Beloved Disciple Parish

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter makes a short speech from the stage during the Billy Graham Library Dedication Service on May 31, 2007, in Charlotte, North Carolina. / Credit: Davis Turner/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 1, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).

A lifelong Baptist, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 years old on Oct. 1, has held views that differ from Catholic teaching on a number of controversial social and doctrinal issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of female pastors.

Nonetheless, perhaps more than any other president in American history, a clear and consistent profession of Christian faith, both in word and deed, has characterized Carter throughout his life.

In a chapter titled “My Traditional Christian Faith” in his 2005 book “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis,” Carter pointed out that “most of the rudiments of my faith in Christ as Savior and the Son of God are still shared without serious question by Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts, Seventh-day Adventists, and many other religious people.”

Speaking about his Baptist convictions, in that same book Carter stated that “as evangelicals, we were committed to a strong global mission to share our Christian faith with all other people, without prejudice or discrimination.”

Throughout his adult life, Carter has demonstrated a personal commitment to evangelization by witnessing publicly to his faith, participating in missions, and most famously through teaching Sunday school for nearly four decades on most Sundays, year in and year out, at his hometown Baptist church in Plains, Georgia.

Faith and works

In addition, Carter’s humanitarian work building homes for the poor every year for nearly 40 years as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer has been an integral part of his lived faith.

Carter’s sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, who died in 1983, was herself an evangelist, and the 39th president credited her with having had a major influence in bucking up his faith and practice after his first defeat for the office of Georgia governor in 1966.

That same year, Carter helped lead a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in his home county. Later, as governor of Georgia, he also served as honorary chairman of Graham’s Atlanta crusade.

For Catholics, Carter is also celebrated as the first American president to welcome a pope to the White House. That milestone came in 1979 during newly elected Pope John Paul II’s first papal trip to the United States.

According to a National Archives summary of their conversation, the pope and president connected over their shared faith in Christ. The National Archives said that “these two deeply religious men — each at the pinnacle of power in their respective spheres — agreed to speak not as diplomats but as Christian brothers.”

Abortion stance

Although Carter expressed a personal aversion to abortion, as governor of Georgia and then as president he supported legal abortion in accordance with the then-recent Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. He also believed that abortion should be available to victims of rape and incest. 

In a 1976 NBC News interview, then-candidate Carter said: “Under the Supreme Court ruling [Roe v. Wade], I will do anything I can as president to minimize the need for abortions. I think abortions are wrong and I think that we ought to have a comprehensive effort made by the president and Congress with a nationwide law perhaps, adequately financed to give sex instruction and access to contraceptives for those who believe in their use, better adoptive procedures.” 

As president, in 1977 Carter signed into law the Hyde Amendment, a policy that bans federal tax dollars from being used for abortions, except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. Since being signed into law, the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2.5 million unborn lives, according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. 

In recent years, Carter has expressed support for homosexual marriage. In a 2018 Huffington Post interview the then-93-year-old former president said he believed “Jesus would approve of gay marriage” and that “Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.” 

Steady stream of faith-based books

Carter has authored 30 books, many of which have been directly related to his Christian faith, including his 1996 tome “Living Faith, Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith” (1997), “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” (2005), and “Faith: A Journey for All” (2018). 

In this last book, Carter wrote: “I consider myself to be an evangelical Christian … the basic elements of Christianity apply personally to me, shape my attitude and my actions, and give me a joyful and positive life, with purpose.”

He also affirmed his belief “that Christians are called to plunge into the life of the world and to inject the moral and ethical values of our faith into the processes of governing.”

Carter’s unabashed articulation of his Christian faith and inspiration was seen as a breath of fresh air and a boon to his presidential candidacy in the wake of the disgrace and corruption of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

“I will never lie to you,” Carter memorably promised during his successful 1976 campaign.

China breakthrough

Among Carter’s most notable accomplishments to advance religious liberty and reopen space for evangelization were his negotiations with then-Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping leading up to the December 1978 reestablishment of full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

As Carter later recounted, as part of the deal he pressed for the Chinese government “to let people worship freely, to own Bibles, and for our missionaries to return.” Deng ceded the first two requests but not the third. Carter recalls that when he and his wife, Rosalynn, subsequently visited China in 1981, “there was a new law that guaranteed freedom of worship, Bibles were plentiful, and overcrowded Christian churches were thriving.”

After being defeated in the 1980 presidential election by pro-life candidate Ronald Reagan, Carter and Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, started the Carter Center, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to combating disease and promoting health, peace, and democracy worldwide.

For his efforts in advancing peace and human rights, including the historic 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, in 2002 Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Core Christian faith

In his 2018 book “Faith: A Journey for All,” Carter recounted that “people in my Bible class often ask what it means to be a Christian. My best explanation is that a Christian is a person professing Jesus Christ as personal savior and striving to have the human qualities demonstrated by Jesus.”

