Prince of Peace Parish

London, England, Dec 4, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

The case for assisted dying rests on dangerous misconceptions about the reality of death and dying, according to leading palliative care doctors across England and Wales.

Following a Westminster debate on Nov. 29 in which members of England’s Parliament (MPs) voted in favor of legalizing assisted suicide, 15 palliative care specialists voiced their concerns in a letter to The Times, published Dec. 3.

Reflecting on the historic vote, the signatories wrote that “anyone watching the debate would have been forgiven for thinking that most deaths involve great suffering.”  

“While we do not deny ‘bad deaths’ can happen, most reflect failure of care,” the doctors wrote. “As the bill progresses through Parliament we must ensure that this is accompanied by progress in understanding ‘ordinary dying.’”

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was initiated by MP Kim Leadbeater and allows terminally-ill adults aged 18 or over the right to request medically assisted suicide.

The bill passed its Second Reading last Friday, with 330 MPs voting in favor of it and 275 against it.

The Association of Palliative Medicine in the U.K. is opposed to changing the law on assisted suicide in England and Wales.

In their letter to the Times, the palliative medical experts highlighted a number of other misconceptions underpinning the debate before the vote, including the idea that people regularly resort to starving themselves to death and that covert euthanasia is already happening across England and Wales.

“Several MPs suggested that many people resort to starving themselves to death, which we believe misunderstands the expected reduction in oral intake in dying people as the body shuts down,” the doctors wrote. 

“Other misconceptions concerned the use of morphine to treat pain and suffering at the end of life, with the conflicting suggestions that there is both a limit to the amount of morphine that can be safely used and that high doses of morphine are already used as ‘covert’ assisted dying,” they said.

Pro-life campaigners are now redoubling their strategic efforts to ensure the bill falls at the next hurdle.

A statement released by Right to Life UK on Nov. 29 read: “A large number of MPs who voted for the bill indicated that they were only doing so with a view to debating the bill at further stages. As the vote margin was 55 votes, it would only take 28 MPs to move their vote to opposing the bill for it to be voted down at Third Reading. This provides a clear path for those opposing the bill to defeat it at Third Reading.”

CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

A priest in New Orleans pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping and raping a teenage boy in the 1970s, heading off a long-delayed trial that launched with an indictment last year. 

In September of last year, 93-year-old Father Lawrence Hecker was indicted on charges of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, an aggravated crime against nature, and theft. 

The sex abuse crimes are alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1, 1975, and Dec. 31, 1976, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. 

His trial was repeatedly delayed this year amid Hecker’s ill health and uncertainty over his mental competency to stand trial. Orleans Parish First Assistant District Attorney Ned McGowan had promised to “roll him in on a gurney” to try him.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the priest filed a guilty plea with the court, with his lawyer saying the priest “decid[ed] that he wanted to take responsibility for the crimes that he committed.”

“I think it was just a matter of, we were on the finish line, this was the day before the trial, I think he came to the realization of what that was going to look like, and he made the decision to enter the guilty plea,” Hecker’s attorney, Bobby Hjortsberg, said outside of Orleans Criminal Court on Tuesday. 

Asked why the trial had been delayed for so long, Hjortsberg told reporters that Hecker is “an old, old man” who is “deteriorating.” 

The trial “has been a long, difficult process for everybody involved, especially obviously the victims,” Hjortsberg noted. 

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told reporters that when Hecker returns for sentencing, “the judge is going to sentence him to a life sentence.”

“I believe this investigation and this prosecution represents a critical moment for some little boys who are now men — some of them who are now grandfathers — who have lived with this horrific abuse for years,” Williams said. 

The Archdiocese of New Orleans lists Hecker as among the priests who “are alive and have been accused of sexually abusing a minor, which led to their removal from ministry.”

The archdiocesan website says it received allegations against Hecker in 1996 and removed him from ministry in 2002. The archdiocese says the “time frame” of Hecker’s abuse spans the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The priest had in 1999 reportedly confessed to abusing multiple teenage boys during those years.

In a statement on Wednesday, the archdiocese said: “It is our hope and prayer that the court proceedings bring healing and peace to the survivor and all survivors of sexual abuse.” 

“We continue to hold all survivors in prayer,” the statement added. 

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis was handed the key to a new Mercedes-Benz “popemobile” on Wednesday by the CEO of the German luxury car brand.

Ola Källenius, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz, presented the pope with a white and chrome key fob inside a white box after showing off the new open-air vehicle in a parking lot inside Vatican City on Dec. 4.

