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The Pandemic—Is it perhaps time to recover romance?

It’s been a peculiar time for everyone. The Great Pandemic of the Year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty has had the effect, for most of us, of bringing our lives to a screeching halt. In quarantine we’ve been forced to forego the company of our friends, our regular paychecks, and even Sunday Mass...

During this time of social distancing, where has romantic love — that most distinctively human leap into complete surrender to the “other” — gone? It’s hard to find in current culture as it is reflected back to us. Eros has been downgraded to mere sex.

wedding ringsThe nonstop barrage of “content” from our computer screens, which reflects our civilization but also forms it, presents only the act of sex as uniting and establishing a relationship between two people, like two ships colliding in the night but making only a ghostly impression on each other.

The impact is abrupt, self-centered, emotionally and physically fruitless, and given its shallowness, almost immediately unsatisfying. The participants over and again fail to quench the loneliness that afflicts their restless souls, and the salt water of carnal pleasure leaves them thirstier, not less.

There is real sadness in this for all involved, no matter how thick-skinned constant exposure to a coarsened culture has made them. The voluptuary consciously rejects love as a distraction from sensual gratification, perhaps. But the common man, and the common woman, are simply settling for what they can glean from the mostly barren ground of postmodern life.

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The Catholic roots of Regis Philbin

1024px Regis Philbin and Joy Philbin in 2009 01bRegis and his wife, Joy in New York City, 2009; photo: David Shankbone Game show and talk show host Regis Francis Xavier Philbin died July 24 at 88. Philbin was a Catholic, and a longtime proponent and supporter of Catholic schools. “I think it made a great difference. Solidified me… taught me an awful lot. Everything that I am right now I attribute to” Catholic education, Philbin said in a 2009 interview. What made a difference at Catholic schools, he told reporters in numerous interviews, was formation in virtue, and in faith.

Connected lifelong to Catholic Schools

Before joining the Navy, and eventually making his way to Hollywood, Philbin attended the University of Notre Dame, and before that the Catholic schools in the Bronx, where he grew up. Philbin was named in part for Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier. But his unusual first name came from Regis Catholic High School in New York.

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Coronavirus, vaccines, and Catholic ethics

Production for a new coronavirus vaccine is speeding along, but if one is developed to fight the pandemic, ethical questions remain about its development, and who should receive it first.

Who’s first in line?

There are many workers in health care and in the public sector who could be considered a priority to receive any new vaccine, as they come into contact with many different people due to the nature of their profession, explained Edward Furton, ethicist and director of publications at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. “All of those who come into contact with many different people through their ordinary line of work, they would be first in line,” Furton told CNA. People in this group might include first responders, physicians, nurses, and other health care workers, police officers, and public transit employees.

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Turning the abuse crisis discussion to deeper themes

Two Catholic leaders recently turned the discussion about the crisis in the church away from a focus on institutional change to the less measurable work of transformation, the significance of relationships and the need for members of the hierarchy to confront that culture's past.

01 bannerFrom left: Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta speaks at Partnership Summit; St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn, speaks on a panel; photos: Ralph AlswangSr. Carol Zinn, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, widely considered one of the most significant forces in revealing the truth of the sex abuse crisis, advanced their ideas in separate interviews.

The two were among participants and panelists in a Feb 28-29 session organized by the Leadership Roundtable an organization formed in 2005 following the revelations of widespread abuse and cover-up in Boston. The Leadership Roundtable event, "From Crisis to Co-Responsibility: Creating a New Culture of Leadership" was held at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, DC. The two-day event explored ways in which mostly structural change could lead to more transparency and accountability and greater involvement of laypeople in the life of the church.

The discussion, in which I participated, was conducted under Chatham House rules, which prohibit directly quoting individuals. Both Scicluna and Zinn agreed to speak outside the bounds of that discussion to elaborate on points they made during panel discussions.

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Pope Francis –There is a contagion of hope


On an evening in March, as we found ourselves in the grip of a global pandemic, we witnessed an event that seemed to capture the uncertainty of a world on the brink.

As night fell, Pope Francis, a solitary figure in white, walked through a rain-dappled St. Peter’s Square. In the gathering darkness, he looked out on an empty square and prayed. The Holy Father, leader of a billion believers, was utterly alone.

We realized we were watching more than a man at prayer; we were glimpsing history in the making: his and ours. “For weeks now it has been evening,” he said. “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost.”

