The Capuchin friar, who died in 1957, co-founded the Capuchin Soup Kitchen.

Although he was a priest who wasn't allowed to preach, he listened "with his ears and his heart" to the needy.

His prayers and presence comforted visitors suffering from illness and trauma when he was the doorkeeper of St. Bonaventure Monastery between 1924 and 1945.

Casey was beatified because Vatican investigations showed there was no scientific explanation of how a Panamanian woman's genetic, disfiguring skin disease disappeared in the hours after she prayed at Casey's tomb.

She was among the tens of thousands at his beatification Mass which was held at the Detroit stadium.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, the prefect for the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided at the mass and led the rite of beatification.

He read a letter from Pope Francis, who described Casey as a "humble, faithful disciple of Christ." He was given the title of "blessed."

The church decrees "that the venerable servant of God, Francis Solanus, known in the world as Bernard Casey … a humble and faithful disciple of Christ, tireless in serving the poor … henceforth be called by the name of Blessed."

A life-size banner of Blessed Solanus was unfurled on the altar platform.

One of the tens of thousands at the beatification Mass said she'd "been waiting for this day for 14 years."

Lily Flask said she believed Casey's intercession helped save her husband from heart problems in 2003.

"I prayed every day to him. ... I had to be here today."

Source

• Detroit Free Press
• Crux
• WBIR.com

In 2013, Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron wrote that that Catholics who back same-sex marriage and receive Communion would "logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury".

But this month he told the Detroit Free Press: "Whenever it comes to Communion, the objective is never to steer a person away."

Archbishop Vigneron admitted that that faithful Catholics — dealing with gay relatives now legally free to marry in civil ceremonies and in other churches that perform same-sex marriages — are feeling torn.

"The Church and her pastors are there to help harmonise these priorities — of being faithful to and open about the truth (of Church teachings about sexuality), and of being loving and compassionate to fellow Catholics in their personal and family lives," the archbishop wrote.

"Given the variety of circumstances which go into a person's particular situation, the best way forward for one person may not be best for another."

Archbishop Vigneron's response drew praise from other Catholics.

"He's really taken a big step forward," said Tom Nelson, a Detroit-area Catholic who is involved with Fortunate Families, a group for Catholics with LGBT family members.

"It's a very welcoming and loving response. It's a Jesus response."

"It recognises that people, in their consciences, have to weigh the Church's teachings in their own lives and relationships," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBT equality in the Church.

"That is authentic Catholic teaching. He's not watering down anything. He's proclaiming the Church's teaching more accurately than he did back then."

There have been several instances in the US of Catholics being denied Communion either because they support same-sex marriage or are in same-sex marriages.

Some of these denials have happened at funerals of loved ones.

Sources

• Detroit Free Press
• Advocate
• Image: Free Republic

Detroit's Sacred Heart Major Seminary hired the actors to put seminarians through a three week acting and public speaking workshop.

The exercise has been nicknamed "Preaching Boot Camp", reported the Detroit Free Press.

Actors Arthur Beer and Mary Bremner-Beer have run the workshop at the seminary for the last few years.

The seminarians are taught how to project, how to control tempo, and how to master timing in order to deliver a Biblical truth or a laugh line.

The married couple's boot camp is a change-up from the typical seminary classes in Catholic theology and doctrine.

Boot camp classes begin with vocal exercises and seminarians also do breathing exercises.

One example of the latter is seminarians holding a lit candle in front of their mouths, while trying to exhale slowly enough to make the flame dance, rather than blowing it out.

To tap into the emotions, the seminarians are asked to write and deliver speeches about their mothers.

Then they have to deliver those speeches to their mothers.

When one of the seminarians said his mother started crying, Mrs Bremer-Beer, a college acting teacher, took it as a good sign: "Doesn't it make you feel good when they cry?" she asked.

Other exercises include memorising monologues about characters from plays and delivering these.

It is an admitted challenge for priests to break through to congregations, so the preparation is considered worthwhile.

"Priests today have to compete with a digital media culture where sound-bites, tweets and social media updates are the currency of communication. It's a real challenge for preachers to break through," said John Gehring, Catholic programme director at the Washington, DC-based advocacy group Faith in Public Life.

