Addressing this is essential for maintaining moral credibility, supporting interfaith dialogue, and continuing the path set by Nostra Aetate.

While global attention was focused on the U.S. elections, people continued to die in the most dangerous, horrific war that the Middle East has seen since 1948.

Considering the United States as the center of the issue overlooks the enormity of what is happening to the east of the Mediterranean and the widespread, culpable indifference.

October 7, 2023, is a caesura and periodising date in our history.

There is no possible moral justification for what Hamas did on that day against Israel, a brutal reflection of its appalling commitment to destroying Israel and murdering Jews.

But while Europe and the Western world in general have a well-rehearsed response to antisemitism, their response to what happened after October 7 has been far more problematic.

Either Europe and the Western world do not realize the extent of what is happening to the Palestinian people, or they are in a state of moral and political denial. Or worse.

The behavior of the Israeli government and armed forces is beyond what is morally acceptable and legally permissible.

Israel continues to bomb places that can hardly be said to be a military target or where the proportion between military targets and civilian "collateral damage" goes beyond any understanding of morality and legality.

Civilian victims have become victims twice, thanks to widespread mistrust—or international ignorance—of the news in wartime propaganda. Yet, the reality of what is happening is undeniable.

Navigating religious and political tensions

Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself, and it's hard to fathom what this means from the quiet of the American suburbia where I write this.

However, looking back on it from the start, Israel's action in Gaza cannot be seen solely as a response to October 7.

The ethnic supremacist undertones of Netanyahu and his collaborators had been present long before October 7.

The narrative on the role of religions in world affairs is dominated by extremist positions — in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, not to mention Hinduism and more — that are too often considered the only true ones.

Christians and Catholics, in particular, must walk a very fine line.

There is a significant difference between clearly condemning the Israeli government's specific policies and the violent sentiments held by some Christians and Catholics toward the entire State of Israel, which often extends—implicitly or explicitly—to a broad animosity toward all Jewish people.

Needless to say, this goes back for millennia.

It is striking — and terrifying — to see how some radical-progressive Catholics went from Philo-Semitism in the late 20th century to the risk of seemingly flirting, sometimes unknowingly, with anti-Judaism and antisemitism today.

The pro-Israeli stance of many governments cannot hide the anti-Israeli aversion and sometimes the open antisemitism, especially among those who have not yet renounced political activism.

On the other hand, there is a moral unresponsiveness, even among the most aware and least naïve who acknowledge and defend Catholic-Jewish dialogue as one of the most important fruits of Vatican II and the post-Vatican II period.

Their fear that critique of the State of Israel could morph into new forms of anti-Judaism and antisemitism is real, but no excuse to sit on the sidelines as things progressively escalate.

Historically, the political, cultural, and ecclesiastical elites of countries important for Catholicism, such as France and Italy, have had a different and more intimate relationship with both Muslims and Christians in the Middle East and the Arab world compared to Britain and the United States.

In the last few years, the Catholic perception of the Middle East has been shaped more by the Anglosphere, leading to an undeclared (and occasionally declared) Catholic Zionism.

That often overlooks the heavy toll paid by innocent victims—particularly Muslims, but also Christians and Jews. They are simply "collateral damage."

A call for moral clarity

Now is the time for a moral denunciation of what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. This is the work of far more than the Holy See.

In fact, it is not clear how much the Holy See can do. Catholics can act in ways the Vatican and the pope cannot.

Liberal-progressive Catholics, especially, are under an obligation to give more explanations than conservative or traditionalist Catholics.

University professors at Catholic universities cannot teach about Dorothy Day, the Berrigan brothers, liberation theology, and not teach about the Middle East today.

They cannot teach how to do theology inter-religiously without talking about what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

It is morally impossible to condemn "Christian nationalism" without considering the risks of a theocratic turn in the relations between religion and politics in the State of Israel.

This war is changing interreligious relations in ways that will continue for decades, even for the rest of our lives.

The fact that this is complicated is no excuse and never has been for Catholic understandings of moral culpability.

Forgetting the victims has become one of the most typical moves today—and perhaps the most subtle form of contempt.

The deafening silence of Catholics on this topic carries profound long-term consequences for the relations between the Church and Islam that will endure far longer than the effects of the vote of Arab-American voters in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

To the historical guilt of the European and Western Churches for the Holocaust is now added the guilt toward the Middle East.

