From:  EWTN News

Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis. sharply criticized Georgetown University’s decision to invite Kathleen Sebelius to speak at a ceremony during commencement weekend.

The bishop said those involved in Catholic education should be “witnesses and not just teachers,” and warned that Georgetown’s actions are “teaching the people by what we do the opposite of what we say.”

He told Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s “The World Over” in a May 10 broadcast that if he were president of the school, he “would never have moved in a direction like that.”

Georgetown University – the nation’s first Catholic and Jesuit college – ignited controversy on May 4, when it announced that Sebelius, who works as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, had been chosen to address Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute at an award ceremony on May 18.

Sebelius, who is Catholic, has drawn criticism for issuing a federal mandate that will require employers to offer health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates religious beliefs.

Catholic bishops from every diocese in the U.S. have condemned the mandate, warning that it threatens religious freedom and could force Catholic hospitals, schools and charitable agencies to shut down.

Sebelius has also long supported abortion, both in her current role and as governor of Kansas, where she vetoed pro-life legislation and opposed abortion restrictions.

A Georgetown spokesperson responded to the criticism by saying that while Sebelius is speaking at an awards ceremony during commencement weekend, she is not a commencement speaker.

The university does not have “one main commencement speaker,” the spokesperson said, because each of its undergraduate and professional schools holds a separate graduation ceremony.

Critics argue, however, that the university is still honoring Sebelius with the invitation and granting her an inappropriate platform to voice views that are hostile to the Catholic Church.

In a 2004 document entitled “Catholics in Political Life,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

A petition protesting the university’s decision to invite Sebelius has gained more than 24,000 signatures in one week.

Bishop Morlino said that Catholic educators “have to get involved and act in accord with what we teach.”

“I’m afraid too many of them have strayed from that direction,” he cautioned.

He pointed to Pope Benedict’s recent address to a group of U.S. bishops gathered at the Vatican, explaining that the education of young Catholics in the faith is “the most urgent internal challenge” facing the Catholic Church in America.

“I embrace that wholeheartedly,” Bishop Morlino said.

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By: Father John A. Gallas

From: Fatima On-Line

The Last Vision Of Fatima And Consecration Of Russia

The last vision of Fatima is an event that is not well known. It occurred in 1929 in the Spanish town of Tuy as Sister Lucia was praying alone in her convent chapel. She received a supernatural vision of the Holy Trinity, which was a very interesting and important occurrence.

Most noteworthy is what Mary asked of the Pope: “The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the bishops of the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart…”

The consecration was fulfilled by Pope John Paul II almost three years after the attempt on his life, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, March 25, 1984. Particularly noteworthy was the series of events that followed this consecration. Mary had specifically identified the threat of Communism. After this consecration, Communism fell in Russia. As Professor Américo Pablo López-Ortiz wrote in our previous newsletter, this took place through an especially noteworthy series of events which occurred on days dedicated to Our Lady. On August 22, 1991, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, the Communist party was thwarted in an attempt to overthrow Gorbachev. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1991, it was announced that the community of independent states would replace the USSR. On Christmas Day, 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus announced the formal dissolution of the USSR. On January 1, 1992, Russia emerged as an independent state open to religious freedom and public worship. Without the use of the sword, Communism in Russia had collapsed.

Did Russia Spread Her Errors Throughout The World?

Since the USSR is no longer in existence, does that mean that the goal of Fatima is fulfilled? By no means! Mary warned the children that Russia’s errors would spread throughout the world. What are the errors that underlie Communism? Materialism, atheism, individualism, putting self before others; all of these are spiritual sicknesses we can see in various incarnations, not only abroad and in our land, but even within our own hearts.

If this last vision can truly be said to be a synthesis of the entire message of Fatima, then our response should be to totally consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Might we think of Russia as an image of the sinner infected by the disease of sin and needing to be given over entirely to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who models and leads us to Jesus, her Son?

Why Did Mary Choose The Shepard Children?

The fact that Mary chose shepherd children of simple faith is striking. Shepherds were the first to receive the message that Christ was born. Jesus spoke of His relationship with the Church as the “Good Shepherd.” Shepherds face personal temptations toward cowardice and laziness, as well as an acute awareness of actual physical dangers (e.g., the attack of wolves). The children understood that God has a flock that is in great danger—unless it is tended, it will go astray. Despite their youth and lay state, they were to participate in the Church’s role of shepherding sinners by virtue of
the grace of their Baptism, and by uniting themselves to the Cross of Jesus Christ through prayer and penance.

What Should Our Response Be To Our Lady?

