Vatican City, Dec 15, 2019 / 05:30 am (CNA).- As Pope Francis blessed children's nativity scene figurines Sunday, the pope said that the Advent season is a time of conversion to make space in one’s heart for Christ to come and fill it with joy.

“Advent, a time of grace, tells us that it is not enough to believe in God: it is necessary to purify our faith every day,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Dec. 15.

“It is a matter of preparing to welcome -- not a fairy-tale character -- but the God who calls us, involves us, and before whom a choice is imposed,” he said in St. Peter’s Square.

Italian children gathered in St. Peter’s Square before the Angelus prayer, shouted and cheered as they awaited the papal blessing of their Nativity scene figurines of the infant Jesus, called “Bambinelli” in Italian.

This 50 year-old Vatican tradition of the blessing the infant Jesus figurines on Gaudete Sunday began in 1969 with St. Pope Paul VI at the iniative of the Roman Oratori Center. The tradition has since spread throughout the world each year on the third Sunday of Advent.

“I greet you, dear children, who have come with the statues of the child Jesus for your nativity scenes. I cordially bless you,” Francis said.

Pope Francis reminded the children of the meaning of the nativity scene by quoting a passage of his apostolic letter, Admirabile Signum, published on the first day of Advent this year:

“The nativity scene is like a living Gospel,” he said. “As we contemplate the Christmas story, we are invited to set out on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman. We come to realize that so great is his love for us that he became one of us, so that we in turn might become one with him.”

The pope said that the child Jesus in the nativity scene has “the face of our most needy brothers and sisters.”

“The poor are a privileged part of this mystery; often they are the first to recognize God’s presence in our midst,” he said.

The time of Advent reminds us that joy and doubt are both experiences that are a part of life, the pope said.

“But the man of God looks beyond, because the Holy Spirit makes his heart feel the power of his promise, and he announces salvation: ‘Courage, do not fear! Behold your God ... He comes to save you,’”  Pope Francis said.

“And then everything is transformed: the desert blooms, consolation and joy take possession of fearful hearts, the lame, the blind, the mute are healed. This is what is accomplished with Jesus: ‘the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are purified, the deaf hear, the dead rise, the Gospel is announced to the poor,’” he said quoting the Gospel of Matthew.

This description from Matthew’s Gospel shows that “salvation envelops the whole man and regenerates him,” the pope said. “But this new birth, with the joy that accompanies it, always presupposes a dying to ourselves and to the sin that is in us.”

“Hence the call to conversion, which is the basis of the preaching of both the Baptist and Jesus; in particular, it is a question of converting the idea we have of God. And the time of Advent encourages us to do so,” he said.

Pope Francis reminded the crowd that the Christmas novena will begin Dec. 16. He also asked for prayers for the fruitfulness of the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Budapest, Hungary in September 2020.

“May the Virgin Mary help us as we approach Christmas, not to allow ourselves to be distracted by external things, but make space in our heart for Him who has already come and wants to come again to heal our illnesses and give us his joy,” Pope Francis said.

San José, Costa Rica, Dec 15, 2019 / 03:22 am (CNA).- Costa Rica's president on Dec. 12 issued a technical decree that defines the conditions under which a doctor may perform an abortion when doctors consider it necessary to preserve the life of the mother.

President Carlos Alvarado on Thursday signed the decree that, while not changing any laws, lays out how a woman may legally choose abortion in some circumstances.

Bishop José Manuel Garita Herrera of Ciudad Quesada spoke out against the decree and urged respect for both lives— that of the mother and of the child in her womb.

“To doctors, my call is also that, faithful to the principle and vocation to which they have consecrated themselves, allow them to place their gifts at the service of the mother and her son,” Bishop Herrera said, as reported by CNA’s Spanish-language news partner ACI Prensa.

“The text presented by the government authorities must not ignore the life of the human being that has developed in the womb...God protect and enlighten Costa Rica so that all those responsible for this policy always seek the good of both lives.”

The government had announced in early 2019 that the technical norm was being drafted by a team from the Department of Health and was going to be signed by the president during this year.

“Far from making our country progress in true respect for human rights, [the decree] would make it disrespect the most absolute of those rights in the unborn person,” Archbishop José Rafael Quirós of San José said in an Oct. 11 letter to the president.

Health Minister Daniel Salas said in a statement that abortions can be performed if there is no other medical alternative; if the woman gives consent; and after mandatory evaluation by three medical professionals, Reuters reports.