Sources

• Detroit Free Press
• Image: Creation.com

Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit said that Catholic politicians who advocate legal recognition of same-sex marriage should not receive Communion.

The archbishop's statement closely followed a similar opinion from a widely-read canon law commentator, Edward Peters, who is an adviser to the Apostolic Signatura, the top judicial authority in the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Vigneron said the Church wants to help Catholics "avoid this personal disaster".

He said: "For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the Church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: 'I believe the Church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the Church teaches.' In effect, they would contradict themselves.

"This sort of behaviour would result in publicly renouncing one's integrity and logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury."

In a post on his "In the Light of the Law" blog, Peter said Catholic teachings make it clear that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Therefore, he said, "Catholics who promote ‘same-sex marriage' act contrary to canon 209 § 1 and should not approach for holy Communion per canon 916. Depending on the facts of the case, they also risk having holy Communion withheld from them under canon 915, being rebuked under canon 1339 § 2, and/or being sanctioned under canon 1369 for gravely injuring good morals."

He said Catholic politicians lending support to same-sex marriage were in a similar situation, "with special attention being paid to the heightened responsibility that civil servants have to protect the common good".

Peters said the Church would regard any attempt by persons of the same sex to marry, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof, as null.

Sources:

Detroit Free Press

In the Light of the Law (Edward Peters)

Image: The Michigan Catholic

Specific mention was made of the role of women, married clergy and the treatment of homosexuals.

Members of a liberal group of U.S. Roman Catholics on Sunday called on Church leaders to open talks with their members on controversies ranging from the ordination of women to allowing priests to marry.

"When in God's name are the conversations going to begin?" asked Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun who addressed the meeting of about 2,000 people — part of a liberal wing that represents a minority in the 1.2 billion-member Church.

She likened the structure, with bishops and archbishops answering to the pope in Rome, to "a medieval system that has now been abandoned by humanity everywhere, except by us."

The Archdiocese's website said, "All of the invited keynote speakers have manifested dissent from Catholic teachings or support for dissenters," and clergy who attended the meeting were warned by Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron they might be de-frocked.

The group's "Catholic Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" reads like a list of grievances against the conservative leadership of Pope Benedict, who has frustrated liberals by ruling out the possibility of women priests or a married clergy and putting pressure on dissenting theologians.

"Few people realize how powerful the pope is," Swiss theologian Hans Kueng told the meeting through a video presentation. "We have to change an absolutist system."

About 600 people attended a rival meeting espousing a more conservative version of Catholicism in nearby Livonia, Michigan, on Saturday, according to local media reports. The archdiocese endorsed but did not organize that meeting.

Sources

• Reuters
• Image: Detroit Free Press

The liberal conference is sponsored by the American Catholic Council and is expected to be one of the biggest gatherings of left-leaning Catholics in years.

The three-day event that will attract high-profile critics of the church and about 2,000 Catholics from around the world to Detroit.

Archdiocese of Detroit is supporting a more conservative conference in Livonia, which will feature speakers who will critique the American Catholic Council's vision and explain the church's views.

Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron urged Catholics to stay away from the liberal conference and in a letter to priests and deacons, threatening "defrocking" may be a consequence.

Vigneron said he made "attempts to engage in a dialogue with (the American Catholic Council) about this planned event," but "the organizers of this conference have not replied to me directly."

American Catholic Council, an organization of 30 Catholic reform groups across the U.S., comes on the 35th anniversary of a gathering in Detroit to talk about church reforms led by then-Cardinal John Dearden, the former archbishop of Detroit.

The conference is expected to call for more democratic decision-making in the church and the possibility of allowing women into the priesthood, as well as married priests.

The competing conferences come at a time of growing concern about people leaving the Catholic Church. Almost one of three people raised as Catholic in the U.S. have left the church, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Catholics have experienced the greatest percentage-point loss of members of any major religion or denomination.

Both sides agree there's a problem, but they disagree on the solution. At the heart of the conflict is this question: What does it mean to be Catholic in the 21st century?

Source:

• USA Today