BALTIMORE (CNS) — In his final address as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston told his fellow bishops that it has been “an honor to serve you, even in the difficult times.”

The 70-year-old prelate thanked the bishops, whom he called brothers, for the last three years and was thanked by them in return when the group gave him a standing ovation at the end of his nine-minute presentation Nov. 11 at the start of the bishops’ annual fall meeting in Baltimore.

“Let’s begin anew,” he said, at the close of his address, veering away from prepared remarks, and quoting St. Augustine.

The cardinal, who suffered a mild stroke earlier this year, did not elaborate on specifics of the abuse crisis in the church, particularly highlighted this past year, but spoke of the bishops’ continued work of transparency related to dealing with the crisis. He said the abuse measures adopted by U.S. bishops at their meeting last June are “only a beginning. More needs to be done.”

He also pointed out that Pope Francis has “ushered in a new era for bishop accountability” with worldwide measures of accountability.

“My service as president has been a continual reminder that, indeed, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it,” he said, possibly alluding to challenges beyond the walls of the church. At the end of his talk, he spoke about how today’s culture has been overtaken by various ideologies, political divisions and coarse rhetoric.

“As the followers of Christ, let us take a different path. Follow a simple truth: God is always courteous. Let us be courteous,” he urged the bishops.

The cardinal highlighted key aspects of the work of the U.S. church that he witnessed firsthand in visits during the past few years with Catholic volunteers and migrants at the border, pro-life efforts to protect the unborn and his own conversations with those who had been abused by church leaders.

He said he went to the border with fellow bishops because “Jesus was already there.”

Speaking to broader audience, he invited “everyone who may hear this to share our journey of solidarity with migrants and refugees.”

He praised the work of volunteers at the border and also for those working at pregnancy centers around the country and those working in public policy arena promoting health care that is comprehensive enough to “nurture every child’s right to life.”

Again, speaking to those who might be watching the meeting, the cardinal urged women considering an abortion to call a Catholic parish where they would be provided with potential resources to help.

“The continued fight to defend unborn children” is a significant challenge and the church will continue in this work, he said, as long as “long as the most innocent lives are left unprotected.”

On the issue of clergy sexual abuse, he said his life had been “forever changed” by meeting with abuse survivors, saying even though some in the church didn’t listen to them, they refused to be “relegated to the shadows.”

Their witness, he said, not only brought help to other survivors but it also “fueled the resolve” of fellow bishops to respond with pastoral support and prevention programs, background checks and zero tolerance policies. Survivors have “empowered us with the knowledge needed to respond,” he said.

“We must never stop striving for this justice” for those abused within the church, and to work to be sure it never happens in the future, he stressed.

The cardinal also said the U.S. church must continue to correct clericalism, saying church leaders must be servants of all and said the church must continue its efforts of evangelism, particularly the work begun through the process of Encuentro gatherings across the country.

At his closing address at last year’s fall meeting, Cardinal DiNardo said he opened the meeting expressing some disappointment but said he ended it with hope, referring to his announcement at the start of that meeting that the Vatican wanted the bishops to delay any vote on their response to the abuse crisis until after a global meeting focusing on the issue took place.

During a Nov. 11 news conference during the first day of the 2019 fall meeting, the cardinal said that he was 85% recovered from his stroke this spring.

He also reiterated that he still has the hope he had a year ago and that he had expressed at the beginning of his term as president, but he also acknowledged he had no idea three years ago the “rough ride” he would face.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God’s creation must be treated “not as a resource to be exploited but as a home to be preserved, with trust in God,” Pope Francis said.

He celebrated Mass Oct. 27 to mark the end of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, which brought together bishops, priests and religious, and lay men and women, including indigenous people, from the nine Amazonian countries.

Synod participants, some wearing their native dress and feathered headdresses, led the procession into St. Peter’s Basilica. During the offertory, an indigenous woman presented the pope with a plant.

Their presence was a reminder of the pope’s rebuke to a bishop who had made a derogatory comment about an indigenous man wearing his headdress at the synod’s opening Mass on Oct. 6.

Instead of using a crosier made of precious metals, the pope carried a carved wooden crosier that the Vatican said was a gift from the synod. During the assembly, participants described the environmental devastation and social problems caused by mining in the Amazon.

Pope Francis’ homily about the Gospel parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax collector drew parallels to the situation in the Amazon. It also appeared to address critics who have called the synod heretical.

The Pharisee was “the most pious and devout figure of the time, and the tax collector, the public sinner par excellence,” Pope Francis said. But in Jesus’ eyes, “the one who is good but presumptuous fails; the one who is a disaster but humble is exalted by God.”

The Pharisee “stands in the temple of God, but he practices another religion, the religion of ‘I,’ and many popular groups, Christian and Catholic, follow this path,” Pope Francis said. “The drama of this man is that he is without love.”

In contrast, the tax collector’s prayer for mercy “is born from the heart,” the pope said. “To pray is to stand before God’s eyes, without illusions, excuses or justifications.”

Everyone is both Pharisee and tax collector, the pope said. “We are a bit tax collectors because we are sinners, and a bit Pharisees because we are … masters of the art of self-justification.”

The Pharisee’s attitude is apparent in “those who are prominent” considering others to be “backward and of little worth, despise their traditions, erase their history, occupy their lands, and usurp their goods,” he added.

