Fr. John's Blog

From February 21-24, 2019, over two hundred bishops representing 180 Bishops’ Conferences from all over the world met in Rome to discuss the sexual abuse of minors. Cardinal Séan O’Malley, as the President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, attended this meeting and reflected on his experience in attending this meeting with the Holy Father, the other bishops, and other religious leaders. He summarized the eight points of action gives by the Holy Father. Last week I gave the first four points. Today I want to give the other four points made by the Holy Father:

From February 21-24, 2019, the Vatican hosted a Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church. Over two hundred bishops representing 180 Bishops’ Conferences from around the world were in attendance. In addition several different bishops or patriarchs in charge of different Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church participated in this historic gathering.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a statement upon the completion of a four day meeting with the Holy Father in Rome attended by Presidents of Bishops’ Conference from all over the world. I want to present his statement in this column, as we as a parish have prayed for the success of this meeting. Now that the meeting is concluded, I hope that we shall soon have specific protocols for handling accusations against bishops, user-friendly reporting mechanisms, and a commitment to greater transparency so that the healing process might occur.

During this Black History Month, I want to present three more leaders of African descent who are on their way to sainthood. My source for this material can be located on the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (ww.usccb.org).

During February we celebrate Black History month in the United States. In honor of this month-long celebration, I thought that I would make use of a 2017 publication from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who developed some resources for responding to the Sin of Racism. Specifically I want to talk about three U.S, Catholics who responded to Racism with Holiness. Here are three examples.

Recently I received a letter from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia who was writing in his capacity as the Chair, Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. He wrote to remind us that World Marriage Sunday is celebrated on February 10, 2019. We are also observing National Marriage Week USA from February 7-14, 2019. Both of these are opportunities to focus on building a culture of life and love that begins with promoting and defending marriage and the family. World Marriage Day (WMD) honors husband and wife as the foundation of the family, the basic unit of society. It salutes the beauty of their faithfulness, sacrifice, and joy in daily marriage life.

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greek, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” This verse from last week’s Second Reading (1 Corinthians 12:12-30) has been on my mind owing to recent events on the news. I am thinking of a video of supposedly racist confrontation that happened in front of the Lincoln Memorial between a high school student and a Native American elder.

Our U.S. Bishops encourage us to take up Pope Francis’ challenge to live in solidarity with the poor! There have been reflections each day of the month of January. I am going to put below reflections for the remaining days of January below for your prayerful consideration.

Today I am writing about Saint Óscar Romero. I am going to base my remarks about him on the short biography published in the English edition of Osservatore Romano on October 19, 2018.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord which marks the end of the Christmas season. We return to Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday, which will be on March 6, 2019.

Greetings on the Solemnity of the Epiphany. This is a rich and complicated Feast Day, which actually originated in the East. In Eastern Christianity, the emphasis was on the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). Epiphany was introduced into Western Christianity in the fourth century. The word epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning “appearance” or “manifestation.”

Pope Francis has made several observations about good politics being at the service of peace in his message for the World Day of Peace. In talking about the challenge of good politics, Pope Francis notes that “Political office and political responsibility thus constantly challenge those called to the service of their country to make every effort to protect those who live there and to create the conditions for a worthy and just future. If exercised with basic respect for life, freedom and dignity of persons, political life can indeed become an outstanding form of charity.