Month: May 2022

SCRANTON – The beauty and importance of adoption once again became the focal point of the Diocese of Scranton’s annual Mother’s Day Mass – thanks to dozens of families who attended the liturgy with their adopted children.

The Mass, celebrated May 8 at the Cathedral of Saint Peter, brought together dozens of families and their adopted children.

Many, like Karen Trently of Throop, were joyful in discussing their adoption stories following Mass.

“It will almost be nine years in July that we got the call about Addison. My husband and I tried about ten years to get pregnant and unfortunately it didn’t happen for us,” Trently explained.

That is when the couple decided to adopt.

“The day that we got the call about Addison was one of the happiest days of our lives. Every day with her is a blessing and she really completed our family,” she added.

The Trently family makes it an annual tradition to attend the Mother’s Day Adoption Mass at the Cathedral.

“She didn’t grow inside me but she grew in our hearts,” Trently said. “She knows about her adoption and we thank her mother for being so brave and putting her up for adoption.”

This was the first year Dan and Sarah Wilson attended the Mother’s Day Adoption Mass. The Milford couple has an eight-year-old son, Luke, and recently adopted their two-year-old son, Jude.

“We knew our family wasn’t complete with Luke and we knew that he needed to have a sibling so we went through the adoption process and adopted Jude. He is from Atlanta, Georgia. We have a completely open adoption with his birth family and it is the most happy and joyous relationship in our life and our family is complete,” Sarah Wilson said.

“He is an absolute miracle. Our lives are so much richer, I don’t know how we existed without him,” Dan Wilson added. “Luke is amazing as well but Jude really completes our whole family.”

When asked to describe his thoughts on having a brother, Luke responded it was “probably the happiest time of my life.”

The Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, was principal celebrant and homilist for the Mother’s Day Adoption Mass. During the liturgy, the bishop not only acknowledged adoptive and foster mothers, but all mothers, grandmothers and godmothers.

“For all of the commercialization and hype that can cause us at times to lose touch with the heart of its real meaning, doesn’t this day cause us to reflect upon the essence of the gospel message for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday?” the bishop asked. “Selfless love, forgiveness, unconditional acceptance and hope are all qualities that a mother seeks to impact to her child whom she knows and loves so well.”
Mothers, the bishop added, remind us that we are all given the power and responsibility to become vehicles for God’s presence in the world.

“May we especially give thanks for those women who have nurtured and cared for us, their children, and have taught us that it is possible to love as Jesus, the Good Shepherd,” Bishop Bambera noted.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The study and celebration of the liturgy should lead to a sense of awe before God, a commitment to mission and a growing unity within the church, not tensions and squabbles, Pope Francis said.

“When liturgical life is a bit of a banner of division, there is the odor of the devil, the deceiver. It is not possible to worship God and at the same time make the liturgy a battlefield,” the pope said May 7 during a meeting with students and professors from the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy at St. Anselm in Rome.

The papal audience marked the conclusion of a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Benedictine-run institute, which was founded after the Second Vatican Council and its reform of the liturgy.

Pope Francis said the institute responded to “the growing need of the people of God to live and participate more intensely in the liturgical life of the church” by understanding it and experiencing “its mystery with an ever-new sense of wonder.”

“One does not possess the liturgy,” he said. Rather, the liturgy is lived and celebrated.

However, the pope said, people must be aware of “the temptation of liturgical formalism: to focus on forms, formalities rather than reality, as we see today in those movements that try to go backwards and deny the Second Vatican Council. Then the celebration is recitation, it is something without life, without joy.”

The teaching of every church council has taken time to be accepted fully, he said, and it is no different with Vatican II, especially with its reform of the liturgy.

He told the students and professors that he remembers as a youngster how people were so upset — “they rent their garments” — by reforms that began even before the council, such as Pope XII ruling that drinking water did not violate the required fast before Mass or allowing people to fulfill their Sunday Mass obligation by attending a Saturday evening Mass or the restoration of the Easter vigil on Saturday night.