Pro-life advocates argue that abortion is never medically necessary, and that, although a woman may sometimes need to undergo a procedure that will lead to the child’s death in order to alleviate a medical condition, this is not the same as directly and intentionally killing the baby.

Abortion was decriminalized in Costa Rica in 1971 through Article 121 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates that an abortion performed with the consent of a woman by a doctor is not punishable when done to save the mother’s life, and in the absence of other options. However, many doctors have been unwilling to perform abortions, citing the lack of a protocol clarifying the exact conditions in which it is permitted and procedures to follow, Tico Times reports.

In August, thousands participated in the March for Life in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, urging that the president not sign the technical regulation.

Days prior to the march, the Costa Rican bishops' conference invited all citizens to participate, and thanked the secular organizations that “with great dedication and zeal for promoting the culture of life, have organized this event.”

The country’s social security system has six months to enact the new norms, Tico Times reports.

 

Beirut, Lebanon, Dec 14, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- As Lebanon’s economic crisis worsens, a Lebanese priest is asking for people to spiritually and charitably adopt a persecuted Christian refugee family this Christmas season.

“Imagine that for the last 4-6 years there were more than 2 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a nation that is only about 4 million people,” Fr. Andre Sebastian Mahanna told CNA. 

On Dec. 14, Fr. Mahanna’s apostolate, St. Rafka Mission of Hope and Mercy, will provide a Christmas dinner and concert for 4,500 families of refugees from Syria and Iraq at which 2,500 children will receive Christmas gifts.

The Christmas gift and good drive will be hosted by Chaldean Archbishop Michael Kassargi of Beirut. The mission will also provide 100 families with emergency medical insurance coverage through the Center of Our Lady of Hope Medical Center in Beirut.

“In this Christmas season, adopt a family in your prayer. Pray for a family so that a father and a mother who cannot afford food at the table, who cannot afford medicine for their children or for themselves, they cannot afford the livelihood of paying rent, pray for their concrete livelihood,” Fr. Mahanna urged.

With a $50 donation, one can “Adopt a Family” of refugees, which in turn also helps ease the burden on Lebanon’s infrastructure and helps “support the Lebanese people until the political situation and that human crisis of the refugees is settled,” Mahanna explained. 

Lebanon is facing a critical moment in which it risks becoming a failed state, Mahanna said. Anti-government protests forced the former prime minister Saad Hariri to resign six weeks ago, and the government remains billions of dollars in debt.

“The crisis has now drained the entire banking system, private investors cannot withdraw their money. If I have money in the bank, you cannot find the actual dollar currency in any of the Lebanese territories. The ATM machines are not giving money out to people, and you cannot go even to your own account and withdraw money more than let's say $1,000 per month in some places $400 per month in other places,” the priest said.

“We need the help of the international community to maintain the stability, some economic foundation in Lebanon so that we protect the private investors, we protect the Lebanese citizens … in such a way that the government will not fall,” he said.

“If the government falls, you are going to have two fanatic groups, unfortunately just like what happened in Syria, just like what happened in Iraq, they will be on the rise and kill each other. As a collateral damage, Christians always pay the cost,” he explained.

Fr. Mahanna asked for prayers for Lebanon to remain a stronghold for dialogue and a model of coexistence between people from different religious groups. 

The St. Rafka Mission of Hope and Mercy’s Christmas celebrations will continue at epiphany when the mission will distribute gifts at the Bird’s News Orphanage in Byblos, Lebanon on Jan. 6, 2020.

The Syrian Civil War left an estimated 100,000 children orphaned. Gifts will also be distributed to the orphans cared for by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and the Ephraimites Sisters in Harissa, Lebanon. 

“I'm so proud of the churches in Lebanon,” Mahanna said. “They have doubled their attendance in the afternoon. They cook, they wrap sandwiches. We send as a Mission of Hope and Mercy on a monthly basis for the Christian refugees. We send 200 hygiene supply kits every month. We send 200 food boxes every month, and now for Christmas we send 2,500 Christmas gifts.”

“We stand in solidarity and in support with these people who really are in dire need,” he said.

Washington D.C., Dec 14, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- In its 2019 roundup of the biggest lies of the year (dubbed the biggest ‘Pinocchios’), the Washington Post included a false but oft-repeated claim that “thousands” of women died while undergoing illegal abortions before the legalization of abortion in the United States.

This statistic was frequently cited this year by Dr. Leana Wen, who was fired from her position as president of Planned Parenthood in July, just eight months after accepting the job.

