We Would Love
to Keep in Touch!
Awake from Death to Life
Full Pastoral Statement of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines on the Death Penalty, March 19, 2017
“God proved his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)On the third Sunday of Lent, the Gospel of John tells us how the Samaritan woman – having found in Jesus the “living water” she had longed for – left her jar of water by the well (John 4:28). Like this woman, the stubborn Israelites in the first reading, who are dying of thirst in the desert, have been led to a rock (Exodus 17:6).
Perhaps we can think of this rock as Christ himself, stricken and afflicted on the cross but gushing forth with life-giving water, making it possible for God’s people to cross over the barren desert of hatred, sin and death into the promised land of fullness of life.
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ – let us not allow our wells to be poisoned by bitter water; let us uphold the sanctity of life and make a stand against death penalty.
We are not deaf to the cries of the victims of heinous crimes. The victims and their victimizers are both our brothers and sisters. The victim and the oppressor are both children of God. To the guilty we offer a challenge to repent and repair the harm of their sins. To the grieving victims, we offer our love, our compassion, our hope.
On the day the death penalty law was repealed by the Philippine Congress on June 24, 2006, the lights were turned on in the colosseum in Rome. History tells us how many people – among them, countless Christian martyrs – were publicly executed in that infamous arena.
Catholics and Racism
Consideration of racism is grounded in fundamental scriptural beliefs: equal dignity of all people, created in God’s image; and Christ’s redemption of all. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells this out:The equality of (people) rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: “Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design”(1).
The Moral Judgment on Racism
Moral judgments on racism, based on equality, are consistent: “any theory or form whatsoever of racism and racial discrimination is morally unacceptable”;(2) and “racism is not merely one sin among many, it is a radical evil dividing the human family...”(3).Jesus tells the Good Samaritan story – one of his three “great parables”(4) – to answer “Who is my neighbor?” His response addresses entrenched divisions between Jew and Samaritan and sets the stage for the unity of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). This unity admits “no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex...”(5).
The Many Faces of Racism
Catholic teaching “emphasizes not only the individual conscience, but also the political, legal and economic structures...”(6). Racism is about people and about group behaviors and societal organization. Individual racism includes conscious acts, spontaneous attitudes, “the tendency to stereotype and marginalize,”(7) indifference, and “the triumph of private concern over public responsibility...”(8).Chocolate and Servitude
Stores are currently packed with chocolate confections shaped liked bunnies, butterflies, eggs, lambs and every other image related to Easter. Something similar occurs on the eve of Valentine’s Day, when chocolate creations similarly invade the marketplace.
But did you know that those sweets you savor with such relish are the products of child labor, of youths working under conditions akin to slavery?
Chocolate and Child Labor
Saving Kerlala’s Families
Children in needto mark the feast of St. Sebastian. When a soft breeze rushers through them, the streets glitter with the reflected light of myriad small, mirror-like flags.
But on the street below the sparkling bunting, things are not so right. Day laborer John, 28, who dropped out of school at an early age, faces another day with no work and nothing to do.
"I quit school when I was 15 to take care of my family." says John, as his two friends, Selvam and Anad, look on. They also dropped out of school young and likewise struggle to find work.
Alcoholism, Therapy and the Family
John's father, in the grip of alcoholism, would drink all his income, his leaving John, his mother and his siblings next to destitute. So John, the eldest, took on the role of breadwinner. He left school to take work in the fields. “I find things very hard now because of having left school early,” he says, “I could have studied longer and I would have a much better life now.”Towns and villages all across Kerala feature displays of shimmering bunting for about ten days each January. But listless boys such as John, Selvam and Anad, however, remain a feature across Kerala every day.
Our Response to Migrants
Fr. Michael Czerny, S.J., joint head of Vatican's new Office for Integral Human Development; Photo: corpo ARTAlongside Italian Scalabrini Father, Fabio Baggio, Fr. Michael took up his new post on January 1, 2017, in charge of the section dealing with refugees, migrants and survivors of human trafficking. Answering directly to Pope Francis, he sees his “modest but ambitious mission” as helping the Church to accompany forced migrants at all stages of their often perilous journey.
As the child of a refugee family himself, Fr. Michael believes that “with a little bit of sharing of the enormous resources available throughout the world”, countries can “very comfortably and very securely and very profitably” provide for the needs of all people on the move.
