null / Credit: Bart Sadowski/Shutterstock

ACI Prensa Staff, May 15, 2024 / 17:34 pm (CNA).

A Mexican court has ruled in favor of the Diocese of Querétaro, located in the north-central region of the country, in a lawsuit filed by a person who identifies as transgender and demanded that the diocese change the sex indicated on the church’s baptismal certificate and registry.

According to Tomás Henríquez, director of the Latin American and Caribbean division of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International — an organization that helped the diocese in this case — the complaint, filed for the first time in 2021, demanded that the Catholic Church change the baptismal record “so that it reflects the person’s claim to be a woman instead of a man.”

In a May 14 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Henríquez explained that the Catholic Church refused to make the change due to “the immutable doctrine of the Church regarding the constitution of the person as a man, as a woman, who has been created that way by God.”

Faced with the Church’s refusal, the complaining party turned to Mexico’s National Data Protection Institute (INAI), a federal agency in charge of adjudicating claims of data protection violations, which issued an order requiring the Diocese of Querétaro to carry out the requested change.

The religious institution challenged this decision with the legal support of ADF International, and the INAI decision was annulled by a federal district court. That ruling was then appealed by the complainant to the 22nd circuit of Federal Collegial Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the Diocese of Querétaro.

The case was then taken to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Mexico’s highest federal court.

Henríquez explained that the SCJN “refused” to take the case, “noting that it had already given sufficient guidelines within its jurisprudence to resolve the matter.”

“With that, the appeals court ruling in favor of the Church stands, based on arguments of autonomy of religious institutions,” he said.

The ADF International official also highlighted that this ruling backs the “autonomy of religious institutions” based on articles 24 and 130 of the Political Constitution of Mexico as well as the international agreements that the country has signed, in which “the churches are guaranteed that they will have the freedom to direct their internal affairs freely and without arbitrary interference on the part of the state.”

Henríquez said that in the defense for the Diocese of Querétaro it was argued that “baptismal records have no other functionality or objective than to allow the Church to keep reliable historical records of the administration of the sacraments.”

The ADF director warned that if the state “obligated, forced” the modification of records, it would have been “interfering with the internal government of the Church, which ended up being inadmissible.”

For the expert, this case is fundamental, because it shows that “even understanding the existence of a so-called right to gender identity, this does not grant one the right to impose oneself on the Church with the claim to have to be recognized as a woman in circumstances where that person’s constitution is masculine.”

Other cases in Latin America

This is not an isolated event. In Latin America, similar cases have arisen, such as that of a “trans” person who demanded that the Archdiocese of Salta, Argentina, change the person’s baptism and confirmation records.

In that case, the Supreme Court of the Nation of Argentina rejected the demand and ruled that the Catholic Church is protected from this type of lawsuit due to the separation of church and state and the autonomy of religious organizations.

Similar situations have also been recorded in Bolivia and Chile, which is why Henríquez stressed that these cases are important “by marking a trend at the regional level about how the courts of justice have dealt with” the issue of sacramental records in the Catholic Church in face of lawsuits from “trans” people.

“Beyond the requests of individuals who demand this modification of baptismal records, I believe that it reveals an intention, ultimately, to subjugate the Church and the churches,” the jurist warned, seeking to “subject the Church to the will of the claimant and in turn, or by extension, to that of the state.”

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

Picture of the Cathedral Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida taken on the day of the patron saint of Brazil, in Aparecida, Sao Paulo State, on Oct. 12, 2022. / Credit: CAIO GUATELLI/AFP via Getty Images

ACI Digital, May 15, 2024 / 16:53 pm (CNA).

The National Shrine of Aparecida in the Brazilian state of São Paulo inaugurated in a May 11 ceremony the new mosaics on its south façade featuring New Testament scenes that capture the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work is part of the Biblical Journey Project, whose goal is to cover the four façades of the national shrine with mosaics representing biblical scenes.

The mosaics are presented by the shrine as the work of the Aletti Spiritual Art Center, a sacred art school founded by former Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik in Rome. The designs bear the hallmark signs of Rupnik’s work, such as the large black eyes of the persons represented.

Rupnik is accused of sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse against at least 20 women from the Loyola Community founded by him and a nun in Slovenia.

The presentation of the façade took place during the special “Easter: Our Life in Christ” broadcast by TV Aparecida on the evening before Mother’s Day. Recorded over four days, the program included the participation of the archbishop of Aparecida, Orlando Brandes; Redemptorist missionaries; and many artists and singers who through music and re-creations depicted the biblical passages portrayed in the mosaics.

“We chose to record the presentation of the south façade to allow a detailed view of the complex structure of the work, which could not be seen in detail in a live broadcast,” the scriptwriter and general director of the show, Rómulo Barros, told the portal A12, the official website of the National Shrine of Aparecida.

During the blessing of the façade, Brandes remembered “all the workers who worked here in this square and those who worked stone by stone forming these mosaics.”