“We dug through the statistics and it turns out she was citing numbers from the 1930s, before the advent of antibiotics,” Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post said in his 2019 Pinocchio list. “In 1972, the number of deaths in the United States from legal abortions was 24 and from illegal abortions 39, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Wen was “repeatedly” told by her staff that the statistic she was citing was false, but continued to use it anyway, the New York Times reported. Insiders at Planned Parenthood told the New York Times that Wen was ultimately let go because the organization wanted someone at the helm with a more aggressive focus on political advocacy, while Wen had worked to reframe Planned Parenthood primarily as a healthcare organization.

In May of this year, Kessler fact-checked the “thousands of women” claim that Wen had also repeated in interviews. He noted that before abortion became legal, official statistics on the number of women who died from abortions were dicey at best due to the illegality of the procedure and the shame surrounding it.

“Still, by the time Roe was issued, 17 states had liberalized their abortion laws, and the Centers for Disease Control was collecting solid data on abortion mortality,” Kessler noted.

Estimates on the number of abortions performed before Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that allowed for legal abortion in the United States, vary widely - from 200,000 to 1,200,000 per year, according to one 1958 study examined by The Washington Post.

“That’s quite a range for the number of illegal abortions, indicating how fuzzy the numbers are,” Kessler noted in May.

Another study cited in a NARAL document from 1936 used liberal estimates from a gynecologist named Frederick Taussig who used data from just 13 states and guessed at the rest to approximate the annual number of deaths from abortion at roughly 10,000.

But by 1948, researcher Christopher Tietze noted in a paper that deaths from abortion were swiftly decreasing due to the advent of penicillin and other antibiotics, as well as improved medical practices and an increase in available contraceptive methods.

In 1959, the medical director of Planned Parenthood reported that there had only been 260 deaths in the U.S. from illegal abortion, and that the procedure could be considered as safe as any other surgical procedure at the time, Kessler reported.

In 1969, a report in Scientific American magazine by Tietze and Sarah Lewit cited in The Washington Post stated that annually, the “Total mortality from illegal abortions was undoubtedly larger than (235), but in all likelihood it was under 1,000.”

“Even given the fuzzy nature of the data and estimates, there is no evidence that in the years immediately preceding the Supreme Court’s decision, thousands of women died every year in the United States from illegal abortions,” Kessler wrote.

Metuchen, N.J., Dec 13, 2019 / 08:40 pm (CNA).- A New Jersey bishop is calling on legislators to amend a bill that would force religious groups to fund contraceptive coverage for their employees, even if doing so violates their religious convictions.

“Legislation (S3804/A5508) is now being considered in the New Jersey legislature which eliminates the long-standing religious employers' exemption in the current law,” said Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen.

“Eliminating the religious employers' exemption would essentially force religious organizations to pay for medications, including abortion causing drugs, sterilizations and other procedures which violate our fundamental belief that all life, from conception to natural death, is sacred,” he said in a Dec. 10 statement.

The bill was introduced to the New Jersey Senate in May and the state’s House of Representatives in June. If passed, it would require full coverage for certain contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in health care plans and remove exemptions for religious organizations.

“Contraception was named as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said bill sponsor Sen. Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, according to northjersey.com. “That was 20 years ago, whether or not insurance plans cover contraceptives shouldn’t be a question today.”

The bill must be addressed before the second week of January, when the current legislative session ends. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced his support for the bill in May.

Bishop Checchio stressed the importance of religious liberty as one of the “important building blocks of American society.”

He said the law would threaten the “basic human right” of religious freedom and would place religious organizations in an impossible position, negatively impacting their charitable work, including aid provided to immigrants and those in poverty.

“Passage of this measure would require our Catholic parishes, Catholic schools and agencies such as Catholic Charities to offer our employees comprehensive health benefits in violation of fundamental Catholic principles,” the bishop said.

“If this measure should pass many of our Catholic institutions and services will be seriously impacted. Assistance that we provide to the poor, the frail elderly, the sick and the dying, and to immigrants and their families could be at great risk.”

Edward Sita, a resident of St. Joseph’s Senior Home in Woodbridge, which is operated by the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, also spoke out against the bill.

“One of the principal reasons I am here is because we have a religious organization who wants to care for us,” he said of the senior home.

In a Dec. 12 statement, Sita said he is grateful in particular for the sisters’ attentive care for his wife, who has Alzheimers, as well as the for the opportunity for regular Mass, adoration, and other religious activities offered at the home.

“The folks here do so much and are completely giving of all that is possible to give, and that’s themselves. It’s hard to describe all the good things that are happening here.”