Philippa Hitchen talked to Fr. Michael to find out more about the work and the vision of this new Vatican office…
Immigrants are a top priority for Pope Francis
Fr. Michael explains that the concept of “Integral Human Development” goes back to vision of the Second Vatican Council and its key document, Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the Modern World. Over the years since then, he says, different Vatican offices have been set up to meet specific needs regarding human development.But Pope Francis’ recent documents, ‘Evangeli Gaudium’ and ‘Laudato Sii’, have pioneered a new approach of “Integral Human Development” and within that context the plight of those forced to leave their homes is an “area of real concern”.
Laundry for the Poor
New washing machines for the poor in Rome; notice the Papal flag gold used in the porcelain walls. One of the many difficulties for those who live on the streets is to be able to wash, dry and iron their clothes and blankets, and the Vatican-sponsored laundry is a response to Pope Francis’s invitation to give concrete signs of solidarity to our brothers and sisters in need.
A communiqué released by the Apostolic Almoner quotes from the Pope’s Apostolic Letter, Misericordia et misera, at the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Mercy:
“The desire for closeness to Christ requires us to draw near to our brothers and sisters, for nothing is more pleasing to the Father than a true sign of mercy. By its very nature, mercy becomes visible and tangible in specific acts.”
Patron Saint of Mercy
Editor: Detective Steven McDonald of the New York Police Department, who was shot and paralyzed in the line of duty in 1986, is greeted by then Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City during the St. Patrick's Day Parade in 2013. McDonald died on Jan. 10 at a Long Island hospital at age 59. For many New Yorkers, a beloved neighbor and true hero of mercy died this month. “New York’s Finest” took on new meaning when the world came to know Police Officer Steven McDonald, who was shot by a teenager in Central Park in the summer of 1986, paralyzing him from the neck down.
A Prophet of Reconciliation and Charity
“He became a living, breathing prophet of reconciliation and charity,” is how Cardinal Timothy Dolan described McDonald’s witness of forgiveness on his radio show. He would later even float the “s”-word about him – saint. I thought immediately of a line Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez has used to refer to Dorothy Day: “I don’t know if she is a saint but she makes me want to be one.” That captures the Steven McDonald effect.Canonization is above my pay grade, but since learning that he liked the band The Who, I think of him as the saint who liked the Who, for whom love sure reigned o’er. His son quoted him as contending that “There's more love in New York City than there are street corners.” Most people certainly don’t think of New York that way. But then most people aren’t Steven McDonald. We’re just called to live the mercy and love like he did, albeit most of us without as obvious physical obstacles.
Perhaps a Patron Saint of Mercy?
Human’s Right to Water
I greet all of you and I thank you for taking part in this meeting concerned with the human right to water and the need for suitable public policies in this regard. It is significant that you have gathered to pool your knowledge and resources in order to respond to this urgent need of today’s men and women.Water – Useful, Chaste and Humble
The Book of Genesis tells us that water was there in the beginning (cf. Gen 1:2); in the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, it is “useful, chaste and humble” (cf. Canticle of the Creatures). The questions that you are discussing are not marginal, but basic and pressing.Basic, because where there is water there is life, making it possible for societies to arise and advance. Pressing, because our common home needs to be protected. Yet it must also be realized that not all water is life-giving, but only water that is safe and of good quality.
Ignatius Café
Any Yelp-savvy person looking for a coffee shop in the midst of the University of Southern California’s surrounding urban streets may be lured by extensive positive reviews and a four-and-a-half star-rating to a little café dozens of reviewers call “an oasis.”
Located behind St. Agnes Korean Catholic Church, the Ignatius Café is very easy to miss. Near the bustling intersection of Adams Blvd. and Vermont Ave., the café is gated discreetly behind hedges, making it easy to understand why countless reviewers have described it as “a hidden gem.”
(from left) Ignatius Café Emblem; Fr. Robert Choi at the Ignatius Café, behind St. Agnes Korean Catholic Church, Los Angeles
ICE AND IMMIGRANTS
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials apprehended six men exiting a hypothermia shelter on February 8 at Rising Hope Mission Church in Alexandria, Virginia – violating ICE’s own policy not to conduct enforcement actions at or near “sensitive locations” like houses of worship. 