Work on the mosaics on the exterior of the Aparecida Shrine began in 2019. The north façade was inaugurated in 2022 with scenes from the Book of Exodus. The Bible Journey Project is funded by the Devotees’ Campaign, which accepts donations from devotees of Our Lady of Aparecida throughout Brazil.

Accusations against Rupnik first made in 2018

Bishop Daniel Libanori, the Holy See’s commissioner for the Loyola Community, where the abuses allegedly occurred, confirmed the veracity of the accusations. The community was dissolved in December 2023.

In June 2023, Rupnik was expelled from the Jesuit order due to his “repeated refusal” to comply with restrictions imposed by his superior.

In October 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith reopened the case against Rupnik, which had been closed a year earlier due to the statute of limitations for the alleged offenses committed. Pope Francis suspended the statute of limitations due to public outrage over the news that Rupnik had been incardinated in a diocese in his native Slovenia in October 2023. Rupnik continues to live in Rome.

In February, two of Rupnik’s accusers spoke publicly for the first time and told their stories at a press conference at the offices of the Italian journalists’ union in Rome.

In April, five new complaints against Rupnik were filed with the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Rupnik’s works are widespread

In addition to the Aparecida Shrine, the works of Rupnik and the Aletti Center are present in multiple churches around the world, including the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, the St. Padre Pio Shrine in Pietrelcina, Italy, as well as in Fátima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France.

On March 31, 2023, the bishop of Lourdes, Jean-Marc Micas, announced that he had created a commission to evaluate whether Rupnik’s mosaics should be removed from the Lourdes Shrine in consideration of the suffering of victims of abuse.

In February of this year, Micas told CNA he has received a “a pile of letters — people very angry because the mosaics are still there and other people who were very angry at the idea we could remove them,” he said, so this is a “very, very difficult decision to make.”

The dedication of Rupnik’s mosaics in Aparecida comes at a time when many, including the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., are considering the possibility of removing his works out of respect for the victims.

At the time of publication of this article, the press office of the Aparecida Shrine has not responded to specific questions from ACI Digital, CNA’s Portuguese-language news partner, on the matter but sent a statement to the agency explaining that “the work of covering with mosaics the façades of the Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida continues under the leadership and execution of the Aletti Center.”

“Since 2020,” the statement continues, “the studio has been run by the Italian artist and doctor in theology, Maria Campatelli, and has 12 women and nine men in its management team, in addition to dozens of artists of different nationalities, who are directly involved in the project.” 

“Recently, the Vicariate of Rome, to which the studio is subordinate, after a canonical visit, issued an opinion attesting that ‘clearly there is a healthy community life in the Aletti Center, free of any particular critical problem,’” the statement concludes.

However, some of Rupnik’s alleged victims expressed their outrage and consternation following that report, saying the evaluation “ridicules the pain of the victims.”

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

On March 30, 1926, Cardinal van Rossum, prefect of Propaganda Fide, announced Pope Pius XI’s decision to consecrate the first six Chinese bishops, a ceremony that was held in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 28 of that year. / Credit: Public Domain

Rome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 16:17 pm (CNA).

One hundred years ago, the First Council of the Catholic Church convened in China, gathering together more than 100 bishops, vicar generals, and religious. The majority of the participants were foreign-born, but for the first time, there were also native Chinese who would have a say on the trajectory of the Church in their homeland.

Led by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Celso Costantini, papal legate to China, the primary objective of the council, which opened on May 15, 1924, was to initiate the process of ecclesial inculturation, which was constructed upon the indigenization of the Chinese Church. Secondly, the council set out to decouple the missions from the colonial project.

These two objectives were important in directing the Church’s ecclesiology and diplomatic mission, an objective that was reflected in Costantini’s elevation of Odorico Cheng Hede as the head of the recently created Apostolic Prefecture of Puqi and Melchior Sun Dezhen to the Apostolic Prefecture of Lixian.

“Among you are two Chinese prelates, recently raised to the dignity of prefects apostolic, these venerable brethren, are the fruit of your past labors, the grain of mustard that will grow into a large tree and bring forth abundant fruit in the future,” said Costantini during the solemn high Mass at the opening the council. 

It is against the backdrop of this momentous event that on Tuesday, May 21, the Pontifical Urban University along with Agenzia Fides and the Pastoral Commission for China is holding a conference to discuss the implications of the council on the historical legacy of the Church as well as contemporary Sino-Vatican relations. 

Titled “100 Years Since the ‘Concilium Sinense’: Between History and the Present,” the conference will feature a video message by Pope Francis, presentations by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization. 

The conference will also feature voices from the People’s Republic of China, including Bishop Shen Bin of Shanghai, who made waves when he was unilaterally appointed as bishop of Shanghai in April 2023 without a papal mandate, thereby breaking the terms of the contested 2018 Sino-Vatican Accord. Pope Francis confirmed the appointment in July 2023. 

Maximum Illud, a new paradigm in Catholic missiology

On Nov. 30, 1919, Pope Benedict XV issued his apostolic letter Maximum Illud, a document that has been heralded as a turning point in the Church’s missiology.

