Sr. Marisel Mora made her first profession of vows on August 11, 2018 with her family and Missionary Sisters in attendance. Sr. Marisel did her novitiate in West Park, NY but decided to take her vows in Collegio Sagrado Corazon (Sacred Heart), a beautiful church in her hometown. [Read more…]
Advocates Prepare for Possible Cuts in Refugee Admissions
“Enlarge the Resettlement Lifeboat and Fill Every Seat” — the title of an Aug. 21 Justice for Immigrants campaign webinar on the upcoming “presidential determination” of next year’s refugee admissions — was a call to action based on the image of the United States’ resettlement program as a lifeboat rescuing refugees from persecution. [Read more…]
Prayers for Senator John McCain
Jesuit Father Edward Reese, the president of St. Ignatius Prep School in San Francisco, offered prayers in both Phoenix and Washington, including a homily at the National Cathedral in Washington, after the death of John McCain, the senator from Arizona who died Aug. 25 at age 81 after a long struggle with brain cancer. [Read more…]
Is new life ahead in the Church? A commentary by Sr. Ilia Delio – Global Sisters Report
The recent disclosure of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the extent of depravity reported in the news are symptomatic of a church in crisis. It is no longer acceptable for the pope simply to issue a public apology nor is it sufficient for any group merely to reflect on what has happened by issuing position statements. [Read more…]
On the Feast of the Assumption, Pope Asks for Consolation for those who suffer
VATICAN CITY — Mary’s assumption into heaven was a special sign of God’s favor, but it also indicates God’s desire to save all people, body and soul, Pope Francis said.
Reciting the Angelus prayer on the feast of the Assumption Aug. 15, Pope Francis also asked the crowd in St. Peter’s Square to join him in praying for the 38 people who died Aug. 14 when a large span of a highway bridge collapsed in Genoa, Italy.
But he also prayed for all people who are suffering around the world. “To Mary, consoler of the afflicted, who we contemplate today in the glory of heaven, I want to entrust the anguish and torment of those who, in many parts of the world, suffer in body and spirit.”
“Let us pray that Mary, with her maternal intercession, will help us live our daily journey in the sure hope of joining her one day with all the saints and our loved ones in heaven,” the pope said.
The assumption of Mary, body and soul, into heaven was a “divine privilege” given to her because of her close union with Jesus from the very beginning, the pope said. “It was a corporal and spiritual union that began at the Annunciation and matured throughout Mary’s life,” leading finally to the foot of the cross.
While Mary was given a special grace, the pope said, the feast day should remind Catholics that the church professes faith in “the resurrection of the body” for all who are saved by Christ.
“The stupendous assumption of Mary manifests and confirms the unity of the human person and reminds us that we are called to serve and glorify God with our whole being, body and soul,” he said. “Serving God only with our body would be the action of a slave; serving God only with the soul would be contrary to our human nature.”
President of USCCB plans to address ‘moral catastrophe of abuse’
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Aug. 16 announced three key goals and a comprehensive plan to address the “moral catastrophe” of the new abuse scandal hitting the U.S. church. [Read more…]
LCWR Wraps up Assembly with reflection on the Trinity and diversity
As the Leadership Conference of Women Religious wrapped up its assembly on Aug. 10, sisters explored the diversity within the image of God and lessons for religious life, marched and bore witness against systemic racism, and honored the first black recipient of LCWR’s Outstanding Leadership Award. [Read more…]
U.N. Moves Forward on Compacts to Manage Refugees and Migrants
By Chris Herlinger, Global Sisters Report
The United Nations has completed key stages of work on two compacts related to migration and refugees, winning cautious praise from migrant advocates and church officials.
“Even just the idea of international cooperation on the issue of migration was a victory. Now, it needs to be institutionalized,” Maryknoll Sr. Marvie Misolas, representative of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns at the U.N., said about the compact on migration, the U.N.’s first.
“Now we have a basis from which to work,” said Sr. Janet Kinney, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York, and the executive director of the Partnership for Global Justice, a U.N.-based advocacy group.
