Vatican City, May 9, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The devil uses envy to try to thwart the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Saturday.

In his homily in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, May 9, the pope reflected on the day’s first reading, Acts 13:44-52, in which the Jewish community at Antioch rejects St. Paul’s preaching about Jesus. 

He said: “On the one hand there is the Lord, there is the Holy Spirit who makes the Church grow, and it grows ever more: this is true. But on the other hand, there is the evil spirit that seeks to destroy the Church.” 

After citing other examples in the Acts of the Apostles where the apostles faced rejection, the pope asked: “And what is the devil's instrument to destroy the Gospel proclamation? Envy. The Book of Wisdom [2:24] says it clearly: ‘Through the devil's envy sin has entered the world’ -- envy, jealousy, here. Always this bitter, bitter feeling.” 

Reflecting on this enduring struggle, Pope Francis quoted St. Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in “The City of God” that “the Church progresses on her pilgrimage amidst this world's persecutions and God's consolations.”

“A Church that has no difficulty lacks something,” he said. “The devil is too calm. And if the devil is calm, things are not going well. Always the difficulty, the temptation, the struggle... the jealousy that destroys. The Holy Spirit creates the harmony of the Church, and the evil spirit destroys. Until today.” 

The pope noted that in the first reading the community at Antioch turned the leading women and men of the city against the apostles. He observed that temporal powers are often an instrument through which envy is stirred up against Christians. 

He said: “Let us be careful with the preaching of the Gospel: never to fall, to put our trust in temporal powers and money. The trust of Christians is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that He sent, and it is precisely the Holy Spirit who is the leaven, it is the strength that makes the Church grow.” 

“Yes, the Church goes ahead, in peace, with resignation, joyful: between ‘the consolations of God and the persecutions of the world.’”

The pope led those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion, composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists.

He prayed: “My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there, and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.”

The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope noted that May 9 is the feast day of St. Louise de Marillac, the French founder of the Daughters of Charity. Her feast normally falls on March 15 but was transferred this year because it fell on a Sunday in Lent. A painting of the 17th-century saint was brought to the pope’s chapel to mark the occasion. 

The Daughters of Charity belong to the Vincentian family. Vincentian nuns live at the Casa Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, and run a pediatric dispensary at the Vatican.

At the start of Mass, the pope said: “Today is the commemoration of St. Louise de Marillac: let us pray for the Vincentian sisters who have run this clinic, this hospital, for almost 100 years and have worked here, in Santa Marta, for this hospital. May the Lord bless the sisters.”

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Vatican City, May 4, 2020 / 07:29 am (CNA).- Jesus died for everyone, but disordered attachment to one’s own ideas can cause divisions which break the unity of God’s people, Pope Francis said at Mass on Monday.

“There are ideas, positions that create division, to the point that the division is more important than unity,” the pope said May 4. People think “my idea is more important than the Holy Spirit who guides us.”

Francis called division a “disease of the Church, a disease which arises from ideologies or religious factions…”

Throughout the Church’s history there has always been a spirit of thinking one’s self to be righteous and others to be sinners, he said, describing it as an “us and the others” attitude, which says others are already condemned, while “we have the right position before God.”

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta, Francis emphasized that Jesus died for everyone.

Imagining a dialogue with someone questioning the statement, he said, “‘But did [Jesus] also die for that low-life who made my life impossible?’ He died for him too. ‘And for that crook?’ He died for him.”

“For everyone,” Francis underlined. “And also for people who do not believe in him or are of other religions: he died for everyone.”

Without using a name, the pope referenced a retired cardinal living inside the Vatican, who, he said, likes to say “the Church is like a river,” with different people being like different parts of the river.

“But the important thing is that everyone is inside the river,” the pope said. “This is the unity of the Church.”

The Church is a wide river, “because the Lord wants it so.”

Pope Francis quoted a verse from the day’s Gospel reading, John 10:11-18, when Jesus says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Jesus is saying “I am Shepherd of everyone,” the pope explained. “Everyone: Big and small, rich and poor, good and bad.”

Pointing to the divisions in the Church after the Second Vatican Council, he said it is permissible to think differently from one another, but always “in the unity of the Church, under Jesus the Shepherd.”

He prayed that the Lord would free Catholics from the illness of division and help them to see “this great thing from Jesus, that in him we are all brothers and he is the Shepherd of all.”

Pope Francis offered the day’s Mass for families, that in this time of quarantine because of the coronavirus pandemic they will continue to try new and creative things together and with their children.