The pope’s words echoed the accounts of indigenous observers at the synod, who described a history of plundering of timber, rubber, minerals and other natural resources in the Amazon. That rapaciousness has displaced people from their land and spurred violence, including human trafficking and the murder of people who try to defend their territories.

“In this synod we have had the grace of listening to the voices of the poor and reflecting on the precariousness of their lives,” Pope Francis said.

The “scarred face of the Amazon region,” he said, shows that past experience has not been enough “to stop the plundering of other persons and the inflicting of wounds on our brothers and sisters and on our sister earth.”

The pope’s language throughout the synod has echoed the words of his namesake, St. Francis, who praised God through his brothers, wind and air, and his sister, Mother Earth.

Nevertheless, the gathering was sharply criticized by some Catholic groups that claimed it was heretical. The critics, who were active on social media during the synod, also claimed that a carved image of a pregnant indigenous woman that was used during some prayer services was a pagan idol.

Pope Francis urged his listeners to reflect on “whether we, too, may think that someone is inferior and can be tossed aside, even if only in our words.”

“Self-worship carries on hypocritically with its rites and ‘prayers,'” the pope said, adding that many people who fall into self-worship “profess to be Catholics, but have forgotten to be Christians and human beings, forgetting the true worship of God, which is always expressed in love of one’s neighbor.”

Calling the poor “the gatekeepers of heaven,” he said, “they were not considered bosses in this life. They did not put themselves ahead of others. They had their wealth in God alone. These persons are living icons of Christian prophecy.”

The pope paused during his homily to acknowledge the presence of “the poorest people of our most developed societies, the sick from the L’Arche Community,” who were seated in the front rows in the basilica.

He encouraged his listeners to “associate with the poor, to remind ourselves that we are poor, to remind ourselves that the salvation of God operates only in an atmosphere of interior poverty.”

“Let us pray for the grace to be able to listen to the cry of the poor,” Pope Francis said. “This is the cry of hope of the church.”

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — To proclaim the Gospel message of hope, the Catholic Church in the Amazon must open new paths of evangelization in the region, including by instituting new ministries for lay men and women, the Synod of Bishops said.

The final document of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon looked at ways the church can increase its ministry in the region, including by ordaining married men. But at the heart of the document was the need to bring the good news to the Amazon, a mission that includes safeguarding the indigenous people, cultures and land that are under constant threat of annihilation.

“The Amazon rainforest is a ‘biological heart’ for the increasingly threatened earth,” said the final document, released Oct. 26 after synod members voted on it.

The Amazon, members said, is on “a rampant race to death. It is scientifically proven that the disappearance of the Amazon biome will have a catastrophic impact on the planet as a whole!”

The synod brought together 185 voting members — cardinals, bishops, 20 priests and one religious brother — and 80 experts and observers to discuss “new paths for the church and for an integral ecology.”

All 120 paragraphs in the final document garnered the necessary two-thirds approval needed for passage. The Vatican said 181 synod members were present, so each paragraph needed 120 votes to pass.

The focus of the synod’s final document was the call for the church to further its mission in proclaiming the Good News by uniting itself more to the people of the Amazon who, for decades, have suffered the consequences of humankind’s greed.

At the synod, “We discovered that the mighty waters of the Spirit, similar to those of the Amazon River, which periodically overflow, lead us to this overflowing life that God offers us to share in the announcement” of the Gospel,” the document said.

The document underscores the crucial role of Amazonian ecosystems in regulating the global climate and as an important source of fresh water that “connects ecosystems, cultures and the development of the territory.”

The Amazon faces environmental threats that make it “a wounded and deformed beauty, a place of suffering and violence,” the bishops wrote. Violence against nature, in the form of rampant extraction of resources, unsustainable development and climate change, also have “serious social consequences.”

To bring greater awareness and responsibility to the universal church, the synod document proposed a definition of ecological sin as an act of commission or omission against God, against one’s neighbor, the community and the environment.”

The document also proposed the creation of “special ministries for the care of our ‘common home'” that would promote ways of caring for the environment “at the parish level.”

The synod called on all Christians to show their awareness of the value of God’s creation by countering the current “culture of excessive consumption” through recycling, reducing their use of fossil fuels and plastic, as well as by reducing their consumption of meat and fish.

In proposing new pathways of ecological conversion, synod members stressed the importance of integral ecology, in which safeguarding nature and ensuring justice for “the most impoverished and disadvantaged on earth” are “intrinsically united.”

“The future of the Amazon is in the hands of us all, but it depends mainly on our immediately abandoning the current model that is destroying the forest, not bringing well-being and endangering this immense natural treasure and its guardians,” the document said.

The discussions that took place in the synod, the document said, also offered bishops an opportunity to reflect “on how to structure the local churches” in order to address the needs of a “church with an Amazonian face.”

Among those ways are new ministries and roles for the laity, including “in consultation or decision-making in the life and mission of the church.”

To increase the church’s presence in areas that lack priests, the document proposed that bishops entrust “the exercise of the pastoral care of the communities to a person not invested” with the priesthood for “a specific period of time.”

However, “the priest, with the power and faculty of the parish priest, is always responsible for the community,” the document said.