At the heart of the letter was the call for the training of local clergy, which Benedict referred to as the “greatest hope of the new churches.” 

“For the local priest, one with his people by birth, by nature, by his sympathies and his aspirations is remarkably effective in appealing to their mentality and thus attracting them to the faith. Far better than anyone else, he knows the kind of argument they will listen to, and as a result, he often has easy access to places where a foreign priest would not be tolerated.”

The letter was not only responding to the postwar political climate but also to the historical legacy of the Catholic missions in China, which had been instrumentalized by the colonial powers (first the Portuguese and later the French) in shoring up their political power on the mainland.

The defeat of the Qing Dynasty by the British in the First Opium War ushered in what is called the  “Century of Humiliation,” a period that denotes a culture nadir and left China politically impotent on the domestic level. 

The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing was the first of the “unequal treaties” granting the British the status of “most favored nation” as well as extraterritorial economic and diplomatic privileges, setting the template by which other treaties were modeled and establishing the playbook for Western international relations with China. 

This was soon replicated by the French in October 1844 with the signing of the Treaty of Whampoa, which allowed for the uninterrupted practice of Catholicism in Chinese port cities (such as Shanghai) as well as granting extraterritorial privileges for foreign nationals, thereby exempting them from local laws and customs. 

H.M. Cole in the “Origins of the French Protectorate over Catholic Missions in China” observed, however, that it wasn’t until the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 following the end of the Second Opium War that France became the de jure protector of Catholic missions in China.

Despite an expanding Catholic community, the Holy See did not have any direct diplomatic contact with China as any attempt to do so was thwarted by the French. 

Many missionaries, moreover, still felt an obligation to their country of origin, thus feeding into the idea that they were on a project of nation-building rather than of evangelization. But there were some foreign born-priests in China who were staunch advocates of fundamentally altering the Church’s approach. 

Father Frédéric Vincent Lebbe, a French priest who arrived in China after the Boxer Rebellion, was an early advocate for the indigenization of the Chinese Church, a call that was shared by Father Anthony Cotta, a fellow Vincentian. 

In a letter Cotta forwarded to Rome — originally written by Lebbe to Paul-Marie Reynaud, bishop of Ningbo — Lebbe admonished the missionaries for creating “spiritual colonies” instead of living Churches and for “the national [indigenous Chinese priests] priesthood, being always kept down to the assistant level, is as though foreign in its own country.” 

Pope Benedict XV died on Jan. 22, 1922, and his successor, Pius XI, shared his determination to reform missionary work and establish an indigenous hierarchy. One of his most consequential decisions for the Church in China was the appointment of Costantini as his personal apostolic delegate in China. 

In Costantini’s memoir “With the Missionaries in China (1922–1933),” he described the Holy See’s efforts as having a “simple religious, missionary character,” adding: “It must, therefore, have no political aspect or constraints.'' 

He also emphasized that the “Holy See does not do politics … it has no imperialist aim in China,” and that “the missions are at the service of the Church,” an ambition that would materialize following the council.

Toward the council 

The Primum Concilium Sinese (the first Plenary Council of China), or the Shanghai Synod of Bishops, was held from May 15 to June 12, 1924, bringing together 105 participants led by Costantini. 

Father Carlo Pioppi, professor of modern and contemporary Church history at the faculty of theology of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, noted in a 2012 paper that the groundwork for the council was already laid by 1923, when in May Costantini “had established a preparatory commission for the council, composed of 22 members, of which seven were Chinese.”

Pius XI in his 1924 apostolic letter authorized Costantini to convoke and preside over the upcoming council. A few months later Costantini appointed Odorico Cheng Hede as the head of the recently created Apostolic Prefecture of Puqi. He elevated another Chinese priest, Melchior Sun Dezhen, to the Apostolic Prefecture of Lixian. 

By preceding the council with the elevation of two Chinese clerics to head ecclesial territories, Costantini was signaling that the time had come to start erecting a local hierarchy. 

Throughout the monthlong synod, discussions were held on the process of inculturating the Church, in line with the guidelines set forth in Maximum Illud, and in establishing the eventual framework for a Chinese hierarchy, which came two years later when six Chinese bishops were consecrated by Pope Pius XI on Oct. 28, 1926.   

“Outside the council hall, you could hear almost all the languages ​​of the earth being spoken: once you crossed the threshold of the council hall, only the language of Rome was spoken,” Costantini recounted in his memoirs. 

“Once the council was over,” he continued, “we sent the Holy Father a telegram in which it was said: ‘With one heart, with one language, although many different languages ​​are spoken, we profess the faith of Rome and fidelity to the Chair of Peter.’” 

Pioppi observed in his paper that immediately following the closing of the synod, Costantini sent the text of the decrees to Rome to be subject to the recognition process, which lasted nearly four years, though it wasn’t until June 12, 1929, that the decrees were officially enacted. 