Our response should also be to unite our lives to the Cross of Christ in prayer and penance. It’s a simple yet very difficult thing, but has great power and can bear real fruit for the salvation of sinners. We can offer sacrifices as acts of reparation for the sins by which God is offended and for the conversion of sinners. The shepherd children found simple ways to do this, realizing the great value of offering up little sacrifices in union with the Cross of Christ.

Mary is asking us to offer our prayers and acts of reparation to win graces for the ongoing conversion of the world. As we see the way the world is going with all its rampant corruption, sin, and discouragement, we must recall that only one thing is required: to willingly accept what comes to us while keeping our eyes fixed on Christ and on the Holy Eucharist. As we offer our trials in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we will participate in the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart over this world.

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CARDINAL DOLAN: PRESIDENT OBAMA’S REMARKS ON MARRIAGE ‘DEEPLY SADDENING’

The following press release was issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on President Obama’s Remarks On Marriage.   Source Cardinal Dolan’s Blog.

Picture source: Weaselzippers

WASHINGTON—Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), issued the following statement:

President Obama’s comments today in support of the redefinition of marriage are deeply saddening. As I stated in my public letter to the President on September 20, 2011, the Catholic Bishops stand ready to affirm every positive measure taken by the President and the Administration to strengthen marriage and the family. However, we cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society. The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better. Unfortunately, President Obama’s words today are not surprising since they follow upon various actions already taken by his Administration that erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage. I pray for the President every day, and will continue to pray that he and his Administration act justly to uphold and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman. May we all work to promote and protect marriage and by so doing serve the true good of all persons.
Here is President Obama’s statement in a May 9 interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts.

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.

Here is what Vice President Joe Biden told NBC’s David Gregory I am “absolutely comfortable” with the idea of homosexual couples marrying.

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Mass Exodus: Leaving Mass After Receiving Holy Communion

written by Fr. Lawrence Adamczyk:  While not as bad as missing Mass, leaving Mass immediately after receiving Holy Communion is still very disrespectful to your Spouse.  Again, let’s use the analogy of Jesus the Bridegroom and the Church as His spouse.  Leaving immediately after receiving Holy Communion, screams that you really do not understand what has just happened. 

You have just received the God of the Universe, the One who created you, the One who died on the cross for you, the Eternal, the Almighty God into your heart and soul and you don’t even stop to say “thank you” to your spouse.  You cannot have a deep personal intimate relationship with the one who loves you more then you can ever know, if you leave as soon as YOU get what YOU want.   I have fallen madly and passionately in love with the God of the universe.

I have been a priest for about 8 years.  You know what breaks my heart?  For more than 8 years now, I have been standing at the back of the church greeting people as they leave Mass.  It breaks my heart when people leave Mass right after receiving Holy Communion; and it is not because as St. Paul says that “we must render an account.” It breaks my heart because of the Book of Wisdom, “I…deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her is a little sand.”  Maybe it is because I am a priest, that I feel so heart broken that people do not reverence the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.  Do they not know that after receiving Holy Communion, they are a walking tabernacle?  What can be so important that one would not spend a few moments in thanksgiving for receiving the Almighty God into your very being?

But the rich young man, “went away sad, for he had many possessions” which were apparently more important to him that following Jesus.  By our Baptism, we are all called to that intimate and personal love that God has for each one of us, it cannot be that only the priest has a deep and personal relationship with God.  Fr. Pedro Aruppe, one time superior General of the Jesuits is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.  Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.”  Remember love is not about feeling or emotions; love is not about sex; love is about the choice to sacrifice for the good of the other.

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By: Father Robert Altier

Fatimaonline.com

What Is Reparation?

In the summer of 1916, in the second apparition of the Angel to the children, he asked them to offer every
suffering as an act of reparation to God. On three occasions, in May, July, and October of 1917, our Lady instructed the children to make reparation for the sins against God and the sins against our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. However, nothing made as much impact on the children as the July vision of hell which caused all three, but especially Francisco, to take on many penances and offer them as acts of reparation.

Reparation is the repairing or making up for the offenses against God. This covers a wide variety of areas from the fact of Original Sin to our own personal sins and even to the sins of others no matter how large or small the offense might be. God is the author of justice, but He is also the norm of justice. This means that He can determine what, if any, atonement needs to be made for sin. In other words, He can simply write off our sins without requiring any reparation, but normally He will not do this because reparation is actually something that is good for us.