Synod members asked for further discussion on the idea of women deacons, but approved several paragraphs in the document insisting that their role in leading Catholic communities be recognized and that “the voice of women can be heard, they are consulted and participate in decision-making” in the church.

The final document also emphasized the importance of the Eucharist as “the source and summit of all Christian life.” However, it acknowledged that a lack of priests means Catholics in the Amazon have only sporadic access to the Eucharist, reconciliation and anointing of the sick.

While highlighting the gift of celibacy in the Catholic Church and the need for celibate priests in the region, the document proposed the ordination of “suitable and esteemed men of the community, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, having a legitimately constituted and stable family.”

Although the paragraph regarding the proposal for ordaining married was approved, it received the least amount of support among those who voted, with 128 in favor and 41 opposed.

The final document also spoke of the “elaboration of an Amazonian rite,” as several synod members had proposed. The bishops voted to ask for a special post-synodal commission of bishops to be tasked with studying the idea.

Citing the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church document, “Lumen Gentium,” the final document said that the proposed rite would express “the liturgical, theological, disciplinary and spiritual patrimony of the Amazon” in a way similar to the Eastern Catholic churches.

However, in his address following the vote on the final document Oct. 26, the pope reminded synod members that the creation of an Amazonian rite “is within the competence of the Congregation for Divine Worship and can be done according to the appropriate criteria.”

After the votes were cast, Pope Francis told synod participants that he hoped to publish a post-synodal exhortation “before the end of the year so that not too much time has passed.”

“A word from the pope about what he has lived in the synod may do some good,” the pope said. “It all depends on how much time I have to think.”

– – –

Contributing to this story were Barbara J. Fraser and Cindy Wooden at the Vatican.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Saints are people who recognized their need for God’s help, who took risks to discover God’s will and to help others and who nurtured a habit of thanksgiving, Pope Francis said.

“The culmination of the journey of faith is to live a life of continual thanksgiving. Let us ask ourselves: Do we, as people of faith, live each day as a burden, or as an act of praise?” the pope said in his homily Oct. 13 after formally declaring five new saints for the Catholic Church.

Those canonized at the Mass were: St. John Henry Newman, the British theologian, poet and cardinal who died in 1890; Brazilian St. Maria Rita Lopes Pontes, popularly known as Sister Dulce, who died in 1992; Indian St. Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family, who died in 1926; St. Marguerite Bays, a Swiss laywoman and mystic, who died in 1879; and St. Josephine Vannini, the Italian co-founder of the Daughters of St. Camillus, who died in 1911.

“Three of them were religious women,” the pope noted in his homily. “They show us that the consecrated life is a journey of love at the existential peripheries of the world.”

“St. Marguerite Bays, on the other hand, was a seamstress; she speaks to us of the power of simple prayer, enduring patience and silent self-giving,” he said.

Rather than describing St. Newman, Pope Francis quoted from him to illustrate the meaning of “the holiness of daily life”: “The Christian has a deep, silent, hidden peace, which the world sees not …. The Christian is cheerful, easy, kind, gentle, courteous, candid, unassuming; has no pretense … with so little that is unusual or striking in his bearing that he may easily be taken at first sight for an ordinary man.”

And, referencing St. Newman’s famous hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light,” the pope prayed that all Christians would be “‘kindly lights’ amid the encircling gloom.”

Tens of thousands of people filled a sunny St. Peter’s Square for the canonization ceremony and Mass. Among them were Britain’s Prince Charles, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Martins Mourao, a member of Switzerland’s federal council and the deputy foreign minister of India.

Melissa Villalobos from Chicago also was there with her husband and children, and they brought up the offertory gifts at the Mass. Villalobos’ healing, which saved her life and the life of her unborn child, was accepted as the miracle needed for St. Newman’s canonization.

Hours before the Mass began, Holy Family Sisters Manjula and Aruna stood just outside the security checkpoint, handing out Indian flags, rosaries and prayer cards, caps and scarves with the image of their order’s founder, St. Thresia.

The new saint’s focus, and that of her order today, is assisting families, said Sister Manjula, whose ministry is “counseling and visiting houses and helping solve problems. We help all families — non-Christian, non-Catholic, anyone.”

Gregory K. Hillis, a professor of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, was representing his university at the Mass, but his presence was very personal, too.

“Newman is important to me theologically and for my spirituality,” he said. “And I like his conversion story” of how, as an Anglican priest, he became a Catholic at the age of 44. “I became a Catholic 13 years ago, and Newman was an important guide. He converted, but maintained his friendships, his respect and love for the tradition that he left.”

“I’m an ecumenical convert as well,” Hillis said. “I’m tired of converts who hate the tradition they left.”

An official delegation of Anglican bishops and priests also attended the Mass, and Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England, recorded a message for the occasion.

“His legacy is far broader than one church or two churches,” the archbishop said. “It is a global legacy, a legacy of hope and truth, of the search for God, of devotion to being part of the people of God.”

St. Newman’s role in founding the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, a push to rediscover the early Christian writers and to recover the Catholic roots of Anglicanism, “had a fundamental, lasting, beneficial and important influence on Anglicanism,” Archbishop Welby said.

As is his custom at Mass, including at canonizations, Pope Francis used his homily to reflect on the day’s Scripture readings and only made passing reference to the people being declared saints.

