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Belgian Brothers of Charity hospitals must drop Catholic identity over euthanasia, says CDF…
CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 12:01 pm MT (CNA).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered 15 psychiatric hospitals in Belgium which belong to the Brothers of Charity to cease identifying as Catholic institutions after they allowed the euthanization of patients in 2017. The hospitals are managed by a civil non-profit corporation with the same name as the Brothers of Charity religious congregation which owns them. The CDF decision was communicated in a letter dated March 30, stating that “with deep sadness” the “psychiatric hospitals managed by the Provincialate of the Brothers of Charity association in Belgium will no longer be able to consider themselves Catholic institutions.” In a statement responding to the CDF’s decision, the superior general...
Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and getting an all-around clean start after COVID-19…
A woman wears a mask while waiting to ride the New York City subway in Manhattan, April 30, 2020. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and getting an all-around clean start after COVID-19. We began the month of May, at the top of a Friday morning, with a necessary interview with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee about a graphic sexual-assault allegation. The questioning, of course, came after a set-up that included the unholy litany of accusations against the current president of the United States. Advertisement The Biden interview came a few days after a post-midnight tweet from the president ridiculing a number of media personalities in cruel ways, including the cohost and spouse interviewing Biden that morning. And before that tweet was another from the preside...
It’s true: Everything is going to be all right. And everyone somehow knows this, because human hearts know that God exists…..
Everything will be all right. That was true on the day of the crucifixion, and it is true today — from the COVID-19 floors of hospitals to the unemployment lines. Everyone somehow knows that everything will be all right. “Everything will be all right” — “andrà tutto bene” — is what Italians from their balconies proclaimed at night early on in the COVID-19 crisis. It is what New Yorkers scrawled on a rock on the banks of the Hudson River near Brooklyn Bridge. An 86-year-old grandmother of 19 at St. Joseph’s Senior Home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, said it and lived. Many others remember it as the last words of the ones they have lost. They lit the Rio de Janeiro Christ the Redeemer with that message. Signs appearing from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chicago proclaim it. It was the message Sarah...
Pope Francis accepts early resignation of Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon…
Vatican City, May 4, 2020 / 07:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, who took a medical leave of absence from leadership of the Illinois diocese in December. The Holy See press office announced May 4 that the pope had accepted Bishop Conlon’s request to be relieved of the pastoral governance of the diocese. Conlon, 71, was appointed to Joliet in 2011. On Dec. 27, 2019, the diocese said that he would be taking a leave of absence because of an unspecified health problem. Retired Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, has served as apostolic administrator during Conlon’s absence. In addition to accepting Conlon’s resignation, the pope appointed Pates as the apostolic administrator sede vacante, the U.S. Conference of Catho...
A helicopter view of southern California beaches (plus Disneyland)…
[embedded content] This guy’s helicopter flyover videos of the Los Angeles area are so enjoyable to watch. Here are a couple more recent ones. The first one is a rare flyover of Disneyland: [embedded content] And here are some of the other southern California theme parks: [embedded content]
This NY bishop got COVID-19 after helping a man on the street in a coughing fit. And now he says, “I have no regrets whatsoever…” …
An Eastern Catholic bishop working at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States ignored the pleas of passersby on the street and helped a man who who had fallen in a fit of coughing. A week later, the bishop started showing symptoms of COVID-19. “I have no regrets whatsoever, even while I was suffering,” said Bishop Gregory J. Mansour, head of the Maronite Eparchy of St. Maron, based in Brooklyn, New York, April 29. Rather, he said the whole experience has given him a “better sense of communion with my priests and with the people.” “We’ve so many people going through this, suffering and some deaths,” Bishop Mansour told Currents, a news program on the Latin Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn’s NET TV. Mansour, who recently finished a term as chairman of Catholic Relief Services...