God’s Justice Is Not Just A Concept

We can see just how grievous our sins are to God by the fact that He did not just write them off, but sent His own Son to suffer and die, i.e., to make reparation for our sins. In this we see how important justice is to God. Justice is not just a concept, it is a truth that must be upheld and He did not back away from what justice requires even though, if we think in terms of human relationships, sending His Son to die would be much more difficult than just writing off the sins. Through His suffering and death, Jesus made atonement and reparation for our sins, but in His mercy He saved a little bit for us to do. This is not only so that we could make up, to some degree, for our own sins, but that we can actually have a share in the work of redemption and salvation. St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Colossians that he makes up in his body for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church. It is not that Jesus did not do enough, but that the members of His Mystical Body would also share in this work.

How Can We Make Reparation For Our And The Worlds Sins?

By uniting our prayers, works and sufferings to those of Jesus, we can actually make some reparation for our offenses against the justice of God. Because we are members of Christ, our offerings become part of the work of our Lord which was to make reparation for the sins of the whole world. Therefore, our offering not only makes reparation for our sins, but for the sins of others as well. I said earlier that God did not just wipe out our sins because the need to make reparation is better for us than to just have our sins forgiven. Making reparation helps us to understand the gravity of sin, but it also helps us to avoid sin so that we do not offend God any more. If our sins were just overlooked, we would think we could do anything and have no consequences. More than this, God allows us to love Him by making reparation. When we love someone we do not want to offend that person and, if we do commit an offense, we want to make it up to that person rather than just sweeping it under the rug. Love of God will drive us to want to make reparation.

As a child of God and as a member of Christ, strive to satisfy the justice of God by making reparation for your sins and those of others.

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St. Francis de Sales "How to handle scandals"

Are You Still Harboring Anger Toward the
Clerics for Their Scandalous Behavior?

If so, then you will want to read the story of St. Francis de Sales.  Well worth reading and sharing.

by Father Roger J. Landry – THE ANCHOR: Today we turn our focus to Church scandals caused by priest: especially whose faith has been profoundly shaken by it. The saint who perhaps best illustrates the pathway forward for those in this circumstance is St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the great apostle of the Chablais in eastern France after the Protestant Reformation.

When St. Francis was ordained a priest in 1593, the Diocese of Geneva was in shambles. Decades of scandals among the clergy had made it very easy for Calvinism to spread throughout the region. The people were so poorly catechized that they were not able to respond to Calvinist arguments. They were, moreover, so angry at the hypocrisy of their local churchmen that they were easily incited to turn on the Catholic faith, run their priests out of town and take up a form of Christianity that at least seemed to be moral. The Bishop of Geneva even had to flee the see city and take up residence in Annecy, France. Some reports stated that there were only about 20 Catholics left in the vast region.

Nine months after Francis’ ordination, the bishop asked his priests for volunteers to try to re-evangelize the region, knowing that it was minimally a tough assignment, but likely could prove to be a fatal one. Francis was the only one to step forward. The 27-year-old, traveling by foot, set out to try to win back the vast geographic area. The work was rough and dangerous. For his protection, he was ordered to sleep at night in a military garrison. On two occasions, assassins ambushed him along the way; both times, however, he survived, seemingly miraculously. On another occasion, he was attacked by wolves and had to spend a glacial night in a tree. But he labored on.

Because preaching was proving so dangerous, he began to write leaflets patiently setting forth Catholic teaching, charitably explaining the errors of Calvinism, and tackling head on controversial issues.

To those who still harbored anger toward the clerics for their scandalous behavior, he didn’t hesitate to say that what the clerics did was the equivalent of spiritual murder. But just as plainly, he called the residents of the region not to do something even worse, to commit spiritual suicide through focusing on the scandals so much that they cut themselves off from Christ in the sacraments and in the Church he founded. He wrote in a pamphlet to the people on Thonon that “those who forge scandals for themselves,” who “persuade themselves that they will die if they do not alienate the part that they have in the Church” are “much crueler than the man who gives scandal, because to commit suicide is a more unnatural crime than to kill another.”

He reminded the people of the Chablais that Jesus had said, “Scandals are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come” (Lk 17:1). There will always be scandals, Jesus implied, because there will always be people of influence who commit grave sins. It is appropriate, Jesus continued, for scandalizers “to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and thrown into the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6). St. Francis added, however, that, if we allow scandals to destroy our faith, we essentially tie a millstone around our own neck — and toss ourselves out of the barque of Peter, where Christ is at the helm, and into the depth of a sea of misery. The worst sin against charity we could ever commit against ourselves, he said, would be to commit spiritual suicide in this way.

St. Francis’ powerful candor and patient explanations of the teachings of the Church in these pamphlets began to have an impact. A steady stream of lapsed Catholics began to seek reconciliation, and he welcomed them with great mercy, meekness and joy. Within the span of five years, the holy “Apostle of the Chablais” had re-evangelized and reconciled almost the entire region.