Some of the major changes to come out of the council included the new division of ecclesiastical territories into 17 new units corresponding with the administrative division of the Chinese state and the opening of parochial positions to Chinese clergy. 

In the second book of the conciliar decrees, the title De Admittendo Clero Indigena Ad Omnia Officia explicitly stated: “No office is barred to the native clergy, provided they are fit.” It continued to state that the council’s “desire” to see the day when “Chinese priests will also be elected as bishops.”

This council amounted to a “religious decolonization and greater inculturation” in China, Parolin wrote in Vatican News in 2021. Costantini returned to Rome in 1933, going on to serve as the secretary of Propaganda Fide, but he made an indelible mark, changing the perception and the structure of the Church in China.

On March 30, 1926, Cardinal Willem van Rossum, prefect of Propaganda Fide, announced Pius XI’s decision to consecrate the first Chinese six bishops, a ceremony that was held in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 28 of that year. 

Twenty years later, on April 11, 1946, Pope Pius XII issued the apostolic constitution Quotidie Nos, officially establishing a Chinese hierarchy, a decision that carried a significant canonical and sociopolitical weight. 

Before 1946, the ecclesiastical administrative units in China were apostolic prefectures or pre-diocesan administrative units in mission territories. Having native-born Chinese bishops and an official diocesan structure elevated the position of the Chinese Church, signaling to the world that it was an equal, not a mission territory governed by foreigners. 

These events, while distant, fundamentally altered the Church’s approach to mission work as well as an understanding of its place in China, a point ever more important within the context of contemporary Sino-Vatican relations. 

A dedication ceremony for the ultrasound machine donated by the Knights of Columbus to the First Choice Women's Resource Center in New Brunswick, N.J. / Credit: Knights of Columbus

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 15:26 pm (CNA).

The Supreme Court has denied a New Jersey pro-life pregnancy center’s appeal to keep its donor list and other correspondence private. 

This comes after New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, subpoenaed First Choice Women’s Resource Centers in November 2023 for “possible violations” against the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act relating to the group’s handling of patient data and statements about abortion pill reversal. 

Through the subpoena, Platkin ordered First Choice to turn over much of its internal communications as well as communications with patients and donors, some of which would reveal donors’ private information. 

Shortly before issuing the subpoena, Platkin signed onto a letter in which he and 15 other attorneys general accused pro-life pregnancy centers of spreading “harmful” misinformation about reproductive health care. The letter also accused pregnancy centers of using “deceptive tactics to lure in patients.”

First Choice is a Christian ministry that operates five pregnancy resource centers in New Jersey that offer pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, venereal disease screenings and treatment, and counseling. 

Represented by the law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, First Choice countersued in December 2023 to block Platkin’s subpoena. The ministry claimed that the subpoena violates its rights under the First and 14th Amendments and that it was being “selectively and unlawfully” targeted because of its pro-life views.

“AG Platkin never cited any complaint or other substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demands but has launched an exploratory probe into the lawful activities, constitutionally protected speech, religious observance, constitutionally protected associations, and nonpublic internal communications and records of a nonprofit organization that holds a view with which he disagrees as a matter of public policy,” First Choice wrote in its countersuit.

First Choice’s request to block the subpoena has since been dismissed by a New Jersey circuit judge, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and now the Supreme Court. 

Stained-glass window at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. / Credit: Ella Manthey/Shutterstock

St. Louis, Mo., May 15, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).

Two St. Louis parishes that appealed to the Vatican after Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski ordered them to merge last year have had their appeals upheld by the Holy See, reversing the archbishop’s prior decision.

As part of the archdiocese’s major pastoral planning initiative dubbed “All Things New,” Rozanski announced a year ago that the number of parishes would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures.

Under canon law, a diocesan bishop has the authority to alter parishes, but only for a just reason specific to each parish. Concern for souls must be the principal motivation for modifying a parish.

Amid the All Things New process, a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy’s rulings. 

After studying the acts of the case for St. Angela Merici Parish in Florissant, Missouri, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy did not find just cause for the parish to be combined to form a single parish with St. Norbert and Holy Name of Jesus parishes, the archdiocese said in a May 14 statement. The dicastery was therefore unable to sustain Rozanski’s decree. 

While retaining their statuses as three separate parish communities, St. Angela Merici, St. Norbert, and Holy Name of Jesus parishes will all remain under the pastoral guidance of Father Peter Faimega, the archdiocese continued.

In addition, the Dicastery for the Clergy did not find just cause for St. Martin of Tours Parish in Lemay, Missouri, to be subsumed by St. Mark Parish, the archdiocese said.

The same day, the archdiocese announced that another appeal brought by St. Roch Parish in St. Louis had resulted in Rozanski’s decree being upheld. St. Roch was to be subsumed by Christ the King Parish, effective Aug. 1, 2023, and this month its school is set to close. 