Blood of St. Januarius liquefies in Naples under lockdown…
Rome Newsroom, May 3, 2020 / 08:30 am MT (CNA).- The liquefaction of the blood of the early Church martyr St. Januarius occurred Saturday amid the coronavirus lockdown, leading the Archbishop of Naples to bless the city with the miraculous relic. “Dear friends, I have a big announcement to make: even in this time of coronavirus, the Lord through the intercession of St. Januarius has liquified the blood!” Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe said May 2. Cardinal Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, offered a Mass via video livestream from the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary to celebrate the recurring miracle, and then used the relic of the liquified blood to bless the city. “How many times our saint has intervened to save us from the plague, from cholera. St. Januarius is the true soul of Naples,”...
Two crucial tests for homeschooling…
By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | May 01, 2020 This spring, due to the school closures mandated by the CO19 lockdown, hundreds of thousands of American parents are having their first experience with home schooling. Coincidentally, for the many Americans who have already made home schooling a way of life, there have arisen two other critically important news developments: one a serious threat to home schooling, the other a huge potential opportunity. Consider the threat first. The May-June issue of Harvard Magazine contains a remarkably candid article entitled “The Risks of Homeschooling”, in which a distinguished Harvard Law School professor, Elizabeth Bartholet, makes her argument for a “presumptive ban” on the practice of home schooling. Bartholet sees the practice ...
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. But the difference between Him and a real shepherd is (literally) crucial…..
By Tom Hoopes, April 30, 2020 This is Good Shepherd Sunday (the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A) when we again review the ways Christ is like a shepherd. But it is also helpful to look at the ways he is nothing like a shepherd at all. Jesus Christ’s shepherd qualities are well known. He is our guide. He is our protector. He prods us back when we start to go astray. He leaves the 99 behind to search for us when we are lost. Sunday’s Gospel takes his “shepherdness” one step further. The Shepherd’s is the voice we recognize (think about that: Jesus is implying that we are so blind or distracted that he has to shout to keep us on track). He prevents imposter sheep from taking over. He even compares himself to the gate of the sheepfold. But let’s not forget in Easter the mystery that makes...
Pope Francis just raised Cardinal Tagle to a new rank. Why does this matter, you say? The answer may come in the next papal election…..
Cardinal Tagle with Pope Francis in 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano) Traditionally, six cardinal bishops from the Latin Church are appointed as titular bishops of Rome’s ancient suburbicarian sees. VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has raised Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle to the rank of cardinal bishop in a new sign of his esteem for the former Archbishop of Manila. The Holy See press office said May 1 that the pope had designated the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples as a cardinal bishop, along with Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. The elevation caps a rapid rise for Cardinal Tagle, who only took up his new post in Rome this February. He had previously served as the 32nd Archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2020. He was a...
Tracking the Asian giant ‘murder hornet’ as it reaches North America…
BLAINE, Wash. — In his decades of beekeeping, Ted McFall had never seen anything like it. As he pulled his truck up to check on a group of hives near Custer, Wash., in November, he could spot from the window a mess of bee carcasses on the ground. As he looked closer, he saw a pile of dead members of the colony in front of a hive and more carnage inside — thousands and thousands of bees with their heads torn from their bodies and no sign of a culprit. “I couldn’t wrap my head around what could have done that,” Mr. McFall said. Only later did he come to suspect that the killer was what some researchers simply call the “murder hornet.” With queens that can grow to two inches long, Asian giant hornets can use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of ho...
Pope phones autistic teen who ‘corrected’ him on Sign of Peace — and his family recorded the call here…
ROME – Last Wednesday Maria Teresa Baruffi, who lives in the northern Italian town of Caravaggio with her family, received a surprising phone call while standing in line at the supermarket: It was Pope Francis, asking to speak to her son, Andrea. Several days prior, Andrea, who is 18 and has autism, had sent a letter to Pope Francis to “correct” him because, during the time of the coronavirus, he invites those present inside the chapel for his daily livestreamed Masses to make the Sign of Peace, typically expressed with a handshake or a kiss. According to Francis, the youth told him, “You say, ‘Peace be with you,’ but you can’t say that because in the pandemic we can’t touch each other.” During his April 29 call to Baruffi, Francis explained that he wanted to give Andrea an answer. However...