Such a burden cannot be alleviated by the clear and pressing need to respond always and everywhere to the return of antisemitism.

The question for Catholics is how to raise their voices so as not to leave the victims of the ongoing war in oblivion. It is simply wrong to expect that only the pope and the Vatican should do it.

Central to the Francis papacy has been a push for a new vision of Global Catholicism. What is happening in the Middle East could turn it into a graveyard of this vision for Global Catholicism, along with many other dreams and lives.

The institutional silence or hesitation of Church leaders and Catholic authorities, both clergy and lay, regarding Gaza and Lebanon in Europe and the broader West aligns with the prevailing interpretation in the Anglosphere and translates into a strong push for the re-Westernization of Catholicism.

The turn towards a more global Church, requiring a break from the Anglosphere and attention to a diverse and local-global dialogical Catholic self-understanding, cannot be reduced to something like a "diversity, equity, and inclusion" corporate programme.

Global Catholicism is not about recruiting more diverse personnel. It is about diverse understandings, ones that truly reflect global realities and not simply power plays or historical amnesia.

This is not the time for an ersatz orientalist nostalgia for the status of Christians under the Ottoman Empire or in the post-World War I "mandate system."

As Christians and Catholics, we cannot ignore or overlook what is happening in the Middle East, especially the catastrophe facing the Palestinian people.

Of course, the caution of Catholics in taking a stand on the conflict in the Middle East must be understood in light of their role in the history of antisemitism up to the Holocaust.

Within the Western world, Christians carry a heavy responsibility. The most conscientious quarters know that antisemitism is alive and well and must be fought tooth and nail.

But keeping the legacy of Nostra Aetate and continuing that path will be much more difficult, or impossible, should Catholic voices fail to recognise that the post-October 7 war in the Middle East is one of the signs of our times that we need to read in light of the Gospel.

• First published in La Croix
• Massimo Faggioli is an Italian academic, Church historian, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, columnist for La Croix International, and contributing writer to Commonweal.

There was a recession that started before COVID-19 throttled the United States and much of the world, but that lasted a majority of the year. The federal government worked mightily in both 2020 and '21 to keep the economy from crashing.

The latest assessment is that those efforts paid off.

A US Census Bureau briefing on 13 September noted that poverty went down almost entirely across the board — age, race and other indicators. One of the big findings was that the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty measure for children had reached its lowest level since the bureau started recording the figures.

"SPM (supplemental poverty measure) child poverty rates fell 46% in 2021, from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, a 4.5 percentage-point decline. This is the lowest SPM child poverty rate on record," the Census Bureau said in its report on the findings. "In 2021, SPM child poverty rates fell for non-Hispanic White (2.7%), Black (8.1%) and Hispanic (8.4%) children, also their lowest rates on record." Continue reading

At the same time, he says he'll also respectfully point out situations where President-elect Joe Biden's policies diverge from Catholic teaching.

"I have always seen myself as someone who is charged with being in dialogue and in conversation, so I hope that my conversation with the new administration reflects that ...," he says.

Gregory says said he wants to work with the incoming U.S. administration to look for "where we can find things that we can do together for the betterment of the American community, for the people of the archdiocese in general.

I want to be one who engages people in conversation."

One of the areas both Americans and the American Church are divided over is abortion.

In this respect, Joe Biden has drawn conservative Catholics' ire.

Conservative Catholics are criticising his support of abortion rights.

But Biden says while he is personally opposed to abortion, he cannot impose his view on others.

This has led some U.S. conservative bishops to say Biden should be denied the sacrament of communion.

Biden's position on abortion rights created a "difficult and complex situation," says U.S. bishops' conference head, José Horacio Gómez.

He has arranged for a working group to study its ramifications.

Gregory, however, says he would not prevent the new president, who goes to Mass every Sunday, from receiving communion in the archdiocese.

"The kind of relationship that I hope we will have is a conversational relationship where we can discover areas where we can cooperate that reflect the social teachings of the church, knowing full well that there are some areas where we won't agree," he says.

"They are areas where the church's position is very clear," particularly its opposition to the president-elect's support for legal abortion.

Gregory said he planned to approach the President on areas of agreement and disagreement in a respectful way.

"He's not going to be on speed dial, and I hope I'm not on his speed dial," Gregory told Al Roker of the Today Show in February.

