Catholic News

• New Vatican working group aims to excommunicate mafia members (Vatican News)
  The members of the working group, established by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, are Vittorio V. Alberti, Rosy Bindi, Father Luigi Ciotti, Father Marcello Cozzi, Raffaele Grimaldi, Archbishop Michele Pennisi, Giuseppe Pignatone, and Ioan Alexandru Pop.
• Top Vatican official cautions US bishops on denial of Communion (CWN)
  The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has urged the US bishops to be cautious about any national policy regarding the reception of Communion by prominent Catholics who promote abortion and euthanasia.
• Latvia's president meets with Pontiff (Vatican Press Office)
  The Baltic nation of 1.9 million (map) is 37% Protestant, 23% Catholic, and 23% Orthodox. Pope Francis made an apostolic journey there in 2018.
• Nigeria's bishops call for summit on devolution of power from federal to local level (Punch (Nigeria))
  Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze, president of the bishops’ conference, issued an “urgent call to the federal government to be open to criticism in addressing the pervading insecurity in Nigeria. . . . No government leader should watch the breakdown of law and order in Nigeria.”
• Scores of German Catholic churches join in blessing same-sex unions (Wall Street Journal)
  About 100 Catholic churches across Germany joined in a nationwide event on May 10, offering church blessings to same-sex couples in direct defiance of the Vatican. At St. Benedict’s church in Munich, where about 30 gay and lesbian couples received blessings, Father Wolfgang Rothe said: “Heavens were open. All people were happy.” But the German initiative—coming as a challenge to the Vatican’s statement that Catholic churches cannot bless same-sex unions—escalated the threat of an open schism.
• Indian archbishop: 'The ideology of the Modi government at the root of the Covid disaster' (AsiaNews)
  Narendra Modi was elected India’s prime minister in 2014 and reelected in 2019.
• Indiana trial court dismisses Catholic school teacher's suit against archdiocese (Religion Clause)
  Joshua Payne-Elliott, a teacher at Cathedral High School, was dismissed from his teaching position after he contracted a civil marriage with a male teacher at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School.
• Patriarchs, heads of Jerusalem churches concerned about recent violence (Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem)
  On May 9, Pope Francis appealed for peace in Jerusalem amid ongoing clashes.
• In Australia, charities fear free speech at risk (Catholic Leader)
  A proposed law “may be misused to inhibit legitimate public dialogue by charities or persons associated with charities to the detriment of Australian representative democracy,” the head of Catholic Social Services Australia warned. “We believe that the proposal as drafted will leave us in the position of having to monitor and ‘punish’ staff, volunteers, and those of our members, or face the constant threat of our charitable status removed.”
• California bill could bar university health system from affiliating with Catholic hospitals that limit abortions (RNS)
  The legislation would bar University of California Health “from contracting with hospitals that prevent UC physicians and medical students from providing reproductive and LGBTQ-inclusive care, including: contraception, tubal ligation, abortion, gender-affirming care and treatment for incomplete miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy.”
• 2 years after it was issued, leaders say 'Vos Estis' is a step in the right direction (Our Sunday Visitor)
  In May 2019, Pope Francis issued Vos estis lux mundi [You Are the Light of the World], his motu proprio addressing sexual abuse. Teresa Kettelkamp, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said that “we expect our bishops to be good shepherds. . . . When they don’t, Church credibility is lost. That’s where Vos Estis can play a redeeming role with respect to the Church.”
• Religious orders must come clean about abusive clergy, newspaper editorializes (Chicago Sun-Times)
  Some religious “orders — among them the Jesuits and Carmelites — have made the only correct moral and ethical choice,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times’ editorial board. “They now publicly disclose the names of clergy who have been credibly accused of abusing minors. But other independent orders have stubbornly resisted full disclosure of the details regarding abusive clergy.”
• Connecticut bishops end general dispensation from Sunday Mass obligation (Archdiocese of Hartford)
  “Now that there are clear signs the pandemic is loosening its grip on our lives, we come to you in confidence to take the next step in reestablishing our ecclesial life as a community of faith,” the bishops said in their statement.
• Madison bishop welcomes Archbishop Cordileone's pastoral letter (Madison Catholic Herald)
  Welcoming Archbishop Cordileone’s pastoral letter on the dignity of the unborn, Holy Communion, and Catholic politicians, Bishop Donald Hying said that “66 million lives have been snuffed out at the very beginning of their existence, and countless individuals have been spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically damaged by this profound violence” of abortion.
• Cardinal Stella discusses work of Congregation for Clergy (Vatican News)
  Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who has been Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy since 2013, affirmed the value of clerical celibacy. “The topic of the celibate life of the priest regularly receives attention for the fact that it is a ‘sign of contradiction’ in respect to the world’s mentality,” he said. “The same is true with a marriage that is faithful, indissoluble and open to life.”
• Abide in Jesus' love, Pope tells pilgrims (Vatican Press Office)
  In his May 9 Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on John 15:9-17, the Gospel reading of the day day. “The love Jesus gives us is the same with which the Father loves Him: pure love, unconditional, freely given love,” Pope Francis said. “May the Virgin Mary help us to abide in Jesus’ love and to grow in love for everyone, witnessing to the joy of the Risen Lord.”
• Papal appeal for peace in Jerusalem amid ongoing clashes (Vatican News)
  “With particular concern I am following the events that are happening in Jerusalem,” Pope Francis said on May 9.” I pray that it may be a place of encounter and not of violent clashes, a place of prayer and peace. I invite everyone to seek shared solutions so that the multireligious and multicultural identity of the Holy City is respected and brotherhood prevails. Violence begets violence. Enough with the clashes.”
• Biden strips doctors' conscience-rights protection on abortion, sex-changes (LifeNews)
  The Biden Administration has reversed a Trump policy that protected health-care workers from being forced to participate in abortions or sex-change procedures. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on May 10 that in the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), a ban on discrimination “on the basis of sex” would be interpreted as including “pregnancy termination.” The new rule also stipulates that health-care personnel cannot discriminate on the basis of “sexual orientation or gender identity.” Dr. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health, who is himself transgender, said: “No one should be discriminated against when seeking medical services because of who they are.”
• 'We need paths of healing and salvation': papal message to vaccine concert (Vatican Press Office)
  “And I mean healing at the root, healing the cause of the evil and not just the symptoms,” Pope Francis told VAX LIVE: The Concert to Reunite the World. “In these sick roots we find the virus of individualism, which does not make us freer or more equal or more brotherly or sisterly, but rather makes us indifferent to the suffering of others. And a variant of this virus is closed nationalism.”
• Italian judge killed by Mafia is beatified in Sicily (Reuters)
  Blessed Rosario Angelo Livatino was “a martyr of justice and faith,” Pope Francis said on May 9. “In his service to the community as an upstanding judge, [he] never allowed himself to become corrupt . . . He always placed his work ‘under the protection of God’; for this reason he became a witness to the Gospel up to his heroic death. May his example be for everyone, especially for judges, an incentive to be loyal defenders of lawfulness and freedom.”
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