Before announcing the changes in May 2023, the archdiocese held 350 listening sessions, with at least one in each of the 178 current parishes. It also considered feedback from 70,000 Catholics in the archdiocese who participated in a survey. Feedback was also solicited from 18,000 school parents, staff, teachers, donors, and community partners. The archdiocese also held focus groups and talked with civil and business leaders.

Rozanski had originally declined to revoke any of the 83 decrees he made regarding the final plans, leaving the parishes with recourse only to the Vatican. However, he did suspend his decree regarding St. Angela Merici and St. Martin of Tours prior to the decisions from the dicastery, so “no additional changes will be necessary,” the archdiocese said. 

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the dicastery earlier this year overturned the closure decree for St. Richard Parish near Creve Coeur, Missouri, while also denying an appeal from the closed Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Ferguson. At least 11 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Louis still have outstanding appeals regarding closings or mergers, the archdiocese has noted. 

The archdiocese has previously said that the widespread reassignment of 158 archdiocesan priests, which was announced along with the various mergers, will proceed as planned. 

The St. Louis parishes’ appeals to the Vatican are not unprecedented in the United States. In dioceses such as Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, Boston, and Springfield, Massachusetts, parishioners have issued appeals to the Dicastery for the Clergy to save their parishes after their bishops ordered them closed.

Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, archbishop of Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez

Rome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 14:17 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Stephen Chow recently visited three Catholic dioceses in mainland China, one year after the bishop of Hong Kong’s first historic trip to Beijing.

Chow led a 10-person delegation of Catholics from Hong Kong to the southern Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shantou, and Shenzhen in April in his second official visit to China since becoming bishop of Hong Kong.

“We brought our people to have an encounter … where we share common concerns, for example, youth ministry, catechism, marriage and family,” Chow said in a video interview published May 5.

Here is a look at some of the Catholic communities Chow visited:

St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Shantou

Hundreds of Chinese Catholics attended a Mass in St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Shantou concelebrated by Chow and Bishop Huang Bingzhang of Shantou on April 24, according to the Sunday Examiner, a publication of the Diocese of Hong Kong.

Huang is one of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese government from whom Pope Francis lifted the decree of excommunication when he first signed the Vatican’s provisional agreement with China in 2018. 

He replaced an elderly underground bishop of Shantou who was loyal to the Vatican, Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian, who was asked to step aside as a result, despite a personal appeal to the pope on his behalf by Cardinal Joseph Zen in Rome. 

Earlier this year, Huang spoke at the Chinese government’s National People’s Congress. He previously participated in the National People’s Congress in 2018 that revoked presidential term limits, clearing the way for Xi Jinping to rule for life. Huang said in 2017 that he would work to actively promote the practice of Catholic patriotism, according to the Chinese Patriotic Association website.

A new residence for the bishop is currently under construction and the Hong Kong delegation visited the construction site during their visit.

Shantou is a city in eastern Guangdong Province on the coast of the South China Sea with a population of about 4.6 million people. The city is known for its toy manufacturing. Shantou’s Chenghai district is home to 10,000 toy companies. 

During their stay in the city, the Hong Kong delegation also visited the Holy Family Church and St. Roch’s Church in Shantou.

Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou

Chow’s first stop in China was Guangzhou, a port city located about 75 miles northwest of Hong Kong with a population of more than 15 million people. The city’s Sacred Heart Cathedral on the banks of the Pearl River was built almost entirely out of granite in a Gothic style by French missionaries from 1861 to 1888 with financial support from Napoleon III.

Metropolitan Archbishop of Guangzhou Joseph Gan Junqiu was appointed by the pope and consecrated in the cathedral with the Vatican’s support in 2007 after attempted obstruction by Chinese authorities. At the time, Gan said that the archdiocese averaged about 100 baptisms per year.

Gan welcomed the Hong Kong delegation to the Sacred Heart Cathedral on April 23, where they celebrated Mass together. Father Joseph Yim Tak-lung, the chief executive of Caritas Hong Kong, also gave a presentation about his ministry at the cathedral.

Huanghuagang Mausoleum of the 72 Chinese Martyrs

Following Mass in the cathedral, the Hong Kong delegation also visited the Huanghuagang Mausoleum, which commemorates the 72 revolutionaries who died in the Guangzhou uprising on April 27, 1911, against the Qing dynasty.

The 1911 Revolution ended China’s imperial dynasty and led to the establishment of the Republic of China under the leadership of its first provisional president, Sun Yat-sen, a convert to Christianity known as the father of modern China who is revered today by both Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party. 

The Huanghuagang Mausoleum is topped with a tiny replica of the Statue of Liberty in New York, which was removed during China’s Cultural Revolution and replaced by the city in 1981.

St. Anthony’s Church in Shenzhen

With a population of more than 17 million people, Shenzhen is one of China’s megacities and is known as “the world’s factory.” Shenzhen experienced rapid growth in recent decades as one of China’s special economic zones. Inc. reported in 2015 that 90% of the world’s electronics were made in the city, which is located just north of Hong Kong. 

The Catholic population in Shenzhen includes many migrant workers who came from more rural parts of China and abroad to work in the factories. 