"But there will be moments when I will be able to speak to him about faith, about the works that he is trying to accomplish that we can be supportive of, but also areas where we're not going to agree. But I'm going to always try to do it in a respectful way."

America's first African-American cardinal is no stranger to political controversy.

He clashed with President Donald Trump earlier this year, criticising the former president's visit to a Washington shrine after protesters were cleared away with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The reason for the clearance? So Trump could be photographed in front of a historic Washington church holding a Bible.

In response, Gregory said he found it "baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated."

In Gregory's view, Catholic institutions - parishes, schools, hospitals, social justice and service activities, should be models reflecting gospel teachings.

Gregory hopes to use his new title to be a bridge builder between the African-American Catholic community and the worldwide Church. He says he will be "inviting all of us to engage in a more fruitful dialogue on racial and social justice issues."

Source

• America Magazine
• Image: Los Angeles Times

To date, more than 100 US elementary and high schools have announced they are closing down.

The Catholic schools' closures are affecting parish schools and those run by religious orders.

"It's not a pretty picture right now," said Sr Dale McDonald, public policy director of the National Catholic Educational Association.

She is predicting the number of closures could double by the beginning of the next US school year, which starts in in September.

"Schools are not just buildings. They represent communities that provide important faith formation for our children," said Bishop David Zubik of Pittsbrugh, when he announced two schools in his diocese were closing.

"I pray that we will be able to come together in the midst of these changes to be grateful for what we have, and to continue to be good stewards of what we are able to utilize to provide Catholic education to our communities.

"Sadly, with funding sources critically reduced due to the impact of the global pandemic, we do not have the ability to financially sustain every one of our school buildings."

Some of the schools closing for good are are among the country's oldest Catholic establishments. They include Baltimore's Institute of Notre Dame, which was started in 1847. Another school that won't be reopening in September is the Immaculate Conception Cathedral School in Memphis, Tennessee, which has served that city for 98 years.

In northern New Jersey, 10 Catholic schools are closing, including one that only opened in the inner city in 2007 and has placed every graduate in college.

"This is a crucial time for the sustainability and success of our Catholic schools," Cardinal Joseph W Tobin says.

"However, the Archdiocese [of Newark] could not ignore the dual threats of declining enrolment and rapidly increased subsidies that were necessary to sustain every school."

Catholic schools have been feeling financial pressure amidst rising costs and shifting demographics for some time.

Now, with millions unemployed and great uncertainty about the future, parents are reluctant to pay tuition which averages US$5,000 for an elementary education and US$11,000 for a Catholic high school.

Furthermore, many Catholic inner-city schools have not only provided a ticket out of poverty for poor children (many of whom are non-Catholic) but they create enormous social capital in the neighbourhoods they serve.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: Pinterest

As I reflect on the heartbreaking deadly scene of a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into George Floyd's neck for nearly nine extremely long minutes, and recall my harrowing encounter, I have a small, gut-wrenching sense of the fright Floyd must have felt when he cried out "I can't breathe!"

As reported by Democracy Now, friends of Floyd said that he was a mentor to young African American men in Houston where he grew up. He preached "peace, love, God, unity, advocating against gun violence" said Corey Paul, a Houston hip-hop artist who ministered with Floyd.

On Pentecost Sunday, I participated with about 150 black, white, young and elderly people in two peaceful protests in Dorchester County, Md. - where the famous Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman was born and enslaved.

While most of the other protests throughout the U.S. and world were also peaceful, several were violent - tragically causing more innocent deaths and many small businesses being destroyed.

Violence, in all its many evil forms - including riots - is always harmful and hurtful. Violence is never the answer!
Pope Francis said "The violence of recent nights is self-destructive and self-defeating. Nothing is gained by violence and much is lost."

But in order to end violence, we must seriously probe its root-causes. And to that end the Holy Father also said, "My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life."

In his article "The Psychology of Rioting: The Language of the Unheard" at Psychology Today, Dr. Joe Pierre, M.D. writes, "Denouncing symptoms of disease without treating the root cause is bad medicine. … The root cause in this case is systemic racism."

From 1619, when kidnapped Africans were brought for the first time to what would later become the U.S., to the brutal death of George Floyd, it is beyond dispute that countless African Americans have been, and still are, the victims of systemic racism.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who consistently preached and lived Gospel nonviolence, said in his 1967 "The Other America" speech "I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice."

"It is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air."

But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard."

"America has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility, and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity … Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."

