Author: Eric Deabill

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The mission to spread the Gospel message of God’s love and of salvation in Christ is entrusted to all the baptized who are called to work together and never set out alone, Pope Francis said.

The “ecclesial” dimension of evangelization “is binding and guarantees the authenticity of Christian proclamation,” the pope said at his weekly general audience March 8 in St. Peter’s Square, the first audience held outdoors in 2023.

At the end of the audience, Pope Francis noted the day’s celebration of International Women’s Day, thanking women “for their commitment to building a more humane society through their ability to grasp reality with a creative gaze and tender heart. This is a privilege only of women.”

The pope not only offered “a special blessing for all the women in the square,” but asked the crowd to join him in “a round of applause for women. They deserve it!”

Continuing his series of audience talks about evangelization, Pope Francis said the support and confirmation of the church in mission work is necessary “because the temptation of proceeding alone is always lurking, especially when the path becomes impassable, and we feel the burden of the commitment.”

But it also is tempting “to adopt the worldly logic of numbers and polls” or to rely on one’s own ideas and programs rather than on the Holy Spirit, he said. Having a plan and analyzing what is working can be helpful but is always “secondary” to “the strength the Spirit gives you to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ.”

That truth, he said, is that “God’s love is not just for a little group, no, it’s for all, everyone, no one excluded.”

Quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, Pope Francis said the task of the church is “to continue the mission of Christ, who was ‘sent to preach the Gospel to the poor,'” a task for which all the baptized are responsible.

Within the church there cannot be “active” members and “passive” members, he said. “There are not those who preach, those who proclaim the Gospel in one way or another and those who keep quiet. No.”

Pope Francis imagined a conversation:

“Are you Christian?”

“Yes, I’ve been baptized.”

“Do you evangelize?”

“What’s that mean?”

“If you do not evangelize,” he said, “if you do not give that witness of the baptism you have received, of the faith the Lord gave you, then you are not a good Christian.”

Faith is a gift that must be shared with others, “with a sense of responsibility” and a commitment to journey together with the rest of the church even when the going seems rough, the pope said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis will open a Lenten prayer and penance initiative at a Rome parish March 17 rather than in St. Peter’s Basilica as in past years.

The initiative, “24 Hours for the Lord,” was begun by the pope in 2014, and invites Catholic parishes worldwide to remain open for adoration and confession for 24 hours from the Friday evening to the Saturday evening before Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. This year, the vigil is scheduled to take place March 17-18.

The Vatican announced March 7 that the pope will open the celebration at a parish near the Vatican “to further portray (its) presence in parish communities.” Typically, he hears confessions during the service.

Pope Francis has celebrated the penitential service to open the initiative in St. Peter’s Basilica each year since it began in 2014, with the exceptions of 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the pope consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as part of the opening celebration.

In the initiative’s first year, 2014, Pope Francis surprised many by confessing to a priest in St. Peter’s Basilica before hearing confessions himself, a practice he has continued in subsequent years’ celebrations.

To help individuals and communities implement the prayer initiative, the Dicastery for Evangelization released a pastoral resource that offers reflections on the themes of “confession” and “vigil” in five languages.

It includes tips on how to make a good confession and suggestions for parishes on how to organize a vigil. It also features the conversion story of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, known as “napalm girl,” who was the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph depicting her running, naked, from bombs during the Vietnam war.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The light and beauty of Christ is an invitation to recognize God’s love in life’s ordinary moments, Pope Francis said.

Speaking to some 25,000 visitors gathered to pray the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square March 5, the pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew of Jesus’ Transfiguration, in which he appears to the disciples in radiant glory.

The pope explained that witnessing the “light of holiness” radiated by Jesus is not a “magical moment” outside of time but is what gives the disciples “the strength to follow him to Jerusalem, to the cross.”

The Transfiguration, he said, is a call for the disciples “to recognize the same beauty in him when he will go up on the cross and his face will become disfigured.”

“The beauty of Christ does not alienate the disciples from the reality of life,” he said, “it always leads you forward; it doesn’t cause you to hide.”

In the same way, Pope Francis said Christians are called to recognize God’s beauty around them and radiate his love through their actions.

“So many luminous faces, smiles, wrinkles, so many tears and scars speak to the love around us,” said the pope. “Let us learn to recognize them and fill our hearts with them.”