He also acknowledged the reality of domestic violence, asking for prayers for families “to continue in peace with creativity and patience in this quarantine.”

After Mass the pope led those following the Mass via livestream in an act of spiritual communion. He concluded with Eucharistic adoration and benediction.

 

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 11:45 am (CNA).- Modern society is formulating an “anti-Christian creed” and punishing those who resist it with “social excommunication,” Benedict XVI has said in a new biography, published in Germany May 4.

In a wide-ranging interview at the end of the 1,184-page book, written by German author Peter Seewald, the pope emeritus said the greatest threat facing the Church was a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies.”

Benedict XVI, who resigned as pope in 2013, made the comment in response to a question about what he had meant at his 2005 inauguration, when he urged Catholics to pray for him “that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.”

He told Seewald that he was not referring to internal Church matters, such as the "Vatileaks" scandal, which led to the conviction of his personal butler, Paolo Gabriele, for stealing confidential Vatican documents. 

In an advanced copy of “Benedikt XVI - Ein Leben” (A Life), seen by CNA, the pope emeritus said: “Of course, issues such as ‘Vatileaks’ are exasperating and, above all, incomprehensible and highly disturbing to people in the world at large.”

“But the real threat to the Church and thus to the ministry of St. Peter consists not in these things, but in the worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies, and to contradict them constitutes exclusion from the basic social consensus.”

He continued: “A hundred years ago, everyone would have thought it absurd to speak of homosexual marriage. Today whoever opposes it is socially excommunicated. The same applies to abortion and the production of human beings in the laboratory.”

“Modern society is in the process of formulating an ‘anti-Christian creed,’ and resisting it is punishable by social excommunication. The fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is therefore only too natural, and it truly takes the prayers of a whole diocese and the universal Church to resist it.”

The biography, issued by Munich-based publisher Droemer Knaur, is available only in German. An English translation, “Benedict XVI, The Biography: Volume One,” will be published in the U.S. on Nov. 17.

In the interview, the 93-year-old former pope confirmed that he had written a spiritual testament, which could be published after his death, as did Pope St. John Paul II.

Benedict said that he had fast-tracked the cause of John Paul II because of “the obvious desire of the faithful” as well as the example of the Polish pope, with whom he had worked closely for more than two decades in Rome.

He insisted that his resignation had “absolutely nothing” to do with the episode involving Paolo Gabriele, and explained that his 2010 visit to the tomb of Celestine V, the last pope to resign before Benedict XVI, was “rather coincidental.” He also defended the title “emeritus” for a retired pope.

Benedict XVI lamented the reaction to his various public comments since his resignation, citing criticism of his tribute read at the funeral of Cardinal Joachim Meisner in 2017, in which he said that God would prevent the ship of the Church from capsizing. He explained that his words were “taken almost literally from the sermons of St. Gregory the Great.”

Seewald asked the pope emeritus to comment on the “dubia” submitted by four cardinals, including Cardinal Meisner, to Pope Francis in 2016 regarding the interpretation of his apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.

Benedict said that he did not want to comment directly, but referred to his last general audience, on Feb. 27, 2013.

Summing up his message that day, he  said: “In the Church, amid all the toils of humanity and the confusing power of the evil spirit, one will always be able to discern the subtle power of God's goodness.”

“But the darkness of successive historical periods will never allow the unadulterated joy of being a Christian ... There are always moments in the Church and in the life of the individual Christian in which one feels profoundly that the Lord loves us, and this love is joy, is ‘happiness’.”

Benedict said that he treasured the memory of his first meeting with the newly elected Pope Francis at Castel Gandolfo and that his personal friendship with his successor has continued to grow.

Author Peter Seewald has conducted four book-length interviews with Benedict XVI. The first, “Salt of the Earth,” was published in 1997, when the future pope was prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was followed by “God and the World” in 2002, and “Light of the World” in 2010.

In 2016, Seewald published “Last Testament,” in which Benedict XVI reflected on his decision to step down as pope.

Publisher Droemer Knaur said that Seewald had spent many hours talking to Benedict for the new book, as well as speaking to his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger and his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

In an interview with Die Tagespost April 30, Seewald said that he had shown the Pope Emeritus a few chapters of the book before publication. Benedict XVI, he added, had praised the chapter on Pope Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.
 

 

Vatican City, May 6, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday advanced the sainthood causes of five men and women, including an Italian teenager who died of a brain tumor in 2009, declaring them “venerable.”