Please also watch "Race Matters: America in Crisis."

And kindly consider prayerfully reading the 2018 U.S. Catholic bishops' pastoral letter against racism "Open Wide Our Hearts: the enduring call to love".

Beginning their letter the bishops quote from Scripture's First Letter of John, "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are."

Loving Father, open wide our hearts that we may truly know and live this truth!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

More than 60,000 children are reported to have been abused every year, outnumbering those killed by guns or cars.

Those who survive are often left not only with physical wounds, but also with psychological wounds that may never heal.

These wounds exact both a profound personal and social cost.

Much attention has been focused on the issue of child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church, and rightly so.

Allegations of abuse by clergy and church workers as well as cover-ups and bureaucratic mishandling by bishops, dioceses and religious orders have caused terrible pain for survivors of such abuse and their families.

It also has resulted in disillusionment on the part of ordinary Catholics.

The cost of this abuse and its aftermath totals more than $4 billion so far, according to the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection.

While the Catholic Church continues to struggle with this legacy, it has instituted a wide variety of steps to improve oversight, identify abusers and protect children.

One under-reported fact from the recent, highly publicized Pennsylvania grand jury report is that for all of the many horrors it identified, the good news was that it appeared to document the decline in current cases.

As Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese told America magazine in its Dec. 24 issue, every one of the accused priests in the report was either deceased or had been removed from ministry, "and only two had been accused of abusing a child in the last 20 years."

During these same 20 years, however, an estimated 1.2 million children in this country were abused nationwide in schools, organizations, churches and families.

Understanding the plague of sexual abuse in this country means going beyond the immediate headlines and understanding what experts are saying about this scourge.

It also means looking not only at the Catholic Church but at all institutions and societal structures where abuse can take place.

So far, no grand jury, congressional committee or law enforcement organization has undertaken a broad societal investigation of what is happening to children in public or private schools, in sports and other youth-oriented programs and organizations, in pediatric facilities and perhaps most common, in families. (In Australia, a Royal Commission investigation of child abuse in nongovernmental organizations took five years.)

"Sexual victimization of children is a serious and pervasive issue in society. It is present in families, and it is not uncommon in institutions where adults form mentoring and nurturing relationships with adolescents, including schools and religious, sports and social organizations," said the John Jay report issued in May 2011 on "The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010."

"If you want to talk about sexual abuse of minors, you're talking about families, foster care programs, public schools," New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in a recent Sirius XM interview.

"You're talking about organizations, every religion, you're talking about public schools — it is a societal, cultural problem. There is no occupation that is freed from it." Continue reading

• Image: Supplied

It surfaces often in the research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks various U.S. hate groups, including neo-Nazis, white nationalists, skinheads and others.

"They're all anti-Semites — that's the tie that binds them," said Heidi Beirich, director of the center's Intelligence Project. "They believe Jews are pulling the strings behind bad things happening in this country." Read more

The January survey canvassed 1,503 Americans.

Twenty percent of those surveyed are Catholic.

The survey found a third of respondents think Pope Francis is "too liberal" while one-quarter considered him "too naïve".

Just under half think he is doing a "poor" or "middling" job in handling clergy sexual abuse scandals.

Conservative Catholics reported they are increasingly concerned about his reforms and vision for the Catholic Church.

While Francis has won public acclaim for living in the Vatican guesthouse instead of the Apostolic Palace and washing the feet of Muslim inmates during Holy Week, these gestures were not the focus for many of those surveyed.

People are now "looking at what he has really changed in the church," says John Thavis, author of "The Vatican Diaries" and former Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service.

"He does have his share of critics, but he still has an awful lot of support among mainstream Catholics."

At the same time, Catholics are increasingly polarised about the actions Francis has taken as Pope.

Since 2014, the share of Catholic Republicans who say Francis represents a "major, positive change" for the church declined from 60 percent to 37 percent.

Similarly, the number of American Catholics who view Francis as "too liberal" (34 percent) or "naive" (24 percent) has multiplied dramatically during the past three years.

Pew's study helps define the small but growing anti-Francis movement.

Conservatives have criticized the Pope for saying of gay people, "Who am I to judge?" and for opening a path for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion. Others argue Francis has created confusion about Catholic teachings.

Over six in 10 say he has helped make the church more accepting of homosexuality, while 17 percent say they would like to see him do less in that area. Eleven percent say they do not want Francis to make the church more accepting of divorce and remarriage.