St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Shenzhen was built between 1998 and 2001. At the time of its opening, it was the only Catholic church in Shenzhen, according to UCA News. St. Anthony’s also offers Masses in English for foreign Catholics who work or travel to Shenzhen for business. Chow and the Hong Kong delegation visited the church on April 26. 

Christ the King Church in Shenzhen

The foundation for Shenzhen’s Christ the King Church in Shenzhen’s Bao’an district was laid in 2007 and the construction of the church was completed in November 2010.

During their visit to Christ the King Church, the Hong Kong delegation discussed the possibility of future cooperation between Chinese Church officials and the Diocese of Hong Kong via a catechetical formation center in China. Connie Chung To-hing, the director of Hong Kong’s diocesan catechetical center, took part in the meeting. 

Other members of the delegation from Hong Kong who traveled to China included Father Peter Choy Wai-man, Father Paul Kam Po-wai, and Father Joseph Chan Wing-chiu.

Deacon Gabriel Lau Nam-shan, the chairperson of the Diocesan Pastoral Commission for Marriage and the Family; Wong Ka Chun, the personal assistant to the cardinal; and Sherman Cheng Ching-man of the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council also joined the cardinal on the trip.

In the video posted by the diocese, Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing, the auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong, said that “friendship” was really at the heart of the trip.

Chow joked that everyone in the delegation “put on a few pounds” because of all the meals involved in getting to know these new friends, adding that it was true for him even as a vegetarian.

“Cardinal Stephen also expressed his belief that the Church in Guangdong is similar to the Church of Vietnam, which he visited earlier in April,” the Hong Kong Diocese’s Sunday Examiner reported. “Both have continued under communist/socialist rule for many years and are functioning well, with individuals evangelizing in a creative manner.”

Outer details of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Eric Allix Rogers

CNA Staff, May 15, 2024 / 12:12 pm (CNA).

Catholics and city preservationists in Chicago are scrambling to try to preserve a historic parish on the city’s North Side, one that has survived a century of the city’s development including being fully moved to a new location after it was first built. 

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will hold its final Mass on Sunday, May 19, before the parish merges with nearby St. Mary of the Lake. The consolidation is part of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s ongoing “Renew My Church” initiative that has closed and merged dozens of parishes in order to address shrinking budgets and priest shortages. 

The archdiocese announced the Lourdes parish merger in 2021. Katerina Garcia, the president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church Preservation Society, told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol this week that parishioners at the parish dispute the archdiocese’s reasons for closing the church, particularly the claim that Mass attendance had dropped steadily there. 

“We disagree with that statement because before the merge, Our Lady of Lourdes Church had the highest attendance compared to [other nearby churches],” Garcia told Sabol. 

“They decreased the Masses that we had. So of course that’s going to decrease attendance,” she argued.

Even as the parish’s final Mass looms, Garcia said efforts are underway to save the parish, possibly by purchasing it from the archdiocese. She noted the parish’s remarkable history, including its wholesale move from one side of the street to the other. 

The parish was “literally across the street on the east side of Ashland Avenue,” she told Sabol. “And Daniel Burnham, who was a prominent architect and urban developer in Chicago, wanted to widen the [city streets].” 

“In order for them to widen Ashland Avenue, they had to move the church literally across the street,” she said. “They had 150 men and horses, and they put the 10,000-ton church on top of 400 rails and 3,000 rollers and literally moved it across the street, inching it.”

Once the building was moved to its new location, builders “rotated it 90 degrees” and then “cut the church in half and added a 30-foot insert,” increasing capacity by roughly 50%.

“Back then, 1929, that’s such a very … I can’t even think of the word. It’s just an engineering feat,” Garcia said. 

‘It’s facing an uncertain future’

On its website, the Our Lady of Lourdes Preservation Society says its goal is to “preserve Our Lady of Lourdes Church as a historical landmark, reopen and revive it as a holy shrine.”

The group, formed in 2021 after the merger announcement, wrote on Facebook that it is “going full force to make sure [the property] is preserved as a historical landmark,” with group members aiming to “bring it back to its old glory with a new order in charge.”

Ward Miller, the executive director of the nonprofit Preservation Chicago, said his group has been working to get the building designated as a Chicago landmark. 

The group has highlighted the building’s historical qualities in the past. The parish was “modeled in the Spanish Renaissance-style architecture to resemble a church in Valladolid, Spain,” Preservation Chicago says. Among its many notable features includes a “faithful replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France,” which years ago was made a “perpetual adoration site” and remains ”the area’s only chapel open 24/7 for worship.”

The structure is “facing an uncertain future,” Miller told CNA on Wednesday. “We don’t know if it’s facing a demolition threat or not.”

The building is rated “orange” in the city’s Historic Resources Survey, Miller pointed out, which indicates that it “possesses potentially significant architectural or historical features.”

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to a query on Wednesday regarding the status of the church building and what will become of it after the final Mass this week. 