The modified G-Wagon features a rotating heated seat and a heated hand rail to keep the pope warm while greeting pilgrims during winter rides around St. Peter’s Square.

The fully electric, white SUV is emblazoned with Francis’ coat of arms, has black detailing, and has chrome rims. Two small Holy See flags wave from the front hood.

The license plate of the papal ride is “SCV 1,” which is the Italian acronym for Vatican City State.

Mercedes-Benz has provided vehicles for the Vatican for 94 years. During the last 45 years, the pope has used “popemobiles” based on the Mercedes-Benz G-Class. 

“With the new popemobile, Pope Francis is the first pontiff to travel in an all-electric Mercedes-Benz during his public appearances. This is a great honor for our company and I would like to thank His Holiness for his trust,” Källenius said in a Dec. 4 press release.

Pope Francis has been using full or partially electric cars for several years. In 2023, the Vatican also announced a partnership with auto manufacturer Volkswagen to introduce an all-electric, zero-impact car fleet in the Vatican by 2030.

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis during his general audience at St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday said all evangelizing activity depends on the Holy Spirit and not on “pastoral initiatives promoted by us.”

Continuing his catechetical series on ”The Spirit and the Bride,” the Holy Father spoke about evangelization and the role of preaching in the Catholic Church. 

Stressing the importance of prayer, the pope said all Christians should ask for God’s intercession in the work of evangelization as it “does not depend on us but on the coming of the Holy Spirit.”  

“The Holy Spirit comes to those who pray because the heavenly Father — it is written — ‘give[s] the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’ (cf. Lk 11:13),” the pope told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. “Especially if we ask him in order to proclaim the Gospel of his Son!”

Pointing to the example of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry, the Holy Father said it is necessary to imitate his example and prayer: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor” (cf. Lk 4:18). 

“Preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit means transmitting, together with the ideas and the doctrine, the life, and conviction of our faith,” he continued.

Emphasizing the need to prioritize prayer over “persuasive words of wisdom,” the Holy Father also told his listeners to be wary of the desire to “preach ourselves” instead of Jesus Christ.

“Not wanting to preach oneself also implies not always giving priority to pastoral initiatives promoted by us and linked to our own name,” he said.

A plea to preachers

Pope Francis also shared practical advice for preachers to “never go over 10 minutes” at the risk of their listeners losing interest in a sermon.

“Preachers must preach an idea, a feeling, and a call to action. Beyond eight minutes the preaching starts to fade, it is not understood,” Pope Francis said to applause from some pilgrims.    

Final greetings and prayers for peace

In his final greetings to international pilgrims on Wednesday, the pope imparted his special Advent blessings. He encouraged the crowds to prepare well for the upcoming solemnity of the Immaculate Conception to be celebrated on Dec. 9 this year.

The Holy Father also extended his sincere greetings to Chinese pilgrims and their families at the general audience. Mandarin Chinese was today included among the official language translations of the pope’s weekly greetings and catechesis. 

Asking people to pray especially for the people of Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, and “the innocent killed in wars,” the pope implored: “Please let us continue to pray for peace, freedom.”

“War is a human defeat, a defeat of humanity. War does not solve problems. War is evil,” he said.

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

The 21 new cardinals to be created by Pope Francis at the Dec. 7 consistory reflect the pontiff’s vision for a missionary Church that reaches out to the world’s peripheries.

Following the 10th consistory of his pontificate, Pope Francis will have effectively cemented the expansive geographical diversity of the College of Cardinals as well as chosen approximately 60% of all its members and almost 80% of the cardinals who will choose his successor in a future conclave.

While the College of Cardinals will still largely be European — with a high proportion who are either representing Italian churches or are of Italian origin — after the Dec. 7 consistory more than 90 countries will be represented in the college responsible for advising the pope in the care of the universal Church.

The December consistory will also see the College of Cardinals expand to a total of 253 members. Though the vast majority of cardinals are usually secular clergy, this year’s consistory will bring the number of cardinals belonging to religious congregations and institutes to 68.  

The continued expansion of the college beyond traditionally Catholic Europe is also evident in the selection of cardinals belonging to missionary congregations in countries where Catholics are a minority.

Both Cardinals-elect Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD, of Tokyo and Archbishop Ladislav Nemet, SVD, of Belgrade-Smederevo, Serbia, belong to the Society of the Divine Word religious congregation and represent the Church in countries where the Catholic population is at 5% and below.

According to Canon 349 of the Code of Canon Law, cardinals hold the duty to act collegially in choosing a pope’s successor should a conclave be convoked. However, not all cardinals hold the right to cast a vote in a conclave.  