He asked Christians “to bring to others the light we have received with concrete actions of love, diving into daily tasks with greater generosity, loving, serving and forgiving more passionately and willingly.”

Pope Francis then urged those present to reflect on how they remain open to recognizing God’s love around them and resist alienating themselves from their surroundings.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Tomorrow’s priests are called to be “missionary disciples” in light of the church’s synodal journey, Pope Francis told U.S. seminarians.

Speaking to the Cleveland-based community of St. Mary’s Seminary during an audience at the Vatican March 6 to mark the seminary’s 175th anniversary, the pope said that learning to listen, to walk together and to bear witness to God are “essential” characteristics of priestly formation that are principles of synodality.

The current Synod of Bishops opened by Pope Francis in October, 2021, seeks to gather input from all baptized members of the church to inform discussions among the world’s bishops on building a listening church. The bishops will meet in Rome in two sessions, the first in October, 2023, and then again one year later.

Pope Francis urged the seminarians to listen to God by making room for him in their lives every day and praying in silence before the tabernacle.

“Never forget the importance of placing yourselves before the Lord to hear what he wants to say to you,” he said. “Listening to the Lord also involves the response of faith to all that he has revealed and the church hands on.”

The pope told them that walking together does not only mean forming strong bonds with other seminarians, but also with their bishop, local priests, consecrated men and women, and lay faithful.

“The good shepherd walks with the flock: sometimes ahead, to mark the way; sometimes in the midst, to encourage them and sometimes behind, to accompany those who may be struggling,” Pope Francis said. “Always remember how important it is to walk with the flock, never apart from it.”

He explained how “listening to God and walking with others bears fruit in our becoming living signs of Jesus present in the world.” The pope then asked the seminarians to bear witness to God’s merciful love through their lives and actions and share it with everyone, “especially the poor and those in need.”

Pope Francis underscored that those three tenets of synodality, listening, walking together, and witness, also mark each seminarian’s path toward the priesthood.

St. Mary’s Seminary was established in Cleveland in 1848 by the first bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland, Bishop Louis Amadeus Rappe. In addition to preparing seminarians for the priesthood, it also awards graduate and doctoral degrees in theology, divinity and ministry.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider a case April 18 that could have broad implications for employees seeking religious accommodations from their employers.

The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Groff v. DeJoy, a case concerning Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former U.S. Postal Service worker, who was denied an accommodation to observe his Sunday Sabbath by not taking Sunday shifts.

Federal law prohibits employers from firing employees for who request religious accommodations unless the employer can show that the worker’s religious practice cannot be “reasonably” accommodated without “undue hardship.” The Supreme Court issued a 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison finding that the “undue hardship” standard is met even at a minimal cost.

Groff alleged in federal court that USPS failed to provide him with reasonable accommodations for his religious practices. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled in favor of USPS, arguing the post office would face “undue hardship” by accommodating Groff’s request to excuse him from Sunday shifts.

But the U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this year to take up the case.

Randy Wenger, chief counsel of the Independence Law Center, a group representing Groff, told OSV News that Groff “has a very strong conviction about Sunday being the Lord’s Day,” which caused him to seek employment at a place that was closed on Sundays.

“In a pluralistic society, it’s really important to be able to find those ways to accommodate so that we can all work together effectively,” he said.

Wenger said when the post office reached an agreement to deliver some Amazon packages on Sundays, Groff sought accommodations to not work those shifts. He was initially accommodated, then disciplined for his refusal to work Sundays. He later resigned to avoid violating his convictions.

“If we’re committed to protecting religious conscience, we need to make sure employees don’t lose their jobs for following their faith,” Wegner said. “It’s kind of like freedom of speech, you might not like what somebody has to say, but their ability to say what they say helps you say what you want to say.”

In a court filing, attorneys for USPS argued that “simply skipping (Groff) in the rotation for Sunday work would have violated both a collectively bargained (memorandum of understanding) and a specific settlement.” USPS attorneys added the accommodation would have created “morale problems” among his colleagues.

Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, a religious liberty law firm that has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, told OSV News the Supreme Court’s previous ruling on the minimum standard in Hardison is not in keeping with the intention of the federal law.

“So essentially, if it costs the employer anything at all to accommodate, the employer doesn’t have to accommodate,” he said of the previous ruling. “The whole point of the law was to actually protect the employees unless it was some real hardship on the employer. And instead of requiring hardship, what the court said was actually it doesn’t really have to be a hardship.”

