather” because, for the past eight years, he has incorporated the Internet into his ministry. He is credited as Canada’s first priest to maintain a regular blog, and intends to keep blogging from his bishop’s office. As he said in a recent interview, he can’t give Communion over the Internet but he can build communion through digital technology. “The Church is fundamentally a communication organization,” he said. “Jesus was a communicator par excellence. As a communication body, we need to use the latest and greatest ways to pass on the Good News.”
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Sept. 25 (Ezekiel 18:25-28; Psalm 25; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32) I’m not responsible. The devil made me do it. Society, my background and upbringing or my genetic makeup is responsible. And besides, it’s unfair. God is unfair — and maybe God doesn’t even exist. People have always had a barrage of excuses to explain their lapses, errors and failures, but accepting responsibility is especially difficult in our own time. We have dreamed up new and creative ways of evading responsibility. Ezekiel prophesied in a time of great turmoil and suffering — the exile of the Israelites during the sixth century BC. People were asking themselves the usual question after a great catastrophe: why? This passage is embedded in a long chapter (well worth reading) that discusses a change in Israel’s theological understanding precipitated by the experience of exile in Babylon. The traditional understanding of sin and punishment held that Israel was judged collectively — the sin of one was the sin of all. Punishment could be transmitted from generation to generation. But it was made clear that from now on everyone would be responsible for his or her own sin — no collective or transmitted punishment. Those who live an upright life will be blessed while those who turn away from God’s ways for a life of injustice and sin will suffer accordingly.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in one of his dialogues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, was once asked: “What are you trying to do?” His answer was something to this effect: I’m trying to write a Christology that is large enough to include the full Christ because Christ isn’t just a divine Saviour sent to save people; Christ is also a structure within the physical universe, a path of salvation for the Earth itself. Perhaps the most neglected part of our understanding of Christ, though clearly taught in Scripture, is the concept that the mystery of Christ is larger than what we see visibly in the life of Jesus and in the life of the historical Christian churches. Christ is already part of physical creation itself and is integral to that creation. We see this expressed in the Epistle to the Colossians. The author writes: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for in Him all things were created in heaven and on Earth; everything visible and everything invisible ... all things were created through Him and for Him. He exists before all things and in Him all things hold together ...”
Because I write about issues that concern Catholic singles, I have received well over a hundred e-mails asking for advice. I find these requests very moving. It is inspiring to read how determined my readers are to be faithful to the will of God for their lives, even though they are unsure of what that might be. It is humbling that they turn to me for help. Many of my single readers, particularly those over 30, are wistful about their place in the Church. They note the emphasis on “youth,” as in World Youth Day, on vocations to the priesthood, on marriage preparation and on families. They feel left out. It would be nice if priests would preach at least once a year on the single life. The majority of Catholic priests have personal insights into the single life that might prove helpful and inspiring to long-term single people. Simply acknowledging the existence of single, childless people over 30 would make them feel less invisible in the pews.
I had to laugh the other day when my son kidded me at dinner time: “Steak? I don’t like steak!” He playfully suggested pizza, and my daughter chimed in that she wished I’d made a tossed salad instead of Caesar. They reminded me of the teenage wisecracks I used to make about my mother’s cooking and, chuckling, I thought of how family dinners have been at the centre of my life since I was a little girl. Not too long ago, a visitor from California was astonished to learn that our family gathered for a hot sit-down dinner almost every day. “Do people really still do that — have family dinners?” he asked.