The parish school, meanwhile — which closed in 2004 — has already been sold, with plans to turn the structure into apartments. 

Garcia told Block Club Chicago earlier this year that she attended the school and that her children were baptized in the parish.

The parish “just has a lot of memories,” she told the outlet. “I actually made the calligraphy on the sign by the grotto entrance, so there are parts of the church I was involved in. There’s so much history there for me and my family.” 

“Every part of that church is important to me,” she said. 

Pope Francis addresses the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday general audience on May 15, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).

During his general audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis reflected on charity — what he described as the “culmination” of the theological virtues — observing that it is the highest expression of Christian love, predicated on truth and underscored by forgiveness. 

“Love is charity. We immediately realize that it is a difficult, indeed impossible love to practice if one does not live in God. Our human nature makes us love spontaneously what is good and beautiful,” Pope Francis said to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square on a sunny morning in Rome.

Pointing to the Sermon on the Mount and repeating twice the Christian maxim “love your enemy,” the pope noted that this teaching represents the highest expression of Christian love, as it “embraces what is not lovable; it offers forgiveness.” 

“It is a love so ardent that it seems almost impossible,” the pope continued, “and yet it is the only thing that will remain of us. Love is the ‘narrow gate’ through which we will pass in order to enter the kingdom of God.” 

Looking at the various manifestations of love, the pope noted that Christians “are capable of all the forms of love in the world” such as that expressed toward friends, civic love, and “the universal love for all humanity.” 

But Francis stressed that it is the theological virtue of charity that enables Christians to love “those who are not lovable” and “those who do not care for us and are not grateful.” 

“This comes from God, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us,” he added. 

Pope Francis also centered his catechesis on St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, noting that the apostle was speaking to a community divided and “anything but perfect in fraternal love.” 

Francis observed that Paul is urging the Corinthians to embrace “not the love that rises but the one that descends.” 

“Paul,” the pope added, “is concerned that in Corinth — as among us today too — there is confusion and that there is actually no trace of the theological virtue of love.” 

The pope contrasted the theological notions of love and charity with contemporary notions such as the one “on the lips of many ‘influencers’” or heard “in the refrains of many songs.”

At the end of the general audience, the pope stressed the importance of the Holy Spirit in light of the solemnity of Pentecost, which will be celebrated on Sunday.

The pope implored the faithful to “be docile to the action of the Holy Spirit,” which he described as “a source of relief for everyone in their trials.” 

The pope also prayed for those affected by recent flash flooding in northern Afghanistan, which has left over 300 people dead and injured more than 1,600. 

“I pray for the victims, in particular for the children and their families, and I appeal to the international community to immediately provide the aid and support necessary to protect the most vulnerable,” the pope said. 

Gloria Purvis, Cardinal Robert McElroy, Bishop Daniel Flores, and Bishop Robert Barron discuss polarization in the Catholic Church during a panel discussion hosted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, Glenmary Home Missioners, and the Jesuit Conference on May 14, 2024. / Credit: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Live Stream YouTube channel

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Three Catholic bishops warned of a growing ideological polarization within the Church and the need for civil dialogue among those with disagreements during a livestreamed panel discussion on Tuesday afternoon.

“Politics is almost a religion and sometimes it’s a sport, [but] it’s not supposed to be either,” Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, said during the discussion. 

“It’s supposed to be a civil conversation … to seek what is good and make the priority how to achieve it and how to avoid what is evil,” Flores said. “And I think if we could stay focused on that, we can kind of tone down the caricature and the rhetoric that seeks to dehumanize people.”

The panel discussion included Flores, Cardinal Robert McElroy of the Diocese of San Diego, and Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. It was moderated by Gloria Purvis, the host of “The Gloria Purvis Podcast” at America Magazine, and co-sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Catholic Charities USA, Glenmary Home Missioners, and the Jesuit Conference.

The panel discussion was part of the USCCB’s “Civilize It” initiative, which is meant to foster civility in important ideological debates. As part of the initiative, the bishops ask Catholics to sign a pledge to affirm the dignity of every human person — including those with different ideological beliefs — and to work with others in pursuit of the common good.

According to the panelists, American society and the Church have grown more polarized when it comes to ideological differences — and debates about those differences have become less civil.

Barron, who founded the Catholic media organization Word on Fire, said disagreements within the Church are nothing new, but the way people approach those disagreements has changed: “What’s broken down is the love that makes real dialogue possible.”

“It’s a tribalism that’s lost the sense of love in dialogue,” Barron said.

The bishop warned that people are more focused on winning arguments and being loyal to an ideological identity than on love. He said these problems are very noticeable in discussions on the internet and encouraged people to ask whether “this comment [is] an act of love” before saying anything. 

“Is it born of love?” Barron said people should ask themselves. “Is it born of a desire to will the good of the other? If it’s not, there’s like a thousand better things to be doing than sending that statement.”

McElroy said too much dialogue today “is meant to be confrontational” to the point at which people “can’t enter into a genuine dialogue.” 