After a May 5 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the pope approved the heroic virtue of Italian priests Francesco Caruso (1879-1951) and Carmelo De Palma (1876-1961), as well as the Spanish Redemptorist priest Francisco Barrecheguren Montagut (1881-1957).

Before becoming a priest, Barrecheguren Montagut was married (he was later widowed) and had a daughter, Maria de la Concepción Barrecheguren García (1905-1927), who was also declared venerable by the pope May 6.

The fifth sainthood cause to move a step toward canonization was that of Italian teenager Matteo Farina, who lived from 1990 to 2009. 

Farina grew up in a strong Christian family in the southern Italian town of Brindisi. He was very close to his sister, Erika.

The parish where he received the sacraments was under the care of Capuchin friars, from whom he gained a devotion to St. Francis and St. Padre Pio. 

The postulator of Farina’s cause for sainthood said that from a young age Farina had the desire to learn new things, always undertaking his activities with diligence, whether it was school or sports or his passion for music.

Starting at eight years old, he would receive the sacrament of reconciliation often. He was also devoted to the Word of God. At nine years old, he read the entire Gospel of St. Matthew as a Lenten practice. Farina also prayed the rosary every day.

When he was nine years old, he had a dream in which he heard St. Padre Pio tell him that if he understood that “who is without sin is happy,” he must help others to understand this, “so that we can all go together, happy, to the kingdom of heaven.”

From that point onward, Farina felt a strong desire to evangelize, especially among his peers, which he did politely and without presumption.

He once wrote about this desire, saying “I hope to succeed in my mission to ‘infiltrate’ among young people, speaking to them about God (illuminated by God himself); I observe those around me, to enter among them as silent as a virus and infect them with an incurable disease, Love!”

In September 2003, a month before his 13th birthday, Farina began to have symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as a brain tumor. As he was undergoing medical tests, he began to keep a journal. He called the experience of the bad headaches and pain “one of those adventures that change your life and that of others. It helps you to be stronger and to grow, above all in faith.”

Over the next six years, Farina would experience several brain operations and undergo chemotherapy and other treatments for the tumor.

His love for Mary strengthened during this time and he consecrated himself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In between hospitalizations, he continued to live the ordinary life of a teenager: he attended school, hung out with his friends, formed a band, and fell in love with a girl. 

He later called the chaste relationship he had with Serena during his last two years of life “the most beautiful gift" the Lord could give him.

When he was 15, he reflected on friendship, saying “I would like to be able to integrate with my peers without being forced to imitate them in mistakes. I would like to feel more involved in the group, without having to renounce my Christian principles. It’s difficult. Difficult but not impossible.”

Eventually, the teenager’s condition worsened and after a third surgery he became paralyzed in his left arm and leg. He would often repeat that “we must live every day as if it were the last, but not in the sadness of death, but rather in the joy of being ready to meet the Lord!”

Farina died surrounded by his friends and family on April 24, 2009. 

Francesca Consolini, the postulator of Farina’s cause, wrote on a website dedicated to the young venerable that in him emerged “a deep inner commitment oriented toward purifying his heart from every sin” and he experienced this spirituality “not with heaviness, effort or pessimism; indeed, from his words there emerges constant trust in God, a tenacious, determined and serene gaze turned to the future...”

Farina often thought about the faith and the “difficulty of going against the current.” Concerned about a lack of good faith education for young people, he undertook this task among his own peers. 

He once wrote in his journal: “When you feel that you can’t do it, when the world falls on you, when every choice is a critical decision, when every action is a failure ... and you would like to throw everything away, when intense work reduces you to the limit of strength ... take time to take care of your soul, love God with your whole being and reflect his love for others.”

Vatican City, May 9, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The devil uses envy to try to thwart the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Saturday.

In his homily in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, May 9, the pope reflected on the day’s first reading, Acts 13:44-52, in which the Jewish community at Antioch rejects St. Paul’s preaching about Jesus. 

He said: “On the one hand there is the Lord, there is the Holy Spirit who makes the Church grow, and it grows ever more: this is true. But on the other hand, there is the evil spirit that seeks to destroy the Church.” 

After citing other examples in the Acts of the Apostles where the apostles faced rejection, the pope asked: “And what is the devil's instrument to destroy the Gospel proclamation? Envy. The Book of Wisdom [2:24] says it clearly: ‘Through the devil's envy sin has entered the world’ -- envy, jealousy, here. Always this bitter, bitter feeling.” 