Rienzi said he is optimistic the court will fix its previous interpretation.

“I strongly suspect they’re going to fix it and acknowledge it made no sense,” he said.

(OSV News) – Among Catholics, the sacrament of matrimony is in freefall. Over 50 years between 1969 and 2019, Catholic marriages declined 69% even as the Catholic population increased by nearly 20 million, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

In 2021, as U.S. Catholics largely emerged from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, weddings were still down more than 30,000 from 2019’s pre-pandemic number of nearly 132,000 marriages celebrated.

However, fueling the decline is a broader cultural crisis of dating that is also leaving single Catholics struggling to meet each other in person, or even online.

A 2021 survey by the Institute for Family Studies asked people under 55 who desired marriage why they were not married: 58% said, “It is hard to find the right person to marry.”

When Roxane, 23, logged onto CatholicMatch, she found very few matches near her home in Maryland. To broaden her scope, Roxane tried the dating app Hinge, and found two men who claimed to be Catholic, “but sitting in church for one hour a week was too much for them,” she told OSV News.

Some in her situation form long-distance relationships; the CatholicMatch Instagram account regularly posts success stories, many about long-distance couples. But that doesn’t appeal to Roxane.

“I feel a connection more when I’m with the person physically so that I can see the expression, the body language, and how he treats other people,” she said.

Matt, 23, also struggles to meet fellow single Catholics in-person. He said the dating scene was pretty good at his Catholic university, but following graduation, it’s hard to find like-minded Catholic women.

“Most of the people I meet in Chicago aren’t interested in having a family anytime soon, let alone having a relationship or life centered around faith,” Matt told OSV News.

He also suspects that many women don’t feel the need for a man, at least until they’re older and financially established. In his experience so far, Matt said, “I’d say a lot of women wouldn’t ever put something like that above their career in this age range: early to mid 20s.”

Elizabeth, 31, established her career in her 20s, but also actively searched for a spouse.

“I didn’t think it would be that difficult since I knew a lot of women who met their husbands very young,” she told OSV News.

She tried online dating, joined a local Catholic young adult group, and told friends and family she was open to meeting anyone they knew. She even employed a matchmaker. While Elizabeth succeeded in meeting people – Catholic and non-Catholic – nothing panned out.

“Most of the Catholic men were initially attracted to me, but lost interest when they learned that I planned to have a career,” she said. “The non-Catholics (and some of the Catholics) stopped seeing me when they realized that I wasn’t going to have sex with them (before marriage).”

She also found that most of the Catholic men she encountered were “rather uninteresting.”

“They didn’t seem to have much to talk about. There was no joking or flirting,” she said. “They tended to have few hobbies and interests, when compared to other men I tried to date.”

Other young Catholics told OSV News the Catholic young adult scene is also posing a challenge to form real connections — including problematic dynamics they do not typically find in non-Catholic peer groups.

“When you walk into an event with evangelicals, someone will say ‘hello’ to you right away, and draw you into their group conversation if they are in one,” Sara Perla, 40, told OSV News.

“I have been invited to things with Catholics in which I walk into the room, not knowing anyone but the host, and no one even looks up … and when you try to start a conversation, you hit a brick wall,” said Perla.

Jacob, a software engineer in his mid-20s, says he’s found a friend group and a few dates through a young adult program run by his archdiocese in the Midwest. But he also notices a lack of conversation skills among his peers at these events.

“Some of the men tend to steer towards intense intellectual, deep, theological discussions, which makes it harder for people who aren’t interested in that to participate. … There are a lot of people who are very political, and everyone’s got vastly different opinions,” said Jacob.

Many single Catholics say they struggle to find anyone “in the middle”: someone with genuine faith and a commitment to chastity, but without a super-strict approach to Catholicism that goes beyond Church teaching.

There’s confusion, too, about how to show interest in a potential partner, and even how dating works.

“Sometimes girls drop hints or act interested but guys completely have no idea about this, because they’re overthinking: ‘Is she dropping a hint or just being friendly?’ At the same time, guys don’t tell girls how they feel and tend to beat around the bush because they’re afraid of rejection,” said Jacob.

If single Catholics do manage to start dating, other problems arise along the way. One is what Daniel, 39, calls a “shopping mindset.”