The global compacts are documents that are not legally binding but provide a framework for nations to work together to manage the current wave of migration, in which 68.5 million people worldwide have been displaced. The compacts stem from the 2016 New York Declaration, in which the United Nations concluded it had to deal with the increasing challenges of global migration.
U.N. members approved the final text of the migrant compact, “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” on July 13 after more than a year of meetings in New York. The compact is expected to be formally adopted at a Dec. 10-11 conference in Marrakech, Morocco.
Talks on the global compact on refugees concluded July 6 in Geneva, and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi will present a final version of that document when the U.N. General Assembly meets later this year. The compact is a supplement to the 1951 U.N. convention on refugees and a subsequent 1967 protocol.
Volker Türk, the U.N. refugee agency’s assistant high commissioner for protection, noted that the current refugee convention “focuses on rights of refugees and obligations of states, but it does not deal with international cooperation writ large. And that’s what the global compact seeks to address.”
UNHCR spokeswoman Ariane Rummery told GSR in an email that the global compact on refugees “is building upon and strengthening, not replacing, the existing international legal system for refugees — including the 1951 Refugee Convention and other human rights treaties and international humanitarian law.”
Rummery said the refugee compact seeks “to fill gaps in cooperation in the international response to refugees — this includes in having a more predictable and equitable system of responsibility sharing so host communities get the support they need and refugees can be better included in host communities.”
“It’s a blueprint,” Sr. Helen Saldanha, a member of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit and an executive co-director of VIVAT International, a global human rights advocacy organization that works at the United Nations, said of the migration compact.
The end of negotiations over language of the migration compact “is the beginning of another process” in which U.N. member states examine more fully how they can implement what the documents call for, said Saldanha, a member of the NGO Committee on Migration, an advocacy coalition of nongovernmental organizations at the United Nations that includes religious congregations.
Sr. Helen Saldanha, a member of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit and an executive co-director of VIVAT International, a global human rights advocacy organization that works at the United Nations (GSR photo / Chris Herlinger)
A particular focus of the refugee compact: to share more broadly among nations the work of welcoming refugees, Grandi said.
“There are more than 24 million refugees in the world today, with the vast majority hosted in low and middle-income countries close to the countries wracked by conflicts from which they fled,” he said. “The burdens are often borne by countries least resourced to shoulder them. The compact aims to share this responsibility more equitably.”
That focus comes as members of the European Union are debating changes in policy that would place less responsibility on so-called “first arrival” countries like Italy and Greece to host refugees fleeing from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
UNHCR headed up the talks in Geneva over the refugee compact. The talks on the migration compact at U.N. headquarters in New York included U.N. member states and advocates for migrants that included the Vatican and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, including Catholic sisters’ congregations.
Under the leadership of Pope Francis, the Vatican took a pro-migrant position in the talks, and Archbishop Bernardito Auza, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, praised the migration compact as serving as an “international reference point for best practices and international cooperation in the global management of migration.”
Among the declarations contained in the migration compact: Migration “should never be an act of desperation. When it is, we must cooperate to respond to the needs of migrants in situations of vulnerability, and address the respective challenges.”
It added: “We must work together to create conditions that allow communities and individuals to live in safety and dignity in their own countries. We must save lives and keep migrants out of harm’s way. We must empower migrants to become full members of our societies, highlight their positive contributions, and promote inclusion and social cohesion.”
U.N. General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak, a Slovak diplomat, called the migration compact a “historic moment” and said, “It does not encourage migration, nor does it aim to stop it. It is not legally binding. It does not dictate. It will not impose. And it fully respects the sovereignty of states.”
But though U.N. member states drafted the final wording, the compact does not have universal approval. The United States pulled out of the migration compact talks in December, citing the need to protect its migration policies. And on July 18, the government of Hungary, which has taken a tough stance against admitting refugees and migrants in recent years, said it will not sign the accord and is “exiting the adoption process” of the compact.
Kinney said the tension between countries protecting their sovereignty and nongovernmental advocates pushing for more human rights protections is an ongoing dynamic at the United Nations.