Sita said the proposed law would place the sisters in a “morally impossible situation.” He said he could not imagine life without the sisters’ help, if the home were forced to shut down.

“I couldn’t even imagine it and I pray and I hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Bishop Checchio encouraged Catholics to take action against the bill, pointing to a website where people may appeal to their local representatives.

“I urge all of the faithful to contact their state senators today and urge them to amend the proposed legislation, S3804/A5508 to retain the established religious employers' exemption which is contained in current law,” the bishop said.

 

Jerusalem, Dec 13, 2019 / 06:30 pm (CNA).- Church leaders in Jerusalem are appealing to Israeli authorities to reverse a decision that prohibits the Christmastime travel permits that usually allow a few hundred Christians from the Gaza Strip to visit Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem.

Israeli officials, citing security concerns, have broken with their usual practice and declined to grant the permits, Reuters reports. Gaza Christians may travel abroad but not to Israel and the West Bank.

Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to local church leaders, criticized the policy.

“Other people around the world are allowed to travel to Bethlehem. We think Gaza’s Christians should have that right, too,” he told Reuters.

One Gaza woman lamented the decision.

“Every year I pray they will give me a permit so I can celebrate Christmas and see my family,” Randa El-Amash, 50, told Reuters. “It will be more joyful to celebrate in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem.”

The Gaza Strip is a 141 square mile area under Palestinian control in the west of Israel. It is home to about 2 million people. Since 2007, it has been ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Since Hamas came to power in Gaza, Israel and Egypt have imposed an economic blockade to restrict travel and to restrict the flow of goods, citing the need to limit the flow of weapons and the rocket attacks on Israel launched from the territory.
 
Inhabitants of Gaza suffer high unemployment and face electricity blackouts and drinking water shortages.
 
There are now only about 1,000 Christians still in Gaza, mostly adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church. In 2012 Christians numbered about 4,500.
 
Some Christians who secure travel permits to visit holy sites on Easter and Christmas never return home, preferring to seek a better life elsewhere.
 
Israeli authorities in the past have justified restrictions on travel from Gaza because travelers illegally overstay their visit in the West Bank.
 
Gisha, an Israeli rights group, told Reuters the travel ban is “a deepening of Israel’s separation policy” for the two Palestinian-controlled regions, the West Bank and Gaza.
 
In 2018, Israel granted nearly 700 Gaza Christians travel permits allowing them to go to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth and other sites of pilgrimage.
 
While Israel’s population is predominantly Jewish, about 20 percent of the country’s 8.5 million people are Arab. About two percent are Christians, though their numbers have sharply declined after decades of emigration.
 
CNA contacted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

Juba, South Sudan, Dec 13, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A group of three priests and five laymen from the Archdiocese of Juba wrote Thursday to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples protesting the appointment of Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla as archbishop.

In their Dec. 12 letter, obtained by CNA, the group say they are indigenous and represent “the majority of concerned people of the Archdiocese.”

That day the Vatican announced the resignation of Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro, 79, and the appointment of Ameyu as his successor.

Ameyu, 55, was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Torit in 1991, and had been appointed bishop of the same see earlier this year.

The concerned people of Juba gave three reasons for opposing the appointment, charging that government officials and some Juba priests had conspired to promote Ameyu as archbishop for personal interests, and had influenced a Vatican diplomat to that end; that a local priest could have been appointed; and alleging that Ameyu has fathered at least six children.

They wrote that Ameyu “will not be accepted to serve as Archbishop of Juba under any circumstance.”

The situation calls to mind that in the Diocese of Ahiara, where a December 2012 appointment of a bishop from a neighboring diocese was rejected by the people of Ahiara. The Mbaise ethic group whom the Ahiara diocese serves objected that the new bishop was not Mbaise. That episcopal installation was performed outside the Ahiara diocese because of protests, and while Pope Francis in 2017 demanded the acceptance of the appointment, the rejected bishop’s resignation was accepted early in 2018.

The letter from clerics and laymen of Juba indicated that they had written to the congregation Dec. 10 asking for “dialogue over the serious allegations raised against Bishop Stephen Ameyu.”

“Given the genuine concerns based on the legitimate issues cited in our memo, we had honestly expected the suspension of the announcement, until further investigation can be conducted on the matter,” they wrote.

“Now that the misled Vatican has arrogantly ignored our concerns by choosing the path of undue confrontation, we have no other option than to respond with proportional means.”