St. Francis’ thoughts, words, courage, and holy example need to be reiterated and emulated by those in the Church today. There are multitudes who have downgraded their practice of the faith or given it up altogether as a result of the clergy scandals.

The challenges we face in evangelizing those who have distanced themselves from the Church in recent years likely will not involve sleeping in garrisons or being ambushed by assassins. But the Lord needs us today just as much as he needed Francis de Sales 416 years ago.

May St. Francis from heaven move us to respond as modern Good Samaritans, going out like he did after those who are tempted toward spiritual suicide, showing them by words and witness what the Church truly is, and patiently and heroically helping them to remove the millstones from their neck.

Slight editing

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By:  David Kerr

EWTNnews.com

Pope Benedict XVI used a May 3 address to doctors and medical students to warn that the spread of relativism is resulting in scientific advances having “unpredictable consequences.”

The Pope told the faculty and students of Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Teaching Hospital in an outdoor speech that “ours is a time when the experimental sciences have transformed the worldview and understanding of man.”

While he granted that scientific discoveries are a “reason for pride,” the pontiff warned that they are often “not without troubling implications,” such that “behind the widespread optimism of scientific knowledge, the shadow of a crisis of thought is spreading.”

“Rich in means, but not in aims, mankind in our time is often influenced by reductionism and relativism which lead to a loss of the meaning of things,” he said, identifying the roots of the crisis.

The Pope observed that it is as if modern man is “dazzled by technical efficacy,” and therefore “forgets the essential horizon of the question of meaning, thus relegating the transcendent dimension to insignificance.”

When meaning is lost and the transcendent forgotten, he explained, “thought becomes weak” and “an ethical impoverishment gains ground, which clouds legal references of value.”

All in all, the Pope stated, “the once fruitful root of European culture and progress seems forgotten.”

This techno-practical mentality “generates a risky imbalance between what is technically possible and what is morally good, with unpredictable consequences.”

Pope Benedict proposed solving this dangerous imbalance by urging society to “rediscover the vigor and dynamism of the meaning of transcendence, in a word, it must open up to the horizon of the ‘quaerere Deum’ (search for God).”

Research, no matter how passionately or tenaciously it is done, is “not capable of finding a safe harbor by its own means, because man is not able to fully elucidate the strange shadow that hangs over the question of eternal realities,” he added.

Instead, is it God who “must take the initiative to encounter and speak to man,” he said.

The Pope also focused on the “fruitful reciprocity” between science and faith, a relationship that he described as “almost a complementary need to understand reality.”

Pope Benedict made the visit to the hospital to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Gemelli’s medical college, which is the teaching hospital of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

In addition to the medical students and faculty, his speech was also attended by many students from the Catholic University’s Bioethics Center, which aims to assist scientists and doctors in taking an ethical approach to medical research and treatment.

The Pope urged them to pursue research that is “illuminated by faith and science” so that from “these two ‘wings’” their work “draws impetus and momentum, without ever losing the right humility, the sense of its own limitations.”

This type of approach results in the search for God becoming “fruitful for intelligence, a leaven of culture, promoting true humanism, a research that does not stop at the superficial.”

“Dear friends,” the Pope said, “allow yourselves to always be guided by the wisdom that comes from above, from a knowledge illuminated by faith, remembering that wisdom requires the passion and hard work of research.”

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By Valerie Schmalz

Oakland’s Bishop Salvatore Cordileone says the federal government could require faith communities to offer abortion as a health benefit if the contraceptive mandate is not stopped.

“If this goes through there is nothing to stop the government requiring faith communities to cover abortion in their insurance packages,” Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone told Vatican Radio.

“This is, I think, a pivotal moment in the United States and in the life of the Catholic Church in the United States,” Bishop Cordileone said.

Bishop Salvatore Cordileone; Abortion Coverage is Next

The remarks were part of a wide-ranging interview on religious liberty in the United States.

The concern about abortion as a mandated benefit is shared by the executive director of the California Catholic Conference, Ned Dolejsi, who predicted a push to mandate abortion as a health benefit in California after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The ruling is expected in June. The health care act requires each individual to purchase health insurance.

“If the federal Affordable Act is struck down, we can expect the action to shift to the states,” said Dolejsi.

In January the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation that would require all but very narrowly defined organizations to offer free contraception. The U.S. bishops are united in fighting the regulation as an infringement on religious liberty.

Part of the compromise that secured March 2010 passage of the contested federal health care overhaul is a requirement that each state offer at least one “abortion-free” health plan. Without that requirement, it is possible California will require all insurance plans to offer abortion as a benefit, Dolejsi said in a March interview with Catholic San Francisco.

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