He sees most Catholics coming into dating with checklists of criteria for their future spouse and a reluctance to share their true selves. “Dating seems like job interviews until you reach a certain threshold where you are finally real with each other,” said Daniel.

Daniel said he had never experienced this “incredibly awkward and stilted social climate” with non-Catholics: “You certainly had anxieties and people using each other, but not this high fear of sharing oneself preventing connection and relationship.”

Even when a relationship is finally established, addiction, psychological wounds, and abuse can still ruin it.

Elizabeth did get married at age 30 — later than she had hoped — to a non-Catholic man. He professed to be religious and supportive of her goals, but turned out to be deceptive and abusive. He divorced her six months later.

When asked if the church could have helped prevent this situation, Elizabeth told OSV News, “Yes, absolutely.” She describes the premarital counseling offered through the church as “woefully inadequate.”

“There was no discussion of warning signs of domestic abuse, of which there were many. There was no discussion of what would make a marriage valid or invalid. … Now that I’m trying to prepare for an annulment, I have a much clearer understanding of the Catholic definition of marriage than I ever did as part of my wedding prep,” said Elizabeth.

If her marriage is declared null, Elizabeth can attempt a valid Catholic marriage again. But given today’s dating landscape for Catholics, that might be a long road.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Tom Lyman, director of Family Rosary, hopes that especially during Lent — which calls Catholics to commit more time to the Lord in prayer — families will pray the rosary together and take part in the ministry’s “At the Foot of the Cross” Lenten campaign.

Family Rosary is part of Holy Cross Family Ministries, which continues the mission of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton, known for the adage “The family that prays together stays together.” Because he urged families to say the rosary together, he was aptly dubbed “The Rosary Priest.”

The Holy Cross organization also includes Family Theater Productions, Catholic Mom, the Museum of Family Prayer, Father Peyton Family Institutes and the Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life.

“The rosary is really an ideal family prayer and a way to fortify the domestic church,” which is the family, Lyman told OSV News.

He suggested family members gather together at a routine time when they can reflect on the mysteries of the rosary, which is divided into five decades. Each decade represents a mystery or event in the life of Jesus. There are four sets of “mysteries” — joyful, luminous, sorrowful, and glorious — in which Christ’s work of redemption, from his incarnation to the coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth, are contemplated.

Through these mysteries, “we are walking through the important moments in the life of Jesus and Mary. By doing this we are attending the ‘school’ of Mary’ as (St.) John Paul II said,” Lyman added.

Details of the “At the Foot of the Cross” Lenten campaign can be found at familyrosary.org. The site has a link to prayers for families and other prayers and a link to sign up to receive a daily family prayer. Other links connect visitors to a “How to Pray the Rosary” guide and additional resources. Parents can sign up for a weekly e-blast and find free ebooks, videos, prayer cards, a Lenten calendar and other materials.

Family Rosary said in a news release all of its ministry centers around the world are participating in the campaign, with materials offered in English and Spanish; some countries are offering other languages as well.

Father Peyton felt prayer “was very important for the family to remain grounded in its relationship with God,” Lyman said.

The priest knew from his experience “of his big family praying the rosary together” that this “formed each member of the family and formed their hearts to love God and love one another and reflecting on those mysteries day after day gave them a language and a way also to see God’s action in their own lives,” Lyman added.

Father Peyton, who is a candidate for sainthood, wanted people to see “the good things and the bad things” that happen “in a context of life lived for God,” he told OSV News. “Once we lose our connection in our relationship with God as his children … we suffer and while suffering is a part of life, God wants to give us a way through it and through to the Easter Sunday that awaits.”

Through the rosary, Lyman added, we are “accompanied by Our Lady. … Just as she walked with her Son along the Way of the Cross and stood with him at the foot of the cross, she stands with us in our sufferings and strengthens us to suffer well and we know Christ’s sufferings bear fruit in his Resurrection.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The recently formed Institute on the Catechism will carry out the U.S. bishops’ vision of the importance of “connecting evangelization and catechesis,” according to Father Daniel J. Mahan, an Indianapolis archdiocesan priest just named as the institute’s director.

The institute is housed within the Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington.

Father Michael J.K. Fuller, USCCB general secretary, appointed Father Mahan Feb. 27 to the post, effective July 1.