According to the letter-writers in Juba, Archbishop Hubertus van Megen, apostolic nuncio to South Sudan and Kenya, “has dismissed the allegations brought against Bishop Stephen Ameyu and put the whole blame on Archbishop Paolino Lukudu Loro.”

Detailing a “series of conspiracies and briberies by some determined interest groups and lobbyists both inside and outside Juba”, the group said they have “substantial evidence that the Nunciature in Juba was heavily compromised by some officials from the government of South Sudan from its inception up to date.”

The letter’s signatories said that Msgr. Mark Kadima, the Vatican's chargé d'affaires in South Sudan who was appointed last year, was given money and goods “to gain leverage over him,” and that they have evidence “some high profile politicians influenced the process by ruling out some of our candidates and worked to promote Bishop Stephen Ameyu.”

The group also wrote that they have evidence that some of the priests of Juba, “who are also polygamists, businessmen and senior government security personnel” worked to manipulate Msgr. Kadima to support Ameyu “who would … protect their personnel [sic] interests.”

These priests, the concerned clerics and laymen charged, divided several senior positions in the archdiocese, including vicar general, among themselves Dec. 8.

Secondly, the letter asks, “Who among our priests in Juba can be appointed bishop anywhere?”

It charges that priests from Juba were passed over for episcopal appointments in Yei in 1986, and recently in both Rumbek and Torit.

“Should we understand that the Vatican listens only when there are real violent threats attached,” they asked. “Otherwise, we still find it inexplicable why and how the local church of Juba, already blessed with over 30 local priests who have excelled in their pastoral, administrative and academic experience should be humiliated by getting a Bishop who has two concubines and six biological children. How can our mother Church go for this Bishop when some of our priests were disqualified on unfounded rumours of fathering only one child?”

Finally, the letter says that Ameyu's having fathered at least six children “is common knowledge and does not need much prove [sic].” They charge that he has a concubine in Gudele, located just outside Juba.

The concerned people of Juba wrote that they are “a generous and hospitable people … kind hearted and straightforward people who do not tolerate any form of humiliation. We take long to react but once the gloves come off, it becomes difficult to calm things later.”

They maintained that their opposition “should not be misinterpreted as tribalism,” saying they have “no objection in having a bishop from outside the Archdiocese,” noting that most of their bishops have not been indigenous.

“Therefore, it should be the question of being Bari or none [sic] Bari, but rather appointing a good priest with right qualifications,” they wrote.

The Bari an ethnic group who are centered in Juba.

The protesters added that they are “not questioning or interfering with the prerogative of the Holy Father to appoint bishops,” but are “only against the manipulation and the buying of the process by politicians and other interest groups.

“We are against a person brought from outside just to promote personal interests while maliciously leaving out the qualified sons of this land,” they wrote.

The letter says that Archbishop van Megen and Msgr. Kadima “have gone so low and naïve that they have irrevocably lost the good will of the people of Juba,” charging that they have given in “to worldly pleasures to the extent of misleading the Propaganda Fide” and the Holy Father, choosing “to serve individual government officials and some lobbyists instead of serving the local Church.”

According to the protesters, Ameyu's appointment had already been made while the consultation to find an Archbishop of Juba was being conducted.

They charge that the Juba archbishop “must be a visible sign of unity among all the faithful,” saying that this requires mastery of English and Arabic, as well as “ample knowledge of local language and the culture of the indigenous tribes of the Archdiocese of Juba: Bari, Nyangwara, Mundari, Pojulu, Lokoya and Lulubo.”

“Where does Bishop Stephen come close on these requirements,” they asked.

They charged that the nuncio, based in Nairobi, has dismissed their allegations against Ameyu as unsubstantiated, and believed those against local priests “without any investigation.”

“How can these men of God (Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima) who are barely three years in our country pretend to know our priests more than us [sic] who live and work with them on daily basis,” they asked.

“We cannot overstress that there is absolutely no chance for Bishop Stephen Ameyu to serve as the Archbishop of Juba,” the priest and laymen wrote. They said that “there will be no cooperation by the clergy and faithful of the Archdiocese … he will be resisted tooth and nail on the ground to the point of abdicating the helm by himself. But he will eventually regret why he accepted the appointment as he will be spending the rest of his life in protecting himself rather than shepherding the people. We feel that the Vatican can still save the situation now instead of or having to eat its words the hard way later.”

They said the people of Juba are ready to close the doors of all churches in the archdiocese on the day of Ameyu's installation, saying that “the Nunciature will have to hire government troops to scatter the protesting youth, children, priests, religious, women and other people of Juba. It will be a traumatic situation for the people of Juba since the installation will be over some dead bodies.”