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Kerala, India’s Climate of Uncertainty

It seemed to happen in an instant. One night last August, Philip M.J. was speaking with his wife, Lissy Das, swapping stories, talking about the children, praying. The next, before he could react, Lissy was swept away right before his eyes. Lissy died in a landslide in the village of Tinoor in the Thamarassery district of northern Kerala. A few months later, Philip remains in shock and traumatized.

The trials of life

“It had been raining heavily for three days,” he recalls. “There was a sense of foreboding. When we prayed that night, we were scared. We said to each other, ‘Let’s just leave everything to God.’ ”

Later that night, Philip and Lissy were awakened by what sounded like a howling wind. Philip thought of making his way out to see what was going on. But he had no chance. “Out of nowhere, mud and boulders smashed through the house,” he says. “The force carried Lissy out, along with the bed. That was it.” Lissy’s body was found two days later, a mile from her home.

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Our Vocation from God as Human Beings

Editor: This text was first presented a spiritual retreat for the General Government of the Missionaries of the Holy Family in December 2011.

About the painted glass work

stained glass work 01aThe painting on glass in the cloister of the Missionaries of the Holy Family in Betzdorf, Germany, begin by making us contemplate two very modest symbols: a couple of chromosomes inserted in the spiral of DNA. In his hereditary heritage, humans have 46 chromosomes, arranged in 23 pairs.

Each pair contains one mother's chromosome and one from the father. The set of chromosomes define the hereditary characteristic of man. The chromosomes are arranged according to a specific plan. From these hereditary characteristics of parents and ancestors, something completely new emerges.

Thus every human, seen being soul and body and seen in both the spiritual and corporal dimension, is created by God in a unique and unrepeatable way.

The pairs of chromosomes and the DNA spiral, which we find in the complex of the glass paintings of the cloister of Betzdorf, are metaphors of humanity and warn us about the following reality: Every person appears in the light of this world... only once.

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The Pandemic of Coronavirus-19—a reminder and an opportunity


Editor: This is a sermon for Good Friday 2020 in St. Peter’s Basilica given by Fr. Raniero Cantelamessa, OFM Cap; translated from Italian by Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Ph.D.

Scripture: John 19:25-30 (The crucifixion of Jesus)

Christ at the Cross Cristo en la CruzChrist on the Cross by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890), showing the skies darkened; photo: www.the-athenaeum.orgStanding by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

St. Gregory the Great said that Scripture “grows with its readers”... [1] It reveals meanings always new according to the questions people have in their hearts as they read it. And this year we read the account of the Passion with a question—rather with a cry—in our hearts that is rising up over the whole earth. We need to seek the answer that the word of God gives it.

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Computer programming teen, Carlo Acutis, to be beatified

The Vatican announced Saturday the approval of a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager and computer programmer, who died in 2006.

Acutis07065The miracle involved the healing of a Brazilian child suffering from a rare congenital anatomic anomaly of the pancreas in 2013. The Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes gave a positive opinion of the miracle last November.

With Pope Francis’ approval of the miracle promulgated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints Feb. 21, 2020 Carlo Acutis can now be beatified. The beatification is expected to take place in Assisi. Acutis is currently buried in Assisi’s Church of St. Mary Major.

A normal boy with a strong faith

Acutis, who died of leukemia at the age of 15, offered his suffering for the pope and for the Church. He was born in London on May 3, 1991 to Italian parents who soon returned to Milan. He was a pious child, attending daily Mass, frequently praying the rosary, and making weekly confessions.

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Technology and the Word of God make good allies


Technology has become a "good ally", perfect for Guatemalan Churches, reaching thousands of faithful who are forbidden to meet for liturgies, due to the lockdown imposed to stop the spread of Covid-19. Both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church in Guatemala urge the faithful "not to lose faith in God and not to despair" in the midst of the pandemic.

technology"This terrible moment will pass quickly, God willing but, as holy people of God, we must protect life", says Father Donaldo Rodríguez, parish priest of San Pedro parish in the capital of Guatemala, in a message to the faithful.

Technology, explained the parish priest to Fides, has become a useful tool to bring the Word of God to the homes of Guatemalans, but it is also a challenge: "This reality has represented a real challenge for us. We did not know how to use the media such as the Internet, Facebook…", he says. And now, he notes, "even the priest's work has increased: sometimes I have to preach eight times on Sundays".

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