The day’s short Gospel reading from Luke recounted the story of 10 lepers who, seeing Jesus approach, cry out to him for healing. He tells them to go show themselves to the priests and, as they go, they are healed. But only one returns to thank Jesus.

“Like those lepers,” Pope Francis said, “we, too, need healing, each one of us. We need to be healed of our lack of confidence in ourselves, in life, in the future; we need to be healed of our fears and the vices that enslave us, of our introversion, our addictions and our attachment to games, money, television, mobile phones, to what other people think.”

The story also illustrates how, “on the journey of life, purification takes place along the way, a way that is often uphill since it leads to the heights,” he said. “Faith calls for a journey, a ‘going out’ from ourselves, and it can work wonders if we abandon our comforting certainties, if we leave our safe harbors and our cozy nests.”

And, finally, he said, the story teaches that returning to Jesus with a heart full of gratitude is the culmination of the journey of faith.

“To give thanks is not a question of good manners or etiquette; it is a question of faith,” the pope said. “To say ‘Thank you, Lord’ when we wake up, throughout the day and before going to bed, that is the best way to keep our hearts young.

“This also holds true for families, and between spouses,” he added. “Remember to say thank you. Those words are the simplest and most effective of all.”

Also see:

Prince Charles praises St. Newman; others promote him as ‘doctor of the church’

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican hung banners of the Catholic Church’s newly canonized saints four days before the Mass that would officially recognize that they are in heaven with God.

While the hanging of the banners Oct. 10 did not coincide with the Mass, it did coincide with the kickoff of exhibits, conferences, prayer vigils and other celebrations focused on the new saints from Brazil, England, India, Italy and Switzerland.

For the dozens of Brazilians at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, most of the attention was on Blessed Maria Rita Lopes Pontes, popularly known as Sister Dulce.

Born in 1914, she was a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and founded the first Catholic workers’ organization in the state of Bahia, started a health clinic for poor workers and opened a school for working families. She created a hospital, an orphanage and care centers for the elderly and disabled and became known as “the mother of the poor.”

St. John Paul II, who called her work “an example for humanity,” met her in 1980 during his first trip to Brazil and, returning in 1991, he visited her in the hospital. She died in 1992 at the age of 77 with tens of thousands attending her funeral and even more gathering for her beatification in 2011.

Among English-speakers, though, most of the attention was on soon-to-be St. John Henry Newman, the theologian, poet and cardinal who lived from 1801 to 1890.

Sally Axworthy, British ambassador to the Holy See, led the inauguration Oct. 10 of an exhibit about the four visits Blessed Newman made to Rome: first as an Anglican, then as a Catholic seminarian, later as founder of the first communities in England of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and finally, when he came to be made a cardinal in 1879.

The canonization was causing a lot of excitement in England, she said, and Prince Charles was planning to travel to the Vatican for the Mass Oct. 13.

“Cardinal Newman was really a very important figure. He was a giant of the 19th century,” Axworthy said.

“The first half of his life he was Anglican, and he was a major figure in the Anglican Church,” influencing the church to draw more deeply from its Catholic roots and from the early Christian theologians, Axworthy said. “He defined Anglicanism as a middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism.”

Once he joined the Catholic Church, she said, “he had a similarly great impact” on this new community, “particularly with his ideas on the development of doctrine, which I understand opened the way to Vatican II, and also his ideas about conscience, about conscience being the voice of God in every one of us.”

Cardinal Newman already is honored as a saint on the Anglican calendar — on Aug. 11, the day of his death. His feast day on the Catholic calendar is Oct. 9, the date he joined the Catholic Church at the age of 44.

In London on the eve of Cardinal Newman’s beatification in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI said the cardinal had been an “important influence” in his own life and thought.

At the beatification Mass the next day in Birmingham, England, Pope Benedict paid special tribute to Blessed Newman’s vision of education, which combined intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment.

He quoted the theologian’s appeal for a well-instructed laity and said it should serve as a goal for catechists today: “I want a laity not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it.”

In addition to Blessed Newman and Blessed Dulce, the three others to be canonized Oct. 13 are:

— Blessed Marguerite Bays, a laywoman from Switzerland known for her service to the poor, her simplicity of life and her devoted faith in the face of great physical suffering. St. Bays also was known as a mystic and for bearing the stigmata of Christ. She died in 1879 at the age of 63.

St. John Paul II beatified her in 1995, lauding her as an example for all lay Catholics. “She was a very simple woman with a very normal life,” he had said. “She did not accomplish anything extraordinary, yet her existence was a long and silent progression on the path toward holiness.”

— Blessed Josephine Vannini, an Italian who co-founded the Daughters of St. Camillus, adding to the usual vows — poverty, chastity and obedience — a fourth, which is to serve the sick, even if it means risking death.

Born in 1859, she was orphaned at a young age and was sent to live with the Daughters of Charity, an order she later applied to join. After leaving the novitiate because of illness, though, she was not readmitted. She and her spiritual director, Blessed Luigi Tezza, founded the Daughters of St. Camillus. She died in 1911.

— Blessed Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, the Indian founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family, a religious order dedicated to helping couples and families and serving the poor, the sick and the dying. Born in 1876 to a well-off farming family, she insisted on living a life of austerity, sleeping on the gravel floor instead of a bed, for instance.