They added that Juba's indigenous people have said that “they will cancel all the contracts and withdraw all the lands they had given” to the archdiocese and the bishops' conference.

The group also said that Archbishop van Megen and Msgr. Kadima are unwelcome in the archdiocese, and “will no longer be safe in our roads, land, churches and towns. They will have to rely on the protection of the forces whose interests they serve and seek to advance.”

They said the Vatican diplomats should have known “that the era of 'Roma locuta est, causa finita est, is over and that is now time of 'vox populi vox dei'.”

“Why should the fate of the Church in Juba be left to the mercy of Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima alone. Why would the local church not have a say in the appointment of its own shepherds? … How and why can Nuncio Bert and Msgr. Kadima not know that the Archdiocese of Juba is not their chocolate to divide and give it to whoever they life?”

They also asked what experience Ameyu gleaned in less than a year of being Bishop of Torit, to be appointed Archbishop of Juba.

Concluding, they reiterated a desire for “dialogue with the Vatican while the appointment is called off. We are left with no option than to say that if the Vatican adamantly insists to have its sole way; there will be no way in Juba. Do it your way and reap the consequences.”

The concerned group wrote that “given that this question is so existential to us, we now turn to the Holy Spirit to do His work in the Church.”

Rome, Italy, Dec 13, 2019 / 05:27 pm (CNA).- A new film opening this weekend tells the story of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, whose refusal to fight for the Nazis in World War II led to his imprisonment and death.

Franz was beatified by the Catholic Church in Austria in 2007. His wife, Franziska, was present at the beatification. She died in 2013 at the age of 100.

The story of the couple, living as peasant farmers in St. Radegund in Upper Austria during World War II, is recounted in the film A Hidden Life. The movie is written and directed by Terrence Malick, which premiers in select U.S. theaters Dec. 13.

The narrative places a strong emphasis on the town and farm where Franz and his family live, showing in detail their daily lives and the work they do with their animals and in the fields and garden.

The strong love between the husband and wife, and in the family, are also closely shown, as they become criticized and ostracized by their neighbors for what is seen as a selfish choice to conscientiously object to fighting in Hitler’s war.

Valerie Pachner, the Austrian actress who plays Franziska in A Hidden Life, told CNA she enjoyed portraying a real person because of the depth it lends the role and because of the responsibility she felt toward the real-life Franziska.

“I identified so strongly with the character. And that was in a way both wonderful and beautiful but also very challenging,” she said.

It was inspiring for her, she explained, “to witness two people who know so well what is right in their hearts and follow that” even though it means putting their own needs and survival last.

“That was definitely something that impressed me a lot. And trying to get close to that through portraying that character really gave me a certain sense of strength and empowerment,” she said.

“I just felt it’s amazing what human beings are capable of and I found it very wonderful, this approach that they had to that decision. And it really gave me a lot of strength.”

A Hidden Life starts in St. Radegund in 1939 when Franz is already a strong Catholic. But the real-life man did not start his life with a strong faith.

Franz’s mother, Rosalia Huber, was unmarried when she gave birth to him in 1907. His biological father was killed in World War I. His mother later married the man who adopted him, Heinrich Jagerstatter, when he was 10 years old.

Franz was a womanizer as a young man and fathered a daughter out of wedlock. There were periods during which Franz stopped going to Mass.

He became a farmer and met Franziska, whom he wed on Holy Thursday 1936. They then traveled to Rome, where they received the blessing of Pope Pius XI.

Through Franziska’s influence, Franz became the sexton of the local church, taking care of the property and grounds and assisting at liturgies. He started attending daily Mass.

The husband and wife had three girls together and also remained close to Franz’s older daughter.

When Hitler invaded Austria in 1938, Franz was the only one in his village to vote against the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Germany.

In 1940, he was called up for military service. The mayor helped him to return home shortly after, but he was again called up for active service from October 1940 until April 1941, when the mayor was again able to intervene for his return home.

During the time he was away, Franz and Franziska exchanged letters. These and other letters between the husband and wife were published in English in 2009.

Pachner said reading those letters was the most important thing she did to prepare for the role. “There’s a lot in those letters. And you feel their love, their faith, their day-to-day life,” she said.

The letters also play a major part throughout the film as they are heard through narrated voice-overs.

Franz became convinced that it was wrong for him to fight and decided to refuse if he should be called up again, which happened in February 1943.

