(We liked Pope Francis even when he was Jorge Bergoglio. This is the only story that ever brought down the whole website. People flocked to it after Cardinal Bergoglio was elected. - Ed. 2024)

Almost apologising for the actions of some priests, Bergoglio recalled the story of a young unmarried mother who had the courage to bring her child into the world and who then "found herself on a pilgrimage, going from parish to parish, trying to find someone who would baptise her child."

Vatican Insider reports that in his homily at the end of a Buenos Aires convention on urban pastoral care, Bergoglio called for an end to "sacramental blackmail" saying that "hijacking" of the sacraments is an expression of rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism.

"Sacraments are not a way for priests to affirm their own supremacy", said the Cardinal.

Rubbing the fragility and wounds of the faithful in their faces, or dampening the hopes and expectations of those who supposedly do not fulfil the 'requirements' in terms of doctrinal preparation, or moral status, is a pastorally misleading model which rejects the dynamics of Christ's incarnation.

"Jesus did not preach his own politics: he accompanied others", said Bergoglio.

Priests who deny the sacraments to people because of their life circumstances are the "hypocrites of today", and the "followers of the Pharisees", the ones Jesus turned his back on.

Emphasising that the Church is not an NGO or a proselyte of some multinational company", Bergoglio said denying baptism to children born out of wedlock is a form of "pharisaic Gnosticism" that "drives people away from salvation".

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• The Tablet
• Image: m24digital

I detected just the faintest whiff of scandal in the air - nothing said, but plenty implied.

I quipped: "Isn't that great."

Faces turned, eyes probing. "

Isn't it great that she is keeping the baby? Most girls and their families would have organised an abortion."

These days, any single mother who decides to keep her baby is a heroine … even a saint.

Ironically, for those who identify as Catholic, greater courage may be required if they find themselves fighting not only a prevailing negative cultural attitude but, sadly, the critical judgements of the very community that should provide unquestioning, unconditional support.

These judgements are no less damaging for being non-verbal.

Consider the story of Katrina who, at 19, found herself unexpectedly pregnant.

"To say this news was unexpected would be an understatement.

"I went into shock … Mark cried ... To us, this was a disaster.

"Everything we had planned, everything we were working towards was shattered ...

"We knew our parents would be severely disappointed and that mine might actually disown me.

"We were both from religious families and most of our friends were religious - WE were religious.

"We felt that all our friends were likely to judge or even not be our friends anymore.

"We didn't know what to do. Keeping the baby would mean potential ostracism from our friends and Church community. Not having the baby would mean going through with a termination, but escaping all the shame and our lives trotting on as planned ..."

As Catholics, we need to honestly ask: ‘How many young single Catholic women and their partners and/or families would feel like Katrina did about her faith community - whether parish or school?' Continue reading

• Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre.

Francis was speaking at a Q&A session near the end of a pastoral conference of Rome diocese on the family.

Crux reported that Francis spoke of a "pastoral cruelty" at the Q&A.

An example is priests who refuse to baptise the children of young single mothers.

"They're animals," Francis said at the Basilica of St John Lateran.

"This is individualism."

[It's] "an individualism which doesn't affect only priests, but society as a whole, that looks for pleasure, that is hedonist, searching for that ‘damned' well-being which has hurt us so much," the Pope said.

He was also asked about the balance between Church teaching on two subjects.

These are the indissolubility of marriage and being welcoming to divorced and civilly remarried couples.

Francis said that neither "rigorism nor laicism" are the correct path.

"The Gospel chooses another way: welcoming, accompanying, integrating, discerning, without putting our noses in the ‘moral life' of other people," he said.

During impromptu remarks, Francis said that "a large majority" of sacramental marriages today are invalid.

This is because couples do not enter into them with a proper understanding of permanence and commitment, he said.

"We live in a culture of the provisional," the Pope said, noting that this affects priestly and religious life too.

The Vatican's official transcript of the Pope's remarks stated "a portion" of sacramental marriages are null.

The change from the actual words was reportedly at the Pope's behest.

The Pope's remarks drew strong criticism.

Before the Q&A session, the Pope offered a "readers guide" of sorts to two recent synods on the family and to his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Francis warned against a "separatist logic" in Catholic attitudes about diverse family situations.

If a separatist logic is followed: "We believe that we gain in identity and safety whenever we differentiate and isolate ourselves from others, especially those who are living in a different situation."

Sources

• Crux
• Catholic News Agency
• Catholic News Agency
• Reuters
• Catholic News Service
• Crux
• Image: Irish Catholic

For Catholics, the unconditional respect due to human life begins when an ovum is fertilised. Embryos become children not by some addition to what they are, but simply by developing further as the kind of beings they already are.

No matter how undeveloped or damaged the potentialities of a human being may be, that life is sacred. This view runs counter to that of many people for whom the embryo is nothing more than a ‘clump of cells'.

‘How can we possibly accord the same moral status to a group of cells as to a person?' it is asked.

The claim that a four or eight-celled embryo is a human being clearly takes us beyond empirical observation.

As Gerry Gleeson and Tobin explain: "The common understanding of person in our culture has been shaped by modern philosophy's emphasis on self-consciousness as the mark of personhood. A much older understanding of person, however, located personhood in the dignity of a being's rational nature, irrespective of whether that being is conscious at a particular phase in his or her life.