Twenty-two percent of Americans identified as Catholic in 2012, before Francis' election, and 20 percent did the same in 2017.

Mass attendance has stayed steady over the same period, with about four in 10 Catholics reporting weekly attendance.

Source

• CNN
• La Croix
• Image: MG Africa

Over 1,000 parishioners joined five cardinals, 21 bishops, more than 100 priests, 58 deacons and 39 men and women religious at the dedication Mass. Read more

His sanity as a believer was initially called into question by Omarosa Manigault-Newman, a disgruntled ex-staffer of President Trump.

She used her status as a "Celebrity Big Brother" contestant to insinuate Pence suffers from mental illness. She said his claim — "he thinks Jesus tells him to say things [is] scary".

Her comments then became fodder for US comedienne Joy Behar.

Behar said on ABC's "The View" that "It's one thing to talk to Jesus. It's another thing when Jesus talks to you. That's called mental illness if I'm not correct. Hearing voices."

Pence said while he is accustomed to criticism and wanted to just laugh about it, he could not let this go.

"An overwhelming majority of Americans cherish their faith, and we have all different types of faith in this country.

"I just think it demonstrates how out of touch some people in the mainstream media are with the faith and values of the American people that you could have a major network like ABC permit a forum for invective against religion like that.

"I just call them [ABC] out on it, not because of what was said about me, but it's just simply wrong for ABC to have a television programme that expresses that kind of religious intolerance. We're better than that, our country is better than that."

Behar changed her position on Pence's faith after her co-host on "The View" Meghan McCain said Jesus speaks to her "every morning."

"... I don't think [Mike Pence] ... is mentally ill even though he says he is hearing voices," Behar said.

"I don't think he's that crazy. He has no charisma whatsoever."

Source

• Washington Times
• Christian Post
• Washington Times
• Townhall
• Image: Fox News

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC took 100 years from the first turn of the spade until the dome was complete.

After the Crypt Church was finished in 1931, construction on the Upper Church began. This halted during the Great Depression and World War II.

Work resumed in 1945 and the Church's structure was signed off in 1959.

The "jewel in the crown", the 24-ton Venetian glass "Trinity Dome", was officially finished last Friday to coincide with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The dome is one of the largest mosaic installations of its kind in the world and is made from over 14 million pieces of glass.

It depicts the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, a procession of saints and angels, the four evangelists and the Nicene Creed.

The dome also includes stained-glass windows dedicated to the many donors from all over the country who helped contribute to its construction.

Besides money, some donated jewelery and others gave precious stones.

Numerous clergy, including five cardinals, 23 bishops and around 90 priests joined four thousand people to witness the dome's dedication.

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl celebrated the two-hour dedication Mass.

The basilica is a "modern-day masterpiece," Wuerl told the congregation.

Faith was the reason so many people, for so many years, made sacrifices to finish the church, he explained.

"This magnificent tribute in stone, glass, marble mosaic to Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God and our Mother, invites all of us to recognize not only the special role of Mary in our life but the unique glory that is hers in her Immaculate Conception," Wuerl said in his homily.

He pointed to the new dome's many pieces coming together as one piece of art, drawing upon its reflection of the unity within the universal Church as well the many different cultures that have come together in the United States.

"Just as there are chapels throughout this Basilica reflecting national heritages, ethnic backgrounds, all proclaiming in unison ‘Hail Mary,' so, too, do we look across this great Church of God and see out of so many one great faith family," he said.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• 10 News
• Image: visitmontgomery.com

About 200,000 people died in the 7.0 magnitude quake which displaced over a million others.

Removing the TPS will affect between 50,000 and 60,000 people who sought refuge in the United States (US).

The US is giving the Haitians until July 2019 to leave the country.

Ashley Feasley, who is the Director of the Migration Policy and Public Affairs at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Bishops are "extremely concerned about what's going to happen to these individuals and their families."

Many Haitians have built new lives in the US.

About 6,200 have mortgages and 27,000 have US-born children.

The TPS policy allows people, who are unable to live safely or return home because of issues like armed conflict and natural disasters, to stay in the US while the situation in their home country resolves.

The US feels the situation in Haiti has improved enough for the TPS refugees to go home.

"Significant steps have been taken to improve the stability and quality of life for Haitian citizens, and Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens," Homeland Security secretary Elaine Duke says.