He offered to carry out other, non-violent military service in place of fighting. However, his request was refused, and he was taken into custody in Linz for two months, then transferred to the Berlin-Tegel prison. He was tried on July 6, 1943 and condemned to death for sedition. He was executed by beheading on Aug. 9, 1943.

A Hidden Life flashes between Franz in prison and his wife and family at home in St. Radegund, as she and her sister take on the full burden of caring for the family farm.

Pachner said she prepared physically for the role, learning how to scythe wheat, churn butter, milk a cow, and other aspects of farm work.

Another part of her preparation for playing Franziska was to watch the documentary The Widow of the Hero. “It’s very small and it’s very hard to find. I had to go to a bookstore in some kind of monastery or something to get it,” she said.

The documentary has an interview with Franziska when she was 96 years old.

Pachner said she “sort of expected [Franziska] to be broken, in a way, I don’t know. And then I saw it and she’s not. She’s this old fragile lady and she’s beaming.”

“And that was very important for me because it made me realize that even though she went through all that hardship, even after the war, for decades, that she did not lose trust in the good of life.”

Pachner was raised Catholic but said she is no longer practicing her faith. She said that if she were faced with the circumstances which Franziska underwent, she would likely respond differently.

“I would have been angry, I would have held a grudge against the neighbors, I would have left the village.”

Franziska “really has to have something [remarkable] that... she never turns bitter,” she noted.
 
 

Washington D.C., Dec 13, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The U.S. bishops’ conference on Friday condemned the antisemitic shooting at a kosher market in Jersey City earlier this week, reiterating the Church’s absolute condemnation of antisemitism.

“The recent attack on a kosher market in Jersey City, alongside many other recent hateful and at times violent actions, have highlighted the importance of, once again, publicly condemning any and all forms of antisemitism whether in thought, word or action,” said Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton, chair of the U.S. bishops’ ecumenical and interreligious affairs committee, on Friday.

“The past has taught us silence and passivity can result in the advancement of the worst crimes humanity can commit,” he said.

On Tuesday, two gunmen fatally shot a police detective in Bay View Cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey, before entering the nearby Jersey City Kosher Supermarket and shooting four civilians inside, killing three.

After a shootout of several hours, police entered the market and found the two suspects dead;  a pipe bomb was discovered in the U-Haul truck of the shooters parked outside the market.

Bishop Bambera on Friday pledged the Church’s “irrevocable commitment to the Jewish community.”

“At the Second Vatican Council, in Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church articulated, ‘Mindful of the inheritance she shares with the Jews, the Church decries hatreds, persecutions, and manifestations of antisemitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone,’” the bishop stated.

“We offer our prayerful support for all victims of antisemitic violence and their families.”

The two suspects in the shooting reportedly expressed anti-Semitic views online and appeared sympathetic to the Black Hebrew Israelite group, recognized as a hate group. The shootings are reportedly being investigated as domestic terrorism with a hate-crime bent.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional Anti-Semitism Task Force, said on Friday the shooting is “yet another wake-up call like the anti-Semitic slaughter in Pittsburgh that demands we redouble efforts to combat anti-Semitism.” The October, 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh killed 11.

“Even though Jewish people comprise approximately 2 percent of the U.S. population, the disproportionate number of hate crimes against Jews is absolutely appalling,” Smith said, noting that anti-Jewish crimes made up more than 57% of hate crimes motivated by religious bias, in the 2018 FBI Hate Crimes Report.

Vatican City, Dec 13, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- A senior official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has defended clerical celibacy in the wake of the abuse crisis. 

In an essay published in a Spanish magazine, Fr. Jordi Bertomeu Farnós said that there is “no evidence” celibacy has any relation to instances of sexual abuse, and warned that priests have been unfairly branded a suspect class.

In the essay, published in Palabra Dec. 10, Fr. Farnós laid out the context of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, noting that the high-profile nature of the scandals has resulted in a number of mistaken presumptions about the causes of abuse.

“Although unfortunately, in all social classes, professions, ethnic groups and, of course, religions, there is the phenomenon of child abuse, Catholic priests are seen or even increasingly treated as ‘suspects’ of having committed this horrible crime.”

Speaking against attempts to link the discipline of celibacy to crimes of sexual abuse, Farnós said that “regardless of other circumstances and arguments that have emerged in the recent Synod for the Amazon,”  “this conclusion does not present any logical connection with the problem we are dealing with here: there is no scientific data that demonstrates that a married life would put an end to the deviant behavior of these few priests with this sexual disorder.”