“People are coming toward each other in the life of the Church looking first at that label: What are you? Where do you stand in the war-like culture politics of our country?” the cardinal said.

People focus on this “rather than [on] what unites us: where do we stand in terms of our identity as Catholics and with a Christological outlook,” he added. 

McElroy also built on the concerns Barron highlighted regarding dialogue on the internet.

“When you’re writing the Tweet, imagine Jesus is there with you and when you think through that question ‘should I do this?’” McElroy said. 

Similarly, Flores emphasized the need to remember what Christ would do. 

“He would not be unkind, especially to the poor and especially to those who had no standing in the world,” Flores said. “And also he would never commit an injustice in order to promote justice.”

Easter Vigil at the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) in Austria. / Credit: Stift Heiligenkreuz

ACI Prensa Staff, May 15, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) in Austria is the oldest in the world, dating back almost 1,000 years, and currently has more than 100 monks living there. It has never had “interruptions” in its history and is now an oasis of the Catholic Church in Europe, with love for God and others at the center of its work and with the beloved Pope Benedict XVI as an “ally.”

Heiligenkreuz is located about 18 miles from Vienna, the capital of Austria. The monks, explained the Italian newspaper Avvenire, have an average age of 49, which means they are “young” in current Church terms, especially in Europe where there has been a precipitous decline in vocations.

Four or five men each year join the historic abbey, founded in 1135, almost a thousand years ago, making it the oldest Cistercian abbey in the world.

Among the abbey’s current 103 monks, there are 11 with temporary vows and six novices, all led by Abbot Maximilian Heim.

“The most important thing is love for God and others. In a Benedictine monastery [the Cistercians follow the rule of St. Benedict]; this is fulfilled with the triad ‘ora, lege et labora,’ that is, pray, read, and work,” the abbot explained.

For the superior of the abbey, it’s also important to “honor the commandment of Jesus ‘that they may all be one’: unity within the community without egalitarianism and with the necessary freedom for each individual, as well as unity with the Church in practice, which means unity within the order, as well as with the pope and the diocesan bishop.”

Rescuing other monasteries in Europe

On Nov. 21, 2021, the last two Benedictine nuns at the Sabiona monastery in the town of Chiusa in the Italian province of Bolzano left after 335 years of the order’s presence there.

The bishop of Bolzano-Bressanone, Ivo Muser, and Abbess Maria Ancilla Hohenegger lamented what had happened and expressed their wish that the monastery located in the Italian region would continue to be a place of pilgrimage and a center of contemplative life. However, that was only possible some time later, thanks to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey.

After numerous consultations, the conventual chapter of Heiligenkreuz Abbey decided on March 14 to take over the Sabiona monastery with the aim of creating a “spiritual center” on the so-called “holy mountain,” as the place where it is located is known, explained Father Johannes Paul Chavanne to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The monks who will go to the Sabiona monastery will do their pastoral work there but will continue to belong to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey.

Another monastery that received help from Heiligenkreuz Abbey was a Cistercian monastery located in the German Diocese of Görlitzer on the border with Poland.

In 2018, the bishop of Görlitz, Wolfgang Ipolt, asked for help for the Cistercian monastery of Neuzelle and succeeded in getting the Heiligenkreuz Abbey to send six of its monks there in September of that year.

With their presence it was possible to bring back contemplative life to the region after 200 years, as CNA Deutsch reported at the time.

Pope Benedict XVI and Heiligenkreuz Abbey

Next to Heiligenkreuz Abbey is the Benedict XVI School of Theology, which was recognized as a pontifical institution in 2007. Renowned academics such as Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, one of the greatest experts on the work of the theologian Romano Guardini and of St. Edith Stein, and the canonist Alfred Hierold, former rector of the University of Bamberg, teach there.

The school currently has 342 students from 39 countries such as Germany, Austria, India, Italy, Nigeria, the United States, and Vietnam.

Heim, the abbot of Heiligenkreuz and a member of Pope Benedict XVI’s circle of former students, received the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation Prize in 2011.

“In addition to being a monk and theologian, he treats topics concerning faith and theology through conferences and the publication of a series of books: Both initiatives are called ‘Auditorium,’” Cardinal Camillo Ruini explained at the time.

On Sept. 9, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the monks of Heiligenkreuz, reminding them that they lived in “the oldest Cistercian monastery in the world that has continued to be active without interruption. I wanted to come to this place rich in history, to draw attention to the fundamental directive of St. Benedict, according to whose rule the Cistercians also live.”

Benedict XVI’s secretary and Cardinal Koch

In April, a conference titled “Beauty, Demands, and the Crisis of the Priesthood” was held at the abbey, in which Archbishop Georg Gänswein, former secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, participated as well as Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

According to CNA Deutsch, the cardinal spoke about the importance of the Eucharist for the Church, also for the first Christians, while Gänswein highlighted the need to promote “a solid theology of the priesthood that can withstand the misunderstandings of the modern world.”

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