When she received the stigmata in 1909, her bishop ordered that an exorcism be performed. But she continued with her prayer life and serving local families.

Under direction of the local bishop in 1913, her spiritual director set up a “house of solitude” where Thresia could go to pray. Three friends joined her in the house, and in 1914, she received canonical permission to launch the Congregation of the Holy Family. She died in 1926.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church’s mission in the world is to spread the fire of God’s love and must not be limited to the “‘ordinary maintenance’ of those who already know the Gospel,” Pope Francis said.

Celebrating the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon Oct. 6, the pope said, “Jesus did not come to bring a gentle evening breeze, but to light a fire on the earth.”

“If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that ‘this is the way things have always been done,’ then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo,” he said.

Among the thousands filling St. Peter’s Basilica were members of various indigenous communities from the Amazon region. Some wore traditional headpieces while others painted their faces with ornate designs, proudly displaying the artistry of their cultures.

Several were chosen to present the offertory gifts during the Mass, solemnly walking up to the altar, some barefoot, and reverently bowing after presenting the gifts of bread and wine to the pope.

Jair Reis, one of about 1,200 Maragua Indians living in Brazil’s Amazonas state, attended the Mass. He told Catholic News Service he has received threats from miners who have entered his people’s lands illegally.

“We want our voices to be heard,” he said. “Not for me, but for all the indigenous people of Brazil.”

Jeremias Oliveira dos Santos, a Mura Indian also from Amazonas, said, “We need the support of the synod.” A large mining company has invaded the Mura lands. He hopes the synod will help call attention especially to the need to demarcate indigenous territories. His people’s demarcation is still in process, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has said his government will not give another centimeter to indigenous peoples.

“We are living peoples” who depend on the forest and rivers for survival, he said. “People living along the entire course of the Amazon are threatened.”

In his homily, the pope reflected on the day’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to Timothy. In it, the apostle reminds Timothy to “stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.”

Bishops, the pope said, have received the laying on of hands so that ” we in turn might be hands raised to intercede before the Father, helping hands extended to our brothers and sisters.”

The Holy Spirit, which “is not a spirit of timidity, but of prudence,” stokes the flames of God’s gift, he said.

“Some believe that prudence is a ‘customs control’ virtue that stops everything so as not to not make mistakes,” the pope said departing from his prepared remarks. “No. Prudence is a Christian virtue, a virtue of life. It is the virtue of governance. And he has given us this spirit of prudence.”

Citing the catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said that prudence should not be confused with fear; it is a “virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.”

“Prudence is not indecision; it is not a defensive attitude,” he said. “It is the virtue of the pastor who, in order to serve with wisdom, is able to discern, to be receptive to the newness of the spirit.”

Fidelity to the newness of the spirit, he added, “is a grace that we must ask for in prayer.”

“May the spirit, who makes all things new, give us his own daring prudence; may he inspire our synod to renew the paths of the church in the Amazon so that the fire of mission will continue to burn,” the pope said.

“So many of our brothers and sisters in the Amazon are bearing heavy crosses and awaiting the liberating consolation of the Gospel, the church’s caress of love,” the pope said.

However, the pope also said that in the church’s history, there were times when peoples and cultures were “devoured without love and without respect.”

“How many times has God’s gift been imposed, not offered; how many times has there been colonization rather than evangelization!” the pope said. “May God preserve us from the greed of new forms of colonialism.”

Recalling the fires that devasted the Amazon region in August, the pope said that such fires are “set by interests that destroy” and “blaze up when people want to promote only their own ideas, form their own group, wipe out differences in the attempt to make everyone and everything uniform.”

Speaking off-the-cuff, Pope Francis recalled a conversation he had with Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who often would visit the tombs of missionaries who died in the Amazon.

“With a bit of shrewdness,” he said, Cardinal Hummes told him, “‘Do not forget them. They deserve to be canonized.'”

“For them, for those who are giving their lives now for those who have given their lives, with them, let us journey together,” the pope said.

– – –

Contributing to this story was Barbara Fraser at the Vatican. 

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

With the retirement from active ministry of Monsignor John FitzGerald, the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS), a Catholic ministry for seafarers, has its first lay director. Andy Middleton is hardly new to the ministry, having served as its right hand man for more than a decade.

Monsignor FitzGerald established the AOS in Baltimore in 2003. Middleton, a former Baltimore City police officer, began volunteering in 2006. He has held various positions in the ministry, and was most recently deputy director. As his retirement neared, Monsignor FitzGerald asked Archbishop William E. Lori to appoint Middleton as the new director.

“I have all the confidence in the world Andy will move this ministry forward,” said Monsignor FitzGerald, who continues as the ministry’s chaplain. “He’s committed, and he knows more about the port than I do.”

In addition to a new director, the AOS Stella Maris International Seafarer Center has a new location in the former rectory of St. Rita Parish, across Dunmanway from its former storefront location in Dundalk.

According to Middleton, the new building has more useable space and includes offices, a library, computer stations, a conference room and a lounge, all of which help better meet seafarers’ needs.

“When I first started here, a lot of seafarers came to use the computers and phones,” Middleton said. “With the price of technology decreasing and with more phones having SIM cards that can work in the U.S., they are not coming in to use our equipment as often.