Last week was all about 9/11. This week should be about 9/12. Five years ago, on the day after the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Pope Benedict XVI gave his famous — or infamous in some quarters — Regensburg address. He spoke frankly about the role of faith and reason, the question of violence in religion and the challenges facing both Islam and Christianity. The subsequent eruption of violence in the Islamic world to protest the Pope’s suggestion that there might be a problem in the Islamic world punctuated the urgency of the questions engaged. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, presidents, prime ministers and princes visited mosques, hosted Ramadan fast-breaking dinners and loudly proclaimed that Islam is a religion of peace. All well and good, but fraternal goodwill and Christian charity is not a replacement for dealing forthrightly with the theological justification advanced for such violence. Bad theology is answered not by breaking bread together. It is answered by good theology. On 9/12 five years ago, Benedict did what he does best, namely, highlight the theological issues at stake, the most pressing of which was the status of violence in Islamic theology.
A fine, good priest told me recently that unless he begins the morning with 15 minutes in prayer, thanking God for all that he has been given, he simply cannot find the time in the rest of the day to do all the things he has to do. Now this is important. Not, “unless I pray first thing, I can’t find time to pray later,” but “unless I pray first thing, I can’t find time to do anything later.” It’s a vital distinction, and underlines the essence and essential importance of humility and of speaking and listening to God. We are nothing without Him, we need to thank Him and not take all that we have for granted, and without this divine communication we are dry and unproductive. Okay, okay, I need to come clean. This was said to me in confession. Where I was, of course, telling God of the usual banalities of a sinner’s existence. By the way, I don’t mean a face-to-face chat, or something equally repulsive; I mean confession. The priest is the mere conduit, and this is about something far more important than counselling. For some modernist fellow in sensible shoes, full of lukewarm understanding and ersatz empathy, to sit in front of me with nods and smiles is a horrible promotion of the self. I want to speak to God, not you Father!
September 14, 2011
SASKATOON - This fall, St. Thomas More College is celebrating 75 years of Catholic higher education as a federated college on the University of Saskatchewan campus. The college was founded by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto in federation with the University of Saskatchewan, a relationship modelled on St. Michael’s College with the University of Toronto. Established in 1936, the first school year saw a total of 39 students being taught by four faculty. Local Catholics had been trying to establish such a college since 1913, but couldn’t get all Saskatchewan bishops to sign on. Early in 1936, with the province in the grip of drought and economic depression, the bishops of Saskatchewan finally gave their approval, although they also stated that action on the college was “absolutely impossible” at that time.
When Fr. James Mallon adopted Monsi from a local animal shelter years ago, he never expected his shepherd mix pup would inspire theology lessons. “I’d take him out for a walk and he’d do something and a Scripture passage would pop into my head,” the Halifax-based Mallon said. For example, he’d notice Monsi straining on his leash so hard he was choking himself and Mallon would remember how St. Paul wrote about how “we strain forward and we forget what lies behind.” The priest would see Monsi (short for monsignor) running in the park and experience such joy watching him that he’d think to himself, “If I get such pleasure watching my dog being a dog, I wonder how much God gets pleasure in our being who we’re supposed to be.”
VATICAN CITY - Praying in the midst of suffering, Christians must remember how God has loved them all their lives and will rescue them, Pope Benedict XVI said. Holding his weekly general audience Sept. 14 in the Vatican audience hall, Pope Benedict continued teaching about prayer and used Psalm 22, "one of the most prayed and studied psalms," as an example of how to cry out to the Lord from a basic position of trust. The pope returned to the Vatican by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo to hold the audience with about 8,000 pilgrims and visitors -- too many to be accommodated at the papal summer villa, but few enough to fit in the air-conditioned audience hall.
TORONTO - Noelle Munaretto knew it was time to find a full-time job after graduating from Ryerson University. Influenced by the sudden media hype Twitter was attracting, she decided to sign up and, within 24 hours, was following about 300 people. By following the people that her existing contacts followed, Munaretto, a Catholic, was led to a tweet advertising a position she was interested in. And by August, she had a job as operations manager at the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance. The Internet and social media are critical in the job hunt, said Friar Richard Riccioli, former pastor at St. Bonaventure Church in Toronto and current director of Francis Corps, a young adult volunteer experience in Syracuse, N.Y.