Reflecting on this enduring struggle, Pope Francis quoted St. Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in “The City of God” that “the Church progresses on her pilgrimage amidst this world's persecutions and God's consolations.”

“A Church that has no difficulty lacks something,” he said. “The devil is too calm. And if the devil is calm, things are not going well. Always the difficulty, the temptation, the struggle... the jealousy that destroys. The Holy Spirit creates the harmony of the Church, and the evil spirit destroys. Until today.” 

The pope noted that in the first reading the community at Antioch turned the leading women and men of the city against the apostles. He observed that temporal powers are often an instrument through which envy is stirred up against Christians. 

He said: “Let us be careful with the preaching of the Gospel: never to fall, to put our trust in temporal powers and money. The trust of Christians is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that He sent, and it is precisely the Holy Spirit who is the leaven, it is the strength that makes the Church grow.” 

“Yes, the Church goes ahead, in peace, with resignation, joyful: between ‘the consolations of God and the persecutions of the world.’”

The pope led those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion, composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists.

He prayed: “My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there, and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.”

The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope noted that May 9 is the feast day of St. Louise de Marillac, the French founder of the Daughters of Charity. Her feast normally falls on March 15 but was transferred this year because it fell on a Sunday in Lent. A painting of the 17th-century saint was brought to the pope’s chapel to mark the occasion. 

The Daughters of Charity belong to the Vincentian family. Vincentian nuns live at the Casa Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, and run a pediatric dispensary at the Vatican.

At the start of Mass, the pope said: “Today is the commemoration of St. Louise de Marillac: let us pray for the Vincentian sisters who have run this clinic, this hospital, for almost 100 years and have worked here, in Santa Marta, for this hospital. May the Lord bless the sisters.”

On 1 December, 22 women hiked Tongariro Alpine Crossing to raise awareness and funds for women and children trafficked in France and India.

About 110 men, women and children climbed five volcanoes in Auckland in the Freedom Climb New Zealand on Saturday, 16 August.

CONTEXT:

Recommendations conflict regarding universal application of formal screening instruments in primary care (PC) and PC-like settings for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

OBJECTIVES:

Reduce postoperative hypothermia by up to 50% over a 12-month period in children’s hospital NICUs and identify specific clinical practices that impact success.

Almost 1 in 4 adolescents have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). These infections are preventable through safe sexual practices and routine screening. Pediatricians are the first line of clinical care for adolescents and are well positioned to offer sexual and reproductive health care counseling and services to their patients; yet, there is a paucity of sexual health screening provided at routine health supervision visits. This article addresses the epidemiology of STIs in adolescents, reviews the evidence of current clinical practice, presents recommended STI screening from government and medical agencies, and offers strategies to address barriers to providing care for adolescents and for sexual health screening in primary care.

Chronic sleep deprivation is a common, treatable condition among adolescents. Growing literature supports a myriad consequences that impact overall health, behavior, mood, and academic performance in this vulnerable age group during a time when there are rapid changes in physical development and emotional regulation. This article reviews the epidemiology and health effects of sleep deprivation in adolescents as well as common disorders leading to sleep loss and evidence to support treatment. Although a variety of important sleep disorders may disrupt quality of sleep in adolescents, such as obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and narcolepsy, this article will focus on common disorders that affect the quantity of sleep, such as poor sleep hygiene, circadian rhythm disorders, and insomnia.

Problematic Internet use (PIU) by adolescents is of growing concern among both parents and pediatricians. Early controversies may have contributed to challenges in defining and measuring PIU. A variety of screening tools have evolved, aligned with different constructs of PIU, although a validated screening tool does exist. Current data and American Academy of Pediatrics policy reflect evidence-driven screening for PIU for all youth.

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IN THE winding lanes of Barcelona’s historic Barri Gòtic it’s no surprise to find a little cheese shop tucked amongst the boutiques and antique shops. What is unexpected though is that this shop, Formageria La Seu, the only one on the Iberian peninsula to feature artisanal cheese from all over Catalonia and Spain, is owned and run by a Scots woman – Katherine McLaughlin.

MY heart was beating as if it were trying to escape my body. My mind was racing and hands shaking. All from what would usually be the comfort of the sofa. Was I ready? Ready as I’ll ever be, I told myself. I was standing at the greatest watershed moment of my life and was acutely aware of it. I was about to come out publicly as gay to more or less everyone I knew, all at once, through a post on Facebook.