“All of these things scandalized closed-minded people,” he said, and “it still happens today. Indeed, those with closed mindsets use liturgical patterns to defend their own point of view. Using the liturgy: this is the drama we are experiencing in ecclesial groups that are distancing themselves from the church, questioning the council (and) the authority of the bishops” even as they claim “to preserve tradition.”

Celebrating the liturgy must increase communion within the church and unity with others, he said, because “the liturgical life opens us to each other, to those closest and furthest from the church, in our common belonging to Christ.”

“Giving glory to God in the liturgy finds its counterpart in love of neighbor, in the commitment to live as brothers and sisters in daily life, in the community in which I find myself, with its merits and its limitations,” Pope Francis said.

And, he said, every Mass or liturgy ends with sending members of the congregation out on mission.

“What we live and celebrate leads us to go out to meet others, to meet the world around us, to meet the joys and needs of so many people who perhaps live without knowing the gift of God,” he said. “A genuine liturgical life, especially the Eucharist, always impels us to charity, which is above all openness and attention to others.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Christian vocation is for all members of the church to work together and show that one human family united in love is not a utopia but is the reason God created humanity, Pope Francis said.

“When we speak of ‘vocation,’ then, it is not just about choosing this or that way of life, devoting one’s life to a certain ministry or being attracted by the charism of a religious family, movement or ecclesial community,” he wrote in his message for the 2022 World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

“It is about making God’s dream come true, the great vision of fraternity that Jesus cherished when he prayed to the Father ‘that they may all be one,'” he wrote.

The day of prayer will be observed May 8 at the Vatican and in many dioceses around the world.

The message, released at the Vatican May 5, was dedicated to the theme, “Called to build the human family,” and it looked at the meaning of “vocation” within the context of a synodal church, that is, “a church that listens to God and to the world.”

In his message, the pope wrote, “We know that the church exists to evangelize, to go forth and to sow the seed of the Gospel in history. This mission can only be carried out if all areas of pastoral activity work together and, even more importantly, involve all the Lord’s disciples.”

“We must beware of the mentality that would separate priests and laity, considering the former as protagonists and the latter as executors,” he said, and instead “together carry forward the Christian mission as the one people of God, laity and pastors.”

All members of the church are called: to be protagonists together in the church’s mission as “an evangelizing community”; to be guardians of one another and of creation; and to build a fraternal world, he wrote.

“In a word, we are called to become a single family in the marvelous common home of creation, in the reconciled diversity of its elements,” the pope wrote.

Everything is rooted in welcoming and responding to God’s loving gaze, he wrote. “Our lives change when we welcome this gaze. Everything becomes a vocational dialogue between ourselves and the Lord, but also between ourselves and others.”

This dialogue allows each Christian to become “ever more who we are,” meaning, for those ordained in the priesthood, to become ever more “instruments of Christ’s grace and mercy,” for consecrated men and women to become ever more “the praise of God and the prophecy of a new humanity,” and for married couples “to be mutual gift and givers and teachers of life.”

Christians receive a vocation as individuals and “we are also called together” like “the tiles of a mosaic,” he wrote. “Each is lovely in itself, but only when they are put together do they form a picture.”

“This is the mystery of the church: a celebration of differences, a sign and instrument of all that humanity is called to be,” he wrote.

For that to happen, Pope Francis said, “the church must become increasingly synodal: capable of walking together, united in harmonious diversity, where everyone can actively participate and where everyone has something to contribute.”

Therefore, with each vocation striving to make “God’s dream” of human fraternity come true, each vocation “contributes to a common objective: to celebrate among men and women that harmony of manifold gifts that can only be brought about by the Holy Spirit.”