TORONTO - The health of those who are “vulnerably housed” is just as poor as the homeless, says a recent study from researchers at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital. The study found that more than 85 per cent of homeless people have chronic health conditions and more than half have a mental health problem. But those who are “vulnerably housed” — meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing — have equally poor or worse health than those with no housing at all, found the study published in the International Journal of Public Health last month. “It’s something that’s not as visible to us because we don’t see them on the street,” said Dr. Stephen Hwang, principal investigator of the study and a physician-researcher at the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health.
TORONTO - Andrew Santos recently landed a full-time position at Salt + Light Television as an associate producer. A former member of the Youth Speak News team, Santos says YSN played a huge role in forming his vocation as a journalist. Santos, now 21, says his YSN editors always challenged him to think outside the box and to be as creative as possible. “And to this day, I still find myself exercising great care when it comes to my work.” And with a new year of Youth Speak News kicking off, another team of young writers will have the same opportunity to jump headfirst into Catholic journalism.
They call it Canada’s poorest postal code. When you walk a few blocks past Vancouver’s highrises and shopping districts, you’ll find a different city. People crowd the sidewalks at the corner of East Hastings and Main Street. It’s a district known for its poverty, homelessness, drug abuse and prostitution. It’s a part of town most try to avoid — all but one group. They’re an army dressed in red and their weapon is prayer. They’re called Agape. It’s a Catholic Christian Outreach ministry whose mission is to reach out to the women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and offer them a message of hope and love through Jesus. Agape helps women who are addicts and prostitutes, many of whom are also homeless. Agape means “God’s love,” to serve, expecting nothing in return. Volunteers in red jackets walk the streets every night of the year. They always proclaim the same message: God loves you and the only way to escape the bonds of addiction is through a relationship with Jesus. Agape teaches that for those who suffer, God can be a source of strength, comfort and unconditional love.
TORONTO - As the partisan rhetoric ramps up for the Ontario election, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association’s attempts at influencing the vote seem to be having little impact so far. OECTA’s “Who Speaks for Children” campaign was launched on YouTube in March. It highlights the successes of Ontario students since 2003, when the Liberal government came to power. It lauds Ontario’s recent education successes and refers to the tumultuous period of the Mike Harris years when unions clashed constantly and bitterly with Harris’ Conservative government. Billboard ads have also gone up across the province. In Toronto, the ad can be prominently found throughout Union Station where thousands of commuters from across the GTA pass through daily. At the end of August, the campaign moved into major shopping malls and is running in community newspapers.
TORONTO - The Canadian Augustinian Centre for Social Justice is part of a multi-faith partnership that will sponsor an upcoming forum on housing and homelessness. Taking place Sept. 20 at the Multifaith Centre at the University of Toronto, the centre is partnering with the North American Muslim Foundation and the MultiFaith Alliance to End Homelessness to activate and model peaceful and collaborative multi-faith approaches to social justice in Toronto, said Augustinian Centre director Brian Dwyer. “We want to open up dialogue among diverse religious groups about shared experiences with homelessness and poverty,” said Dwyer.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Several victims of clerical sexual abuse, a U.S.-based organization for survivors and a U.S.-based human rights organization formally asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Pope Benedict XVI and other top Vatican officials on charges they bear a responsibility for the abuse of children by Catholic priests around the world. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and their attorneys from the Centre for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based organization, presented their petition to the court Sept. 13, they announced in a press release. The Vatican press office declined comment.
MONTREAL - When Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Dowd came to the microphone after his Sept. 10 ordination, he paused, his smartphone in hand, pressed “Send,” and announced: “I just updated my Twitter account: It’s official. I’m a bishop.” One day shy of his 41st birthday when Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte ordained him, Dowd already had established himself as a blogging priest, adept in social media and the new evangelization. His blog and Twitter account now follow his service in the episcopate. Turcotte also ordained Auxiliary Bishop Christian Lepine, 59.