"Haiti has also demonstrated a commitment to adequately prepare for when the country's TPS designation is terminated."

The opposite view is held by David Quinn, a Catholic missionary who has lived in Haiti for the past two years.

Whether Haiti is able to support an influx of 60,000 people is a question that hasn't been resolved, he claims.

He says Haiti has not recovered from the earthquake or from the Category 5 Hurricane Matthew which further devastated the country a year ago.

In his view, Haiti is ill-equipped to provide for the people who already live there, let alone the tens of thousands who left seven years ago.

"They have never recovered from the earthquake from what I can see," Quinn says.

"They've cleaned up some things here and there, but as far as returning to what they had before? Not even close. Their economy hasn't improved since the earthquake, it's been continuing to degrade, and many, many people are without work yet."

Quinn says in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, people are still living in "tents and tin boxes".

He points out that most people subsist off a "pittance of an income and a really poor diet."

Unemployment is already high and adding a further 60,000 people to the mix is going to cause further difficulty.

"How are they going to feed themselves?" he wonders.

He notes the government was not prepared to handle the earthquake's aftermath and did little to help its own people.

Most work to improve living conditions has been done by non-profit and charitable organisations, he says.

Source

• Haiti Libre
• Vox
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Oxfam America

They suggested faith groups could use their ability to mobilise people and public opinion, and lay out the moral and spiritual case for disarmament.

The Nobel laureates joined with leading Vatican and secular diplomats who urged world leaders to freeze investment in nuclear arms production.

Instead, the money should be for peace and development initiatives.

"Every day we are bombarded with bad news about the atrocities ... harming each other and nature, about the increasing drumbeat of a possible nuclear conflagration and the fact that humanity stands on the precipice of a nuclear holocaust," keynote speaker Cardinal Peter Turkson said.

Turkson, the first prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, was one of many voices at the Vatican-organised meeting asking for peaceful ways to be found to resolve the world's problems.

Entitled "Prospects for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament," the summit drew a line-up of world leaders.

These included United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officials, representatives from nuclear powers including Russia and the United States, as well as South Korea and Iran.

Turkston said fears of a potential global catastrophe are rising to a level not seen since the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In his view ongoing discussions about nuclear weapons are "critical".

He said decisions made by global leaders about peace and war in the coming months and years "will have profound consequences for the very future of humanity and our planet."

Source

• Crux
• EWTN News
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

Colecchi is the director of the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace.

He was one of three panelists at a Georgetown University forum discussing the issue.

"The only way to open up the relationship is by talking." Read more

Barrett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, is a constitutional law expert who has clerked for appellate and Supreme Court judges. She is eminently qualified.

A Catholic at a Catholic university, she has helped law students and others understand how to reconcile being a good Christian and a good judge.

This should not be a problem. Article VI of the Constitution requires judges and other public officials "to support this Constitution."

It also demands that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Professor Barrett clearly subscribes to the first of these clauses. As she said at the senate hearing: "It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law."

But some Democrats on the committee seemed not to have heard of the second clause.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-California, expressed a concern to Barrett that, based on her past speeches, "the dogma lives loudly within you."

(This strange accusation has created a wonderful backlash, as the sale of "The dogma lives loudly within me" T-shirts becomes a cottage industry among Catholics.) Feinstein implied that believers who accept their church's moral teachings are un-American.

Then came Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, whose 100 percent approval rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America may make him a Catholic that Senator Feinstein can accept.

He grilled Professor Barrett on a 1998 law review article she co-authored as a student with law professor John Garvey (now president of The Catholic University of America).

That article discussed the dilemma of someone with moral or religious objections to something he or she is asked to do as a judge.

For example, authorizing an abortion for a minor girl or imposing a death sentence could present a conflict of conscience for an "orthodox Catholic" (by which, the authors explained, they simply meant someone who believes Catholic teaching on the point at issue). Continue reading

• Richard Doerflinger worked for 36 years in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The two countries are trading insults, with North Korea threatening to send four missiles into the sea off Guam, as a response to President Donald Trump's escalating rhetoric.

"The only way forth is that of dialogue, because the way of conflict is always wrong, says Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

The current crisis shows how international relations can easily break down when there is a determination "to violate the minimum standard of common sense in dealing with other people," he adds.

"That's why you need to invest time, energy, money, resources in preventing the necessity of arriving at these boiling points of crisis."