The pope urged priests, consecrated men and women, and the lay faithful, “let us journey and work together in bearing witness to the truth that one great human family united in love is no utopian vision, but the very purpose for which God created us.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Although many pro-life groups immediately reacted positively to the news that the majority of Supreme Court justices seem set to overturn the court’s Roe v. Wade decision, some tempered their reaction with a continued call for more advocacy while others kept a wait-and-see approach until the court issues its opinion in the weeks ahead.

Some Catholic bishops likewise kept their response in check, but acknowledged the work done on the grassroots level by pro-life activists.

For example, hours after the draft of the court’s opinion was published by Politico May 2, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone tweeted: “Tonight I am thinking of all the years of hard work by pro-life people of all faiths and none. Years and years of patient advocacy, help for unwed moms, political engagement and more.”

The next day, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis released a statement that Archbishop Bernard Hebda will comment when the Supreme Court releases its official statement. “No matter the court’s decision, the Catholic Church will continue to work toward building a culture of life and supporting women and their children,” the statement said.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said in a May 4 statement that the leaked opinion draft “reminds us of the urgent need for prayer and action at this pivotal moment in our country.”

“As we await the court’s decision, we urge everyone to intensify their prayer and fasting that the final decision of the court will bring about the reversal of Roe and Casey,” he said, referring to the court’s 1992 decision that affirmed Roe.

“We hope and pray for a change in our laws and stand ready to help all pregnant women in need in each of our communities,” he added.

National Right to Life, an advocacy group that has long fought against abortion, similarly said it “agrees with the statement of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who said, ‘We will let the Supreme Court speak for itself and wait for the Court’s official opinion.'”

Other groups were not so cautious. Texas Right to Life said it was encouraging news that “Roe soon may be gone. Yet new attacks on life will emerge.”

In its May 2 statement, the group called its supporters to further action saying: “Already, abortion advocates are calling on Congress to ban states from passing pro-life laws.”

“If and when the court overturns Roe, the pro-life movement must defeat attacks such as these and build a culture that values preborn children and pregnant mothers.”

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, likened the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade as the beginning for the antiabortion movement.

The previous day, her group sent a letter to all the Republican members of Congress urging them to back a nationwide “heartbeat bill,” banning abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. Hawkins, and nine other antiabortion leaders, emphasized that the 15-week ban at stake in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case before the court did not go far enough.

“If we are not focusing on limiting early abortions, we are not really addressing the violence of abortion at all,” Hawkins wrote in the letter.

After the court’s draft decision was leaked, she told The Washington Post: “We are on the precipice of a whole new America.”

One thing many groups said they were not happy with was that the opinion was leaked to a news outlet.

Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said the leak was a breach of trust and “an attack on the integrity of the Judicial Branch of government.”

“When our highest court cannot operate free of political interference or intimidation, it serves as a stark example that nothing is sacred anymore. While we fervently pray for legal protections of unborn children, we will not dignify the goals of the leaker by commenting on the contents of the draft document.”

The California Catholic Conference said in a May 3 statement that the leak of the opinion draft “triggered the governor and California legislative leadership to announce its intent to create a California constitutional amendment to protect the right to abortion. This will destroy lives, families and significantly limit the ability of the Catholic Church in California to protect the unborn.”

The conference said this was moment for the church and California Catholics to “engage with their communities, actively and publicly oppose this amendment.”

Right to Life Michigan expressed “cautious optimism” about the leaked draft and said its mission won’t change if Roe is overturned.

“We’d have a complete abortion ban in our state, but there are a lot of different moving parts with different groups and with a governor who is trying to invalidate this law. Our focus would be on those efforts and making sure we are fighting against them and have as many people on our side fighting against them as well,” Anna Visser, director of communications and education for Right to Life Michigan, told Detroit Catholic.

She warned pro-life advocates not to celebrate too early, considering the official opinion hasn’t been released and the final version might not reflect the views of Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the draft opinion.

She also noted that the work of pro-life advocacy goes beyond abortion.

“As a pro-life organization, we have to protect the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, the unborn,” she said, adding that the focus is “on the marginalized and those discriminated against.”