This “evangelizing catechesis,” a focus of the church as a whole, aims to teach the beliefs of the Catholic faith in a “compelling and inviting” way to help young Catholics foster a “deeper relationship with the Lord and help them see their place within the body of Christ, the church, and in turn, reach out to others to share the Good News,” Father Mahan told OSV News.

Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Catechism, which reviews catechetical texts and provides consultation to the bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, presented a proposal to create an Institute for the Catechism at the bishops’ spring meeting in June 2021, which was held virtually because of the pandemic.

The Institute on the Catechism was created “to reimplement and reinvigorate the mandate of the subcommittee in responding to the changing catechetical landscape,” said USCCB news release announcing Father Mahan’s appointment.

Through the institute, catechetical publishers and developers of catechetical content will work directly with the USCCB subcommittee in new ways to pass on the faith using digital tools while aiming to reach a more diverse church. The institute will help them address today’s challenges to catechesis, such as young people’s disaffiliation with organized religion, the growing secularism in society and the influences of social media.

The institute also will provide resources to dioceses and yearly, in-person training conferences and retreats for diocesan catechetical leaders.

Father Mahan has reviewed catechetical texts since the late 1990s and has worked as a core team member for the institute since its November 2022 launch. A graduate of the former St. Meinrad College in Indiana, Father Mahan holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome.

Ordained a priest in 1988, Father Mahan has served in parishes throughout the Indianapolis Archdiocese. Currently, he serves with Father Jonathan Meyer as pastor with a team of priests serving four parishes in southern Indiana’s Dearborn County.

Bishop Caggiano said Father Mahan brings to the position “a deep understanding” of the Catechism of the Catholic Church “along with the invaluable, longtime expertise of teaching it to the faithful in a meaningful way.”

“At a time when there is wide-spread disaffiliation with the faith, and yet a deep desire and hunger being expressed by many to fill the void in their lives, we must take new, bold approaches to help the bishops to equip their catechists with ways to invite people to an encounter with the Lord,” the bishop said in a Feb. 27 statement about the priest’s appointment.

Bishop Caggiano thanked Indianapolis Archbishop Charles C. Thompson “for allowing Father Mahan to serve the greater church with the unique talents he brings to the institute.”

“Evangelizing catechesis” draws inspiration from Pope Francis’ 2021 document “Antiquum Ministerium” (“Ancient Ministry”) that described catechesis as an official church ministry. It also builds on the Vatican’s Directory for Catechesis, issued in 2020, that gives guidelines for catechists and pastors, particularly in the role of evangelization.

 

The institute launched its inaugural meeting Nov. 10-12, 2022, in Baltimore ahead of the U.S. bishops’ Nov. 14-17 general assembly.

Father Mahan told OSV News the gathering drew over 130 church leaders, including bishops, other diocesan officials, staff of the USCCB subcommittee, priests and others currently helping review catechetical texts as well as representatives from various publishers of catechetical materials.

He called it a “beautiful opportunity” for all involved in catechesis “to be together. We are in this together. The institute is meant to keep us together and help us work together for the same goal — to form young people in the faith, help them live the faith for a lifetime.”

“We know we have a lot of young Catholics who are leaving the church, some at a very early age. Some kids will make that decision in middle school … opting out even if they are still going to Mass and religious ed. They’re already out the door,” he said.

The bishops want to make sure “we’re doing the best we can in catechesis” and help those called in that direction “to produce high quality, doctrinally sound, compelling materials for our young people that grab them by the heart.”

He paid tribute to the late Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein for playing a significant role in the renewal of catechesis in the U.S. while he was chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In spite of the great efforts by catechists and publishers of catechetical materials to date, “we are still losing young people,” Father Mahan said, due in part to the many “powerful influences in our culture that are sort of like tentacles that can wrap around and not let go.”

The “‘isms’ are rampant — individualism, materialisms, narcissism that leads to nihilism,” Father Mahan told OSV news. “When we look at how saturated many young people are in media — whether watching TV, music, movies, engrossed in social media — there are a lot of influences that mitigate against a solid formation in the faith.”

“I’m not sure we can do a whole lot to change what’s out there. That may be someone else’s calling,” he said. “But the church can make sure what we are offering is top-notch, innovative … We know we are one screen away from anyone else in the world and that can present some great opportunities for us in using media in ways that glorify God.”