“Even in this document, issues of national security and human rights are not always in balance,” Kinney said. “Is [the compact] 100 percent balanced? You can’t say that.”
Kinney and Misolas, also members of the NGO Committee on Migration, praised the two compacts generally. But they said the two documents have gaps, particularly on displacement caused by climate change, an issue that is likely to be the focus of increased attention in coming years at the United Nations.
Sr. Janet Kinney (left), a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York, and the executive director of the Partnership for Global Justice, a U.N-based advocacy group, and Maryknoll Sr. Marvie Misolas, the representative of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns at the U.N. (GSR photo / Chris Herlinger)
“We have to continue discussing these issues in the context of our current economic model and the process of environmental dislocation,” Misolas said. “When we destroy the environment, that creates economic disparity and that pushes people out.”
Misolas said the migration compact can be faulted for being a document that “still feels like it is more ‘pro-host’ countries than focused on [migrant] people. It’s still a tall order for countries to fulfill their responsibility to their people” in helping find jobs and helping create “sustainable economic development.”
Rummery said UNHCR believes the final draft of the refugee compact “effectively acknowledges and addresses the reality of increasing displacement in the contexts of disasters, environmental degradation and climate change, and provides the basis for measures to tackle the many challenges arising in this area.”
Misolas praised the Holy See for its work and said the migration compact credits the work of faith-based organizations. However, she said that even among congregations committed to the work of helping refugees and migrants, “we still need to reflect more as faith-based groups on our values on this issue of hospitality and welcome.”
[Chris Herlinger is GSR international correspondent. His email address is cherlinger@ncronline.org.]
A Suprising Look at Vocations
The overwhelming majority of those pursuing vocations in religious life in the church were born into the faith. But a small, steady stream of men and women choose first to become Catholic and then, in what is perhaps an even larger leap of faith, choose religious life itself. Twelve percent of brothers and sisters making perpetual vows weren’t born Catholic, according to a 2017 Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate report. Nine out of 10 entering religious life were raised Catholic, CARA reports.
Whereas once a change of denominations would have been called a conversion (and still is often popularly referred to that way), since Vatican II it has been called entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. Sometimes discerning a call to the religious life can take decades.
In some cases, the journey from changing denominations to taking vows as a member of a religious community seems linear, according to accounts from the women Global Sisters Report interviewed. In others, there is a close connection between a wish to become Catholic and enter the religious life.
“There is no canonical law concerning the time to start the application process in regards to a discerner who was not born and raised Catholic yet became fully initiated into the Catholic faith,” says Sr. Deborah Marie Borneman, a member of the Sisters of Saint Cyril and Methodius; she is director of member relations and services for the National Religious Vocation Conference. Canon law requires that candidates show proof of baptism, confirmation and “free status” before they are admitted to the novitiate, she said in an email. The vocation conference, however, highly recommends a new Catholic wait at least two years, preferably three years, before application to any religious institute. ~ from the Global Sisters Report
To read the full article: http://globalsistersreport.org/news/trends/path-religious-life-varies-especially-when-sisters-start-out-non-catholic-54971
Cabrini Health Australia Advocates for Asylum Seekers
In March 2018, the Cabrini Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub [in Australia] experienced a surge in demand with a 100 per cent increase in the number of referrals for the month.
A higher than average number of referrals were also received in April and May.
Most of these referrals are for asylum seekers receiving basic support through the status resolution support services (SRSS) program while awaiting the outcome of their application for protection.
The reason for the increase? Changes to the SRSS program vulnerability criteria have been announced, which will result in withdrawal of the basic living allowance (89 per cent of Newstart), casework support, and trauma and torture counselling from anyone assessed as ‘job-ready’. Being job-ready is not the same as being able to find employment.
Many Australians are looking for work. When English is not your first language, you have had little or interrupted education, you have no employment history and only temporary work rights, you have serious barriers to employment success. Add to that the significant physical and mental health issues many asylum seekers suffer, and employment is unlikely.
How will they will pay their rent and feed themselves if they have no income?
We stand for compassionate treatment for asylum seekers.
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