More than half of the college after the consistory is set to be “cardinal electors.” These cardinals are below the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote for a new pope. 

Among the 140 cardinals with voting rights, the highest representation by country is Italy with 17 cardinal-electors, followed by the U.S. with 10 cardinal-electors, and then Spain with six cardinal-electors. 

The college’s remaining 113 “cardinal non-electors” are 80 years old and older. While they are eligible to participate in the meetings leading up to the start of a conclave, they do not have voting rights and so will not participate in the conclave itself. 

Both the eldest and youngest College of Cardinals members will be created at the Dec. 7 consistory. 

At 99, Italian Cardinal-elect Angelo Acerbi, the prelate emeritus of the Knights of Malta, will become the oldest member of the college. Having served the Catholic Church as a bishop for 50 years, he also has 40 years of experience working in the Holy See’s diplomatic corps. 

Between 1974 and 2001, he served as nuncio to New Zealand, Colombia, Hungary, Moldova, and the Netherlands.

Bishop Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul in Melbourne, Australia, will become the youngest cardinal at age 44. His elevation as cardinal will bring the total number of cardinals from the vast Oceania region to four.

In an Oct. 6 letter welcoming the new cardinals to the “Roman clergy,” Pope Francis said membership to the College of Cardinals “is an expression of the Church’s unity and of the bond that unites all the Churches with this Church of Rome.”

The consistory for the creation of the new cardinals will take place in the Papal Chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday afternoon.

CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2024 / 09:45 am (CNA).

The Texas State Board of Education has sparked renewed debate over the role of religion in public schools in the wake of the agency’s approval of a new language arts curriculum that includes the Bible.

The K–5 curriculum, which will become available this spring, features a cross-disciplinary approach that uses reading and language arts to reinforce other subjects. The Blue Bonnet Learning curriculum has come under scrutiny due to its references to Christianity and the Bible, including lessons from Genesis and Psalms as well as the New Testament. 

For example, the parable of the good Samaritan is part of a lesson plan about the Golden Rule. The program is optional, though schools receive funding per student to cover the cost of the program if they participate. Participating schools will begin the program in the 2025-2026 school year. 

According to a report by the Texas Tribune, critics of the curriculum cite fear it will “entrench religion in public life” and could “diminish the protections that are afforded to religious minorities.” Other critics fear that this could ostracize students of different faith backgrounds, while one parent called the curriculum “indoctrination.”  

But Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a group that supports the curriculum, pointed out that understanding the Bible helps deepen students’ understanding of Western history.

“These materials were attacked for no other reason but to completely erase any mention of religion or the Bible from the classroom, which would create a hostile environment for free speech,” Castle said in a statement.

Catholic takes

When asked about the Texas Bible curriculum, Father Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire, told CNA that the goal of the curriculum — to stress “the cultural influence and moral perspectives of the Scriptures” — is “commendable.”  

Grunow emphasized that the Bible’s vast global influence “is such that it should not be ignored in any academic curriculum.” 

But he noted that this goal is difficult to implement. “The open and often volatile question has been how to best do this,” he pointed out. 

“The Bible is not only culturally valuable but holds the status for believers to be revelatory of God,” he noted. “No interpretation of its meaning or significance can [be] characterized as neutral, and it is clear that the Bible itself does not present its purpose as relative — the text intends to convince us of the truth of its claims.”

Grunow noted that parish schools were founded with this concern in mind. 

“Contemporary Catholics might not remember, but one of the contributing factors to the founding of parochial schools was that the public school curriculum was suffused with Protestantism, particularly in regards to presentations of the Bible,” Grunow explained. “The first conflict of Catholics with public schools and other institutions in this country was not that they were secular but that they were Protestant.” 

Does the curriculum cross a line? 

Weighing in with legal perspective on the curriculum, a professor at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America pointed out that proselytizing is unconstitutional, but education about religions is not. 

Marc DeGirolami, co-director at CUA’s Center for Law and the Human Person, said that “from a constitutional point of view as the law now stands, in principle, there is nothing illegal about what Texas is doing.”

“What is not permitted at present is to ‘proselytize’ — to teach a particular set of religious views as true and other religious views as false,” he told CNA. “From what I could see in the proposed curriculum, though, this is not what Texas is now proposing. And teaching about religion, including the historical and cultural connections of the American republic to Christianity, is not forbidden.”

However, this can be a hard line to walk. “Of course, the line between teaching about religion and teaching religion can be gray. So much will depend upon the implementation of these curricular policies,” DeGirolami said.