"On this traditional view there is nothing problematic about saying that an unborn child is a person, for they are truly our fellow human beings, sharing our rational human nature … the key to understanding what a human embryo is lies in the connection between a human embryo and an adult member of the human species."[2]

Therefore, to judge something solely at the ‘material' level (it is only a clump of cells) is to ignore an important truth.

It is this view that underpins the Catholic position regarding abortion.But, to merely articulate such a position is not enough.

Some time ago I found myself on the fringes of a group of Catholics discussing the impending birth of a baby to a teenage girl. I detected just the faintest whiff of scandal in the air - nothing said, but plenty implied.

I quipped: "Isn't that great." Faces turned, eyes probing. "Isn't it great that she is keeping the baby? Most girls and their families would have organised an abortion."

These days, any single mother who decides to keep her baby is a heroine … even a saint.

Ironically, for those who identify as Catholic, greater courage may be required if they find themselves fighting not only a prevailing negative cultural attitude but, sadly, the critical judgements of the very community that should provide unquestioning, unconditional support.

These judgements are no less damaging for being non-verbal. Consider the story of Katrina who, at 19, found herself unexpectedly pregnant:

"To say this news was unexpected would be an understatement. I went into shock … Mark cried ... To us, this was a disaster. Everything we had planned, everything we were working towards was shattered ... We knew our parents would be severely disappointed and that mine might actually disown me.

"We were both from religious families and most of our friends were religious - WE were religious. We felt that all our friends were likely to judge or even not be our friends anymore. We didn't know what to do. Keeping the baby would mean potential ostracism from our friends and Church community.

"Not having the baby would mean going through with a termination, but escaping all the shame and our lives trotting on as planned ..."[3]

As Catholics we need to honestly ask: ‘How many young single Catholic women and their partners and/or families would feel like Katrina did about her faith community - whether parish or school?'

John Paul II writes in Evangelium Vitae: "As well as the mother, there are often other people too who decide upon the death of the child in the womb." (n. 59)

Many Catholics have probably never considered that our parishes and/or schools may well fall under that category.

The rhetoric that characterises Catholic teaching about abortion is unequivocal. But Donum Vitae also teaches that every child is a gift of God no matter the manner in which its conception is achieved (Part II,B,5).

It is not enough to be committed to only half the message! Critically, what we believe needs to be translated into attitudes and actions that are consistent with the divine origins of the gift of life.

Every new life is to be rejoiced over and celebrated. As the Scriptures note, we will ultimately be known by the fruits of our actions (Mt 7:16) rather than the purity of our teaching.

On that score, I suggest, we still have a way to go.

• John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre.
• Article used with permission.

The babies were illegally given away to be raised by married couples in "traditional" Catholic families.

The motivation was the social stigma attached to being an unmarried mother in middle-class families in Chile in the 1970s and 1980s.

In some cases, the biological mothers were persuaded that it was for the best.

But in other instances, the mothers were anaesthetised during delivery, and were later told their children had died, The Guardian reported.

Funerals with empty caskets were allegedly held in churches.

Priests were said to have pressured the mothers to give their newborns up for adoption.

Most of the cases took place during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

But some were reported as late as 2005.

The network involved wealthy families, gynaecologists, lawyers and social workers, but at the heart of the scheme was Fr Gerardo Joannon.

He admitted working with 10 doctors who helped coordinate adoptions.

The priest said did this to try to prevent back-street abortions.

But he insisted his role was limited, in that he only put families in contact with doctors.

Fr Joannon also said he only took part in adoptions the birth mother agreed to, and he denied saying funeral Masses for living infants.

But when pressured by media on the latter point, he said doctors had assured him the infants were dead.

One woman has accused him of pressuring her and allegedly helping in the disappearance of her newborn daughter.

Fr Joannon has been suspended from celebrating weekly Mass by Church authorities.

Several other priests were reportedly involved in the baby snatching ring.

Chilean Catholic Church leaders have promised to co-operate with secular authorities in their investigations.

Church leaders admit they have known about the network for at least 10 years. It was believed to have operated in six Santiago hospitals.

A Church spokesman said that injustices have been committed and human rights violated.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Huffington Post
• Image: 24horas.cl

Ironically, for those who identify as Catholic, greater courage may be required.

Catholic bioethicist Bernadette Tobin writes: "In order to understand the teachings of the Catholic Church in relation to questions about the beginning of life, we need to identify and appreciate the one idea that informs all of these teachings.

"This is the idea that the life of every human being is, in and of itself, valuable or sacred."

For Catholics, the unconditional respect due to human life begins when an ovum is fertilised.

Embryos become children not by some addition to what they are, but simply by developing further as the kind of beings they already are.

No matter how undeveloped or damaged the potentialities of a human being may be, that life is sacred.

This view runs counter to that of many people for whom the embryo is nothing more than a ‘clump of cells'.

‘How can we possibly accord the same moral status to a group of cells as to a person?' it is asked. Continue reading.

John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre

Source: The Nathaniel Centre

Image: Marist Messenger

Two "Band of Brothers" seminars were arranged by Matakana School to help fathers get more involved in their sons' lives, and as a forum for dads to share their issues. One session was for dads and another was for fathers and sons. Continue reading