U.S. and South Korean Catholic bishops have also called for the U.S. and North Korea to deescalate the current threat of war between them.

Bishop Oscar Cantu, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' international justice and peace committee, has written to Secretary Rex Tillerson urging Washington to avoid war and find a dialogue-based solution to the current tensions with Pyongyang.

Cantu says while the threat posed by North Korea should not be "underestimated or ignored," the "high certainty of catastrophic death and destruction from any military action must prompt the United States to work with others in the international community for a diplomatic and political solution based on dialogue."

He also says he and his colleagues support South Korean President Moon Jae-in's proposal to reopen negotiations with North Korea. Catholic bishops in South Korea aslo back this proposal.

Source

• Crux
• The Daily Caller
• Image: Daily Mail

The United States is now one of three nations - the others are Syria and Nicaragua - not committed to the voluntary restrictions outlined in the agreement.

Many worry about the effect Trump's decision will have on the poor, as the planet's resources become further compromised by the effects of climate change on the environment.

American Cardinal Blase Cupich expressed his dismay at the decision:

"Environmental stewardship is a global issue and requires a spirit of cooperation, not the national individualism sadly displayed ..." he tweeted.

Bishop Oscar Cantú, who is the chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops committee on international justice and peace, said:

"The President's decision not to honor the U.S. commitment to the Paris agreement is deeply troubling.

"The Scriptures affirm the value of caring for creation and caring for each other in solidarity.

"The Paris agreement is an international accord that promotes these values."

Pointing out the decision will harm the poorest and most vulnerable people in the US and the world, Cantú added:

"I can only hope that the President will propose concrete ways to address global climate change and promote environmental stewardship."

Asma Lateef, director, Bread for the World Institute said:

"The world will not be able to end hunger without addressing climate change.

"Unfortunately, [it will now be] much more difficult to reach this goal."

Another to expressing his concern was Robert Bank, president and CEO of the American Jewish World Service.

"We stand proudly as Jews who cherish the Earth to object in the strongest terms to the President's shortsighted and damaging decision, he said.

Pope Francis gave Trump a copy of his encyclical on the environment - Laudato Si - when Trump visited the Vatican last month.

It is not know in Trump has read the document yet.

Source

• Religion News Service
• America
• Image: Media Salon

The survey run by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University shows most of the new priests went to Catholic schools.

Family example is another important factor in their vocation: a third have a relative who is already a priest or religious.

While about half say they were actively dissuaded from entering the seminary, most - 82 per cent - say they had encouragement to enter the priesthood by someone they knew - mainly priests, family members or friends.

One of the survey's authors, Dr. Mary L. Gautier, says these characteristics offered the new priests opportunities to be aware of and around priests as they were growing up.

"Encouragement from family, friends, the parish priest, the teachers in the school, all of that makes a difference" and was a "very important" factor in their decision, Gautier said.

The survey also shows a small reduction in the average age of ordination since 1999: where the average age used to be 36, the class of 2017's average age is 34.

The average age the newly ordained priests started seriously considering entering the priesthood was when they were 16.

Encouraging wider diversity in the seminary is a challenge, Gautier says.

Seventy percent of those who responded to the survey were Caucasian, and just 25% were born outside the United States.

Reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural makeup is a challenge; for example, around 34% of all US Catholics are Hispanic.

"I think vocation directors are aware of the challenge and are actively working to increase vocations in the Hispanic community, but it's not reflected in the numbers of ordinands, at least this year," Gautier said.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic Herald

He was murdered in 1981 in a Guatemalan village where he ministered to the poor. Read more

In an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the organizations demanded a proper investigation into a crime that has captured international attention and put a spotlight on impunity in the Central American country. The called for the U.S. government to not allow the killing of Caceres to go unsolved and unpunished and to avoid a response of "business as usual." Instead, they urged, the U.S. should use the tragedy to make "a profound change of direction toward improving the abysmal situation of human rights in Honduras."

"We ask that the State Department make clear to the Honduran government that future partnership and funding depends on demonstrating the political will to investigate and prosecute this crime and all crimes against human rights defenders," the groups said in the letter, dated March 7.

"The Honduran government ... must guarantee freedom of expression, including by ending harsh, constant repression of social protests, ensuring an immediate end to intimidating public statements by government officials and members of the military and police that place human rights defenders and journalists in danger, and ending specious prosecution of human rights defenders."

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