News - March 2019 RSS Feed

RABAT, Morocco - The Christian mission is not about numbers of converts, but about changing people and the world by being witnesses of God's mercy and love, Pope Francis told missionaries in Morocco. "Christians are a small minority in this country," much less than 1 percent, but the pope said, "to my mind, this is not a problem."

We can accompany others in their struggles by attentive listening rather than by the automatic response of trying to solve their problems, says Catholic journalist David Gibson in a Lenten reflection on the spiritual hazards of self-sufficiency.

The collection includes papal favorites from the home countries of Argentina, Germany and Poland. Here you will find such treats as the sweetly sugared "alfajores," rustic suckling pig and dumplings and juicy, complex-flavored Polish "fleischvogel."

VATICAN CITY - The growing use of autonomous weapons systems poses serious risks to global peace and stability, a Vatican representative told a U.N. meeting in Geneva. "How would autonomous weapons systems be able to respond to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience?" asked Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Vatican observer to U.N. agencies in Geneva.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco has received a gift of a gallon of olive oil from a famous grove in the Holy Land to be used for sacramental purposes. The gift, for use during the annual chrism Mass where oils are blessed for various sacramental purposes, was sent to Archbishop Cordileone by the Order of Malta Western Association USA.

TORONTO - A third of Canada's Christian architecture, some 9,000 churches, will close in the next 10 years, according to the National Trust for Canada. "It's definitely going to be a bad thing," architect Roberto Chiotti told The Catholic Register. "You know, it's our theology in stone."

VATICAN CITY - Iraqis and Syrians returning to their homelands and refugees living abroad need the help of all Catholics and people of goodwill, said the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

'We sacrifice the most vulnerable life – in the womb – and so we end up destroying marriage," Archbishop Cordileone said. "That is the whole point of marriage, to welcome life into the world, to care and nourish and love that life so that the child might be able to know and be loved by the child's mother and father – the mother and father being connected to each other and together to the children they bring into the world. Marriage thus makes no more sense if the little ones are sacrificed to demons."

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner said the clergy abuse crisis will not be over anytime soon, but a growing understanding of the issue among church leadership and the commitment to concrete measures that include lay participation will help dispel anger and eventually restore trust.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has made it more than obvious that he does not like people kissing his ring. The viral video of him yanking his right hand away from a string of about 17 people coming up to him one-by-one during a trip to Loreto, Italy, March 25, caught many people by surprise because of his sometimes-brusque manner.

Abby Johnson, a former pro-choice Planned Parenthood facility director turned national pro-life advocate, is the subject of upcoming film "Unplanned," based on her 2011 book of the same name.

A few dozen people were gathered in the dining room of the Catholic Worker Hospitality House in San Bruno for breakfast on a drizzly Wednesday morning. Tables were filled with guests chatting and enjoying company or taking quiet time to eat breakfast alone, while volunteers served breakfast and stopped to talk with guests. Pausing his work for a moment in the dining room, Peter Stiehler, the house’s director, told Catholic San Francisco, “You can see what we do here is serious, but it’s lighthearted too. It reflects the joy here.”

Mass shootings like the one that claimed the lives of 50 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand March 15 continue to dominate headlines, but a St. Brendan parishioner who is part of a national gun violence prevention group said that gun reform is in fact happening at the state level.

Kathy Folan came to her position as director of Family and Children/Youth Ministries at San Francisco’s St. Dominic Parish after more than 20 years as a stay-at-home mom. She’s been in the new job since the feast of St. Dominic, Aug. 8, 2017. “My husband and I have directed our own children’s faith formation as we raised them,” Kathy told me via email. “We chose Catholic schools for their education, as we believe our faith life is an integral part of a well-rounded education.”

San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood is the city’s “forgotten place,” say Catholic Charities outreach workers who walk the area daily to offer hope and support for those without homes or living in makeshift housing. The need is greatest around the former naval shipyard site north of Candlestick Park, five miles from downtown, where the city’s largest population of homeless or near-homeless outside the Tenderloin lives in tents, vehicles and abandoned buildings. Although relatively free from the gaze of the public, property owners and police, this mixed population of San Francisco residents and transients also is invisible. Catholic San Francisco accompanied a Catholic Charities Bayview Access Point team to the former shipyard area on March 13.

This is the second in a 2019 series of brief profiles of Massgoing Catholics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. In this installment, we spoke with parishioners from St. Paul, Church of the Epiphany and St. Bruno. The first installment, in the Jan. 31 issue, featured stories about what keeps Catholics anchored in their faith despite challenges in the church and in their personal lives.

In the first reading, we read that to sustain them during their long journey in the wilderness, God provided the Israelites with manna from heaven. In the second reading, Paul reminds us that there are no reversals in life without a redeeming purpose. In the Gospel of the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the story of the prodigal son has a surprise ending. We realize that the “good son” who stayed at home and did everything right was both bitter and critical.

I recently read the article “Church renewal needs shared clergy-lay leadership, say experts” in your March 14 edition. The article presented a recent talk given by Ms. Jennifer Haselberger, a philosopher and canon lawyer. Ms. Haselberger essentially argued that the link between the power of orders and the power of governance was no more than a legal fiction and should be eliminated.

If the pope truly wants to make a difference in how the church handles cases of child abuse, he will have to follow the advice from the victims of child abuse. He has not done this so far. They want him to have a zero tolerance of clergy who abuse children, and they want him to have a zero tolerance of any cover-up by the authorities.

With months of woe and sorrow regarding the clergy scandal and its cover up there has been many, many opinions, suggestions, excuses and blame.