“Now the big draw is WiFi, and we will have a lounge where they can sit and FaceTime with their family and friends back home. This will give them privacy, something we didn’t have in the old space.”

According to Middleton, seafarers have contracts ranging from four to 10 months, and don’t get vacation or bereavement leave. While many ships have satellite service, it is cost prohibitive for anything other than business.

“If there’s a birth or a death in the family, there’s no going home for a week,” he said. “Our job is to create that link, to help them communicate back home.”

AOS’s 12-15 volunteers, many of whom are Knights of Columbus, currently visit ships Monday-Saturday, dropping off rosaries, scapulars and prayer cards, along with secular magazines and fiction books. Most international seafarers come from the developing world; about 65 percent are Catholic.

“If you would like to travel the world and never leave home, this is the place to do it,” Middleton said. “I’ve met people from all over the world and I’m only 10 minutes from home.”

Ship visitors are also authorized to escort workers to the Seafarer Center and destinations such as Arundel Mills, a popular choice where they can purchase clothes, bikes and electronics cheaper than they could at home.

Middleton’s goals include starting a prayer group. Ship visitors will gather intentions from seafarers, which Middleton will share.

“Think how comforting it would be to be away at sea and know that people in Baltimore are praying for me and my family,” he said.

Middleton often refers to a quote from Pope John Paul II, who called seafarers “the invisible strangers in out midst.”

One of his most memorable moments as a volunteer came when a vessel was detained by the Coast Guard for safety violations, and seafarers’ shore passes were expired. Middleton and AOS volunteers got wish lists and money from the crew, ran their errands and returned the next day with their purchases.

“One of the crew members,” Middleton said, “walked up to me almost crying and said, ‘We appreciate this so much. It helps us to know we are not forgotten.’ This is why we do this. This is why this ministry exists.”

AOS list of needs:

• Religious/secular magazines
• small paperback books
• rosaries/scapulars
• prayer cards
• travel sized toiletries
• playing cards
• note pads

For more information, email aosbalt@gmail.com

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis joined Amazonian church workers and indigenous people Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, to plant a tree in the Vatican Gardens.

He also consecrated the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon to St. Francis. The synod will be held at the Vatican Oct. 6-27.

About 20 delegates from Amazonian countries opened the ceremony, singing and dancing around a mandala of Amazonian symbols that included a banner with a photograph of Notre Dame de Namur Sister Dorothy Stang, a missionary from Dayton, Ohio, who was murdered in Brazil in 2005 because of her defense of the land rights of small-scale farmers.

Members of various church groups brought offerings of soil from symbolic places, including the Amazon, which has a rich cultural heritage and is also a land where martyrs have died; India, a country vulnerable to climate change; countries where people are trafficked or forced to migrate; places where young people participate in climate change demonstrations; and the Shrine of the Renunciation in Assisi.

Ednamar de Oliveira Viana, an indigenous woman, and Jose Cristo de Oliveira, a farmer, both from Brazil, joined the pope and Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil to spread the soil around a small holm oak tree from Assisi and sprinkle it with water.

“Pope Francis is sensitive to our people,” Viana said after the ceremony. When he refers to the earth as a common home, “he speaks a great deal about our life.”

In a reflection on the tree’s significance, Sister Liliana Franco of the Company of Mary, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Men and Women Religious, said the time has come “to listen to the voice that the Spirit brings us from the Amazon.”

The pope appeared tired at the event, during which he sat under a blazing noonday sun. He stood to greet and receive a crucifix from Amazonian delegates and to shovel the first spadeful of soil around the tree.

Instead of the brief prepared remarks he was scheduled to deliver after the tree was planted, however, he simply prayed the Our Father and left in a car. The ceremony ended abruptly without the planned closing prayer and song.

The tree-planting ceremony marked the end of the “season of creation,” an annual period of prayer and action for the environment that is observed by various Christian churches between Sept. 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and Oct. 4.

The ceremony was organized by the Order of Friars Minor, the Global Catholic Climate Movement and the Pan-Amazonian Church Network, which is holding various events in Rome during the synod.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Promoting religious freedom, providing humanitarian assistance and fighting human trafficking are three major issues the Vatican and the U.S. administration agree on and on which they will continue to coordinate efforts, panelists said at a joint symposium.

The Oct. 2 symposium, “Pathways to Achieving Human Dignity: Partnering With Faith-Based Organizations,” was co-sponsored by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, which was celebrating the 35th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations.

“Countries of the world can rally together to promote religious freedom and human dignity,” he said, just like St. John Paul II and U.S. President Ronald Reagan did decades ago with their shared concerns about Soviet communism.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in his opening remarks how important it was to cooperate.

“Their words and deeds helped save — helped leave the Soviet leviathan on that ash heap of history,” he said.

Pompeo said “another battle in defense of human dignity and religious freedom” needs to be fought again today.

Saying he believed religious repression and authoritarian regimes went hand-in-hand, “we must exercise our moral voice to confront them.”

“When the state rules absolutely, moral norms are crushed completely,” he said, because “authoritarian regimes and autocrats will never accept a power higher than their own.”

Even though the Vatican and the United States have not agreed on everything, he said, they must agree on the most fundamental issues of human dignity and religious freedom.

Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican minister of foreign affairs, said the symposium reflected a shared commitment to promoting human dignity through promoting the right to religious freedom, combatting human trafficking and providing humanitarian assistance.

Quoting Pope Francis, he said, the aim of U.S.-Vatican collaboration “is to build a society which is truly tolerant and inclusive and to safeguard the dignity and the inalienable rights of every human person.”

The archbishop said, “Indeed, I am of the opinion that the principal emphasis with regard to religious freedom should not be political or ideological: The main concern should be to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms effectively, and to promote peaceful coexistence and inclusive societies, in which people can express their beliefs freely without fear of being censored by the common discourse and where minorities are fully respected.”

He said while the Vatican appreciates ways the church can partner with governments and international organizations in aid distribution and other assistance, he criticized the way “in some cases government funding is conditioned by ideological considerations, not always compatible with religious principles and convictions. It would be invasive for a donor to impose his culture, his values, his ideology and policies, eroding the traditions, history, religious and moral values of people he intends to help.”

While responding to crises is important, he said, the Vatican also believes the root causes of such crises must be urgently addressed, “such as horrific wars, persecutions, human rights violations, political or social instability, extreme poverty, consequences of climate change, and so on.”

This is why, he added, it is important to hear Pope Francis’ call in “Laudato Si'” for an “integral ecology,” which recognizes the link between social justice, the economy, politics, protecting the environment and fighting against poverty.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, reminded his audience, which included a number of ambassadors to the Holy See and representatives of faith-based organizations, that the Holy See does not pursue any one national interest.

Its main concern is “the common good,” he said, which depends on concrete commitments to peace, human dignity, religious freedom, social justice and fighting poverty.

In fact, he said, governments should always include sustainable development in their plans because “it would be a humiliation” to keep poorer nations dependent on others.

Freedom of religion and conscience are shared priorities, he said, especially given that there are so many abuses in the world.

While such violations must be condemned, the cardinal said, there also must be a stop to the marketing and flow of weapons, which fuel and worsen so many of these conflicts and human rights abuses.

Governments wishing to make a difference also must not collaborate with those governments or state actors that take part in “reprehensible activities,” he said.

Cardinal Parolin also warned about a form of “bloodless persecution” in some places where there may be no outright violence, but governments chip away at the freedom of conscience, which is the first step toward violations against the freedom to worship.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The international community must ramp up its efforts if it expects to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, Pope Francis said.

In a video message sent Sept. 23 to participants at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York, the pope said that while the 2015 Paris climate agreement raised awareness and the “need for a collective response,” the commitments made by countries “are still very weak and are far from achieving the objectives set.”

“It is necessary,” he said, “to ask whether there is a real political will to allocate greater human, financial and technological resources to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and to help the poorest and most vulnerable populations, who suffer the most.”

According to its website, the goal of the U.N. Climate Action Summit is to “ensure the global focus on climate gains momentum” as well as to make sure that “there is scrutiny on the investments countries are making in fossil fuels vs. renewables.”

Calling climate change “one of the most serious and worrying phenomena of our time,” the pope said that states have a duty to fight against it and that despite the weak response, a “window of opportunity is still open.”

“We are still in time. Let us not let it close. Let us open it with our determination to cultivate integral human development, to ensure a better life for future generations. It is their future, not ours,” the pope said.

Climate change, he added, is “related to issues of ethics, equity and social justice” and connected to an evident human, ethical and social degradation, which “forces us to think about the meaning of our models of consumption and production.”

Encouraging the participants at the summit, Pope Francis said that the climate crisis is not just an environmental issue, but a “challenge of civilization in favor of the common good.”

“And this is clear, just as it is clear that we have a multiplicity of solutions that are within everyone’s reach, if we adopt on a personal and social level a lifestyle that embodies honesty, courage and responsibility,” the pope said.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church will endure, despite the frailty and sins of its members, because it is God’s project, Pope Francis said.

Continuing his series of audience talks about the Acts of the Apostles and the early Christian community Sept. 18, Pope Francis looked at the story of Gamaliel, a Pharisee who tried to teach members of the Sanhedrin a key aspect of “discernment,” which is not to rush to judgment, but rather to allow time for something to show itself as worthy or not.

As recounted in Acts 5, Gamaliel told the Sanhedrin not to execute the apostles for preaching Christ, “for if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

“Every human project can initially drum up consensus, but then go down in flames,” the pope said. But “everything that comes from on high and bears God’s signature is destined to endure.”

“Human projects always fail, they have a (limited) time, like we do,” he said. “Think of the great empires. Think of the dictatorships of the past century; they thought they were so powerful and dominated the world, and then they all crumbled.”

The most powerful governments and forces today also “will crumble if God is not with them because the strength human beings have on their own is not lasting,” the pope said. “Only the strength of God endures.”

The history of Christianity and of the Catholic Church, even “with so many sins and so many scandals, with so many ugly things,” illustrates the same point, the pope said. “Why hasn’t it crumbled? Because God is there. We are sinners and often, often, we give scandal,” but “the Lord always saves. The strength is God with us.”

The story also shows just how much courage the presence of the Holy Spirit brings, the pope said. When Jesus was arrested, the disciples “all ran away, they fled,” but after the Resurrection, when he sent the Spirit upon them, they became courageous.