“There is no evidence that priestly celibacy directly causes any deviant sexual addiction, as evidenced by those cases of men or women who, due to life's circumstances, must live as celibate.”

“In addition,” he added, “celibacy has never been considered as a relevant parameter to identify abusers. Rather, most abusers are married men. Priests, mostly celibate men are… usually characterized precisely for their psychological balance, for their availability and selfless delivery to all, not only to the Catholic faithful.”

Farnós went on to offer a strident defence of the discipline of celibacy which, he said, was often unintelligible to modern society.

“According to some, in a sexually uninhibited and eroticized society… with numerous cases of addiction to all kinds of pornography and sexual deviations or paraphilias, priestly celibacy would be a pernicious life option,” he said. 

According to this mindset, Farnós argued, celibacy is only recognized as “perpetual self-censorship of sexual desire,” and must lead to “psychological problems related to immaturity” that result in pedophilia.

“If the experience of celibacy has always been countercultural,” Farnós says, today it is “even more” so.

“Our society needs many young people to show everyone the goodness of living a true, chaste and free love. Living the consecration as ‘anointing’ and not simply ‘function’ encourages everyone, particularly those who have received the marriage vocation, to surrender without fainting despite daily difficulties,” he said.

“Priests are called, therefore, to surrender with a totalizing love to be ‘signs’ of a more real love than any utopia.”

Pointing to other examples of institutions rocked by abuse scandals, Fernós said that attempts to link celibacy to abuse lacked evidence. 

“The data offered by other Christian and non-Christian churches, without celibate sacred ministers, belies that claim,” he said, pointing to the example of the Unity Church of Australia, which has 240,000 members, no hierarchy, and which elects married male and female clergy, but has recently made headlines for 2,500 cases of child abuse. 

“Contrast such data with the Catholic Church, with 466,000 priests and 6,000 cases reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” he said. 

In the essay, Farnós pointed out that while the vast majority of cases of sexual abuse occur in the family, no one draws the conclusion that family members are ipso facto prone to abuse.

“If 73% of sexual abuse of minors seems to occur in the family environment, it cannot be affirmed that ‘being a father or being a mother predisposes to abuse,’” he said.

Farnós said that media coverage of the scandals had rightly highlighted the seriousness of all cases, but given rise to “certain statements destined to provoke the social panic and discredit of the Church, unfairly stigmatizing the social group of the clergy.”

Noting that the CDF has received approximately 6,000 cases of abuse world-wide, “an excessive number that shames us as Christians and particularly as priests,” Farnós said that priest account for only 3% of abuse cases reported to civil authorities.

“In the last two decades, we have attended with pain, particularly in some regions of the Catholic world, to an unworthy, improper, inconsiderate and even vexatious treatment of priests for the mere fact of [their] being [priests],” he said, pointing to “irresponsible” coverage of clerical abuse by the media.

The CDF official did, however, acknowledge that the vast majority of sexual abuse cases in the Church, some 80%, involve men preying on boys or young men, but warned against drawing any causal link between homosexuality as an orientation and a disposition to abuse.

Despite what Farnós called “certain ultraconservative ideological positions,” the data available to the CDF showed that “there is no direct relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia or between the latter and a ‘progressive style’ of clergy.”

“Affirming the direct connection of homosexuality with pedophilia from the data […] not only involves the commission of a great injustice, but also the criminalization of a certain sexual identity,” Farnós said, while at the same time observing that cultures of active homosexuality were a contributing factor to sexual abuse.

“It is […] possible to affirm that a certain homosexual subculture typical of some clerical groups and present in certain seminars or novitiates, with the consequent tolerance towards active homosexual behaviors, can lead to pedophilia.” 

These, Fornós said, “deserve greater attention from pastors, who have the pastoral and disciplinary means to invite [clerics] by example, the word and even coercion to a chaste life that does not pose a danger or scandal for the priest himself and for the Church.”

Offering his own reflections on preventing future abuse, he said that bishops need to focus on the selection of candidates for the priesthood, moving away from “a superficial predisposition to welcome all,” and identifying men “capable of living loneliness as a moment of grace and maturation, integrating aggressiveness and maintaining healthy relationships with adult people for a long time.”

“We should insist on candidates for ministry [suitable for] their future public and social role,” he said.

“They will be moral reference points and, therefore, should be exercised from the first moment of their formation in great self-control, with the aim of never scandalizing or even moving anyone away from the faith, the great gift that sustains us.”