When asked if he thinks the curriculum could be a violation of religious freedom, Grunow agreed with DeGirolami — it’s only unconstitutional “if its purposes were sectarian and to proselytize.” 

“I do think that most Americans would not have an issue [with] the presentation of the Bible in the public schools; that’s not the point of contention,” Grunow said. “The issue is how to do this in a way that respects ... the Bible, those who hold it to be God’s revelation, those who ascribe to differing interpretations, and those who might appreciate its cultural significance but are wary of any encroachment of religion in public institutions.”

“The Texas curriculum is trying to navigate these concerns,” Grunow said. “I give them credit for their efforts, but time will show us the efficacy of this endeavor.” 

Some critics have threatened legal action, but DeGirolami said objections like these “are on awkward footing.”

For DeGirolami, excluding a particular religion in education “seems discriminatory to me, especially in a world where what children are taught in public schools seems, at least to me, to be neck deep in moral and religious teaching.”

In other words, religious and moral values manifest throughout education anyway, so excluding Christianity would be discriminatory.   

“School curricula are meant to develop in children certain civic, moral, political, and cultural views, together with teaching them certain basic skills,” he explained. “Those civic, moral, political, and cultural views presuppose answers to some very basic questions that are also questions addressed by Christianity and many other religions.” 

For DeGirolami, Christianity should not be excluded from the civic and moral discussion. 

“To say that Christianity, because it is ‘religious,’ is not to be included in that discussion, is to gerrymander a category (‘religion’) so as to exclude particular substantive positions that are unwelcome or that critics think are wrong,” he said. “But if they are wrong, critics should just say so and explain why, rather than excluding them from the get-go as categorically inappropriate or out of bounds.”

The vehicle, given on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2025, is one-of-a-kind, green, and tailored specifically to Pope Francis’ needs.

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Lima Newsroom, Dec 4, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The bishops of Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are inviting the faithful to participate in a day of prayer for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua on Sunday, Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

“On ​​the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Nicaraguan Catholics lift their voices in a great festival of praise known as ‘la gritería,’” the bishops of Central America said in a Nov. 29 statement. On this occasion, they pointed out, “in Nicaragua and throughout Central America, the traditional Marian devotion is expressed that is so deeply rooted in the piety of our people.”

The “gritería” (clamor) is celebrated on Dec. 7 in Nicaragua on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when the faithful walk the streets and visit altars erected in honor of the Virgin Mary praying, singing, and lighting fireworks while shouting “Who causes so much joy?” and responding with “The conception of Mary!”

In their statement, the bishops expressed their “profound solidarity and communion with the people of God in Nicaragua, who often face a challenging reality.”

In their text, the prelates encouraged Catholics in each jurisdiction or parish to “join in prayer this cry of faith and hope, peace and freedom, which the faithful people direct to their mother and patroness. Our thoughts are with you, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters. We fraternally join your outcry, which respectfully hopes to find an answer.”

The bishops’ announcement came just prior to the Dec. 2 letter Pope Francis wrote to the Catholics of Nicaragua in which he encouraged them to be certain that faith and hope “work miracles.”

Relentless persecution

The persecution of the Catholic Church by the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president,” Rosario Murillo, seems to have no end.

A few days ago, the regime approved a reform of the country’s constitution that further restricts religious freedom and freedom of expression in the country, which are already quite limited. Among the most controversial measures is a provision that requires that “religious organizations must remain free of all foreign control.”

In mid-November, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship expelled from the country the bishop of Jinotega and president of the country’s bishops’ conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, who had criticized a mayor, an Ortega supporter, who interfered with Mass by blasting loud music in front of the diocesan cathedral.

Herrera Gutiérrez and other bishops, priests, and religious have been subject to constant monitoring, persecution, and abduction as well as imprisonment in deplorable conditions.

Numerous members of the clergy have been deported from the country, stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and made stateless, as is the case of the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, who was exiled to Rome in January along with Isidoro Mora, the bishop of Siuna; 15 priests; and two seminarians.

Under the socialist regime, Catholics have been silenced and public expressions of faith, such as prayers for the persecuted and other pastoral and spiritual activities, have been prohibited.

Between 2018 and 2024, 870 attacks against the Catholic Church were recorded in Nicaragua, as documented in the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” by exiled lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Francis urges participants at the Brotherhoods and Popular Piety Congress in Seville, Spain, to embody Christ’s love through devotion, unity, and acts of charity.

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Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán visits the Vatican, and discusses the war in Ukraine, Hungary’s presidency of the EU Council, and support for young people.

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