Pointing to the 21 Coptic Orthodox beheaded on a beach in Libya in 2015, Pope Francis said the same courage is still seen today in martyrs, who continued to repeat the name of Jesus even as their fate becomes clear. “They did not sell out their faith because the Holy Spirit was with them.”

In the Acts of the Apostles, Gamaliel tells the Sanhedrin that if Jesus was an imposter, his followers eventually would “disappear,” the pope said, but “if, on the other hand, they were following one who was sent by God, then it would be better not to fight them.”

The “wait and see” attitude of Gamaliel is a key part of discernment, Pope Francis said.

“His are calm and farsighted words,” part of a process that urges people to “judge a tree by its fruits” rather than acting hastily, the pope said.

Pope Francis asked people at the audience to join him in praying that the Holy Spirit would “act in us so that, both personally and as a community, we can acquire the habit of discernment” and learn to notice God acting in history and in our brothers and sisters.

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

PORT LOUIS, Mauritius (CNS) — Statistical indicators show Mauritius’ rapid economic growth has benefited all sectors of society, lifting thousands out of poverty over the past 30 years, but Pope Francis still urged the island’s Catholics to be careful.

The danger is that “we can yield to the temptation to lose our enthusiasm for evangelization by taking refuge in worldly securities that slowly but surely not only affect the mission, but actually hamper it and prevent it from drawing people together,” he said at Mass Sept. 9 on a terraced hillside overlooking Port Louis.

Officials said 100,000 people gathered on the hillside for the Mass. Some held umbrellas, while most were wearing straw hats to protect themselves from the sun. The young, though, wore baseball caps.

One of them was Gael Henriette-Bolli, 29, a lecturer in law at a local university. He said it’s true that material well-being and the explosion of technology can distract the young from their faith. But he and his friends in “Pastoral Zenn,” the Port Louis diocesan youth ministry program, are reaching out, especially through Facebook and other social media.

“Some of us young people have attended World Youth Days, and we stay strong,” he said. “And if the value of faith has been inculcated by their family, the youth are still interested.”

Ambal Arokeum, a mother and grandmother from Rose Hill, said the economy growth “has been the benediction of God.”

During his eight hours in Mauritius — making his visit a day trip from Madagascar — Pope Francis urged the local church and government to make greater efforts to listen to and involve the island’s young people in every aspect of life.

“This is not always easy. It means learning to acknowledge the presence of the young and to make room for them,” he said. The young people in the crowd cheered their approval.

Mauritius has become a super-success story for development in Africa following efforts to diversify the economy. Rather than relying mostly on sugar cane and textiles, now the country is known for tourism, call centers and “financial services,” which make the country a tax haven for many.

Pope Francis noted, though, how unemployment still is a problem particularly for young adults, which “not only creates uncertainty about the future, but also prevents them from believing that they play a significant part in your shared future.”

Cardinal Maurice Piat of Port Louis has written about the island’s “vocations crisis,” which Pope Francis tied to the question of economic prosperity and attention to the young.

“When we hear the threatening prognosis that ‘our numbers are decreasing,’ we should be concerned not so much with the decline of this or that mode of consecration in the church, but with the lack of men and women who wish to experience happiness on the paths of holiness,” the pope said. Young people need to see and be encouraged by priests and religious who give witness to the joy of a life dedicated totally to serving God and one’s brothers and sisters.

On an island colonized by the Dutch, the French and the British over the past 400 years and where colonizers brought slaves from Africa or indentured servants from India and China, the population is mixed ethnically and religiously. According to Vatican statistics, about 28 percent of the population is Catholic. Almost half of all Mauritians are Hindu, and Muslims make up about 17 percent of the population.

During the second reading at Pope Francis’ Mass, the crowd could hear a muezzin calling Muslims to midday prayer in the neighborhood below.

In the pope’s afternoon speech to government officials, civic leaders and members of the diplomatic corps, he noted the diversity and praised the beauty that comes from “the ability to acknowledge, respect and harmonize existing differences in view of a common project.”

The diversity of which the nation boasts was the result of both forced and voluntary migration; when the Portuguese discovered the island in 1505, it was uninhabited. However, there were dodo birds, which became extinct by the mid-17th century during the rule of the Dutch.

Pope Francis pleaded with Mauritians to recognize their migrant roots and to do more to be welcoming to those who come to their shores seeking safety and a better life.

The pope also had strong words against corruption, something which has plagued the nation for decades and appears relentless.

Politicians and civil servants must be models of virtue, he said. “By your conduct and your determination to combat all forms of corruption, may you demonstrate the grandeur of your commitment in service to the common good, and always be worthy of the trust placed in you by your fellow citizens.”

And he returned to the theme of economic development that benefits all citizens and that ensures young people have a chance at a future.

“I would like to encourage you to promote an economic policy focused on people and in a position to favor a better division of income, the creation of jobs and the integral promotion of the poor,” the pope told the government and civic leaders.

Pope Francis warned of the temptation to follow “an idolatrous economic model that feels the need to sacrifice human lives on the altar of speculation and profit alone, considering only immediate advantage to the detriment of protecting the poor, the environment and its resources.”

Copyright ©2019 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.