Carter went on to extol the Lord of his life as “both God and man, all-powerful but gentle and loving, all-knowing, compassionate, suffering, despised, burdened with the sin of others, abandoned by his followers, publicly executed but resurrected, and now worshipped by billions of believers throughout the world. Personal faith in Christ and a special reverence for him help us comprehend God’s transcendent love.”

“Convinced as we are that the miracle of Christ’s resurrection really happened some 2,000 years ago, we must consider this the most important event in the history of the universe,” Carter wrote in his 1997 book “Sources of Strength.” “For us, it means that Christ still lives, that his spirit is still with us, and that we can build our lives around him as our Savior.”

Delegates vote to approve a synthesis report at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 28, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 1, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Debate on women’s participation in the Catholic Church — including the idea of whether women could one day be deacons — is not on the agenda for this month’s assembly of the Synod on Synodality, but synodal conversations on the topic continue, some at the explicit invitation of Pope Francis.

On Oct. 2, Pope Francis will open the second session of the Synod on Synodality, the last part of the “discernment” phase of the synodal process begun in 2021.

Though women’s admission to ministries such as the diaconate was one of the big topics at the monthlong synod assembly last year, organizers have said the issue is now in the hands of experts after Pope Francis created a commission in the Vatican’s doctrine office to study the question at the request of 2023 synod delegates.

The commission at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) will provide an update on its work during this month’s meeting with the plan to release a document in mid-2025.

While delegates and other participants to the synodal gathering will focus on how to be a Church in mission, the discussion on women is happening in other venues: in the study commission, at local synodal gatherings, in online events, and with the pope and his cardinal advisers.

Pope Francis’ position

The possibility of allowing Catholic women to become permanent deacons has been a persistent issue in Francis’ pontificate.

And while the pope has on multiple occasions indicated his willingness to study the issue, especially the historic figure of the deaconess in the early Church, he has also given a firm response, that “deacons with holy orders” is not a possibility for women.

“Women are of great service as women, not as ministers, as ministers in this regard, within the holy orders,” he told CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell during an appearance on the program “60 Minutes” in May.

More recently, Pope Francis spoke about the different roles of men and women in the Church in a speech to students at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium on Sept. 28 during an apostolic trip that included one day in Luxembourg.

“What characterizes women, that which is truly feminine, is not stipulated by consensus or ideologies, just as dignity itself is ensured not by laws written on paper but by an original law written on our hearts,” he said, later adding that “it is terrible when a woman wants to be a man.”

In a press release issued quickly after the meeting, the university community criticized his remarks on women as “deterministic and reductive.”

Defending himself in a press conference aboard the papal plane back to Rome the next day, Francis reiterated the theological underpinnings to his current and many past statements on the dignity of women and their different role from men in the Church — the so-called “Marian-Petrine principle” first developed by the eminent Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthazar and invoked in the teaching of Church’s last four pontificates.

The principle draws on dimensions of Mary and St. Peter as symbols illustrating the different but complementary roles of women and men in the Church.

“A Church with only the Petrine principle would be a Church that one would think is reduced to its ministerial dimension, nothing else. But the Church is more than a ministry. It is the whole people of God. The Church is woman. The Church is a spouse. Therefore, the dignity of women is mirrored in this way,” Pope Francis said in an interview with America Magazine in 2022.

The dignity of women, he continued in that interview, reflected the spousal nature of the Church, which he called the “Marian principle.”

“The way is not only [ordained] ministry. The Church is woman. The Church is a spouse. We have not developed a theology of women that reflects this,” the pope said.

An open dialogue

In December 2023, Pope Francis invited theology professors to speak to him and his council of cardinal advisers on women’s participation in the Church. Earlier this year, these speeches were published in a series of books, one of which is called “Women and Ministries in the Synodal Church: An Open Dialogue.”

In his preface to the Italian-language book, Pope Francis wrote that an important aspect of synodality is having open conversations.

“The synodal process, as a process of discernment, starts from reality and experience, in open dialogue and creative fidelity to the great tradition which has preceded us and accompanies us,” he said in the preface dated March 25.

The speeches from the theologians’ meetings with Francis and the group of cardinals in December 2023 and February 2024 are largely critical of the current treatment of women in the Church and of the theological arguments of the last several pontificates for a male-only priesthood and a male-only diaconate.

In her contribution, Italian theologian and professor Sister Linda Pocher, a member of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, contends that several of the usual arguments for a male-only priesthood are not as strong as usually held.

“I do not mean to say that we should absolutely remove the male reservation to ordained ministry. I mean to say that the rationale behind that reservation is weak, and it’s important to recognize that and be aware of it,” she wrote in “Women and Ministries in the Synodal Church: An Open Dialogue.”

In her testimony, the Italian theologian and consecrated woman of the Ordo Virginum (“Order of Virgins”), Giuliva Di Berardino, argued that the Catholic Church is missing a “public and official” female ministry.

“The point, we have to recognize, is that the Catholic world lacks the specificity of a women’s ministry that can enlarge the spiritual motherhood of the individual woman, her specific gift, to the universal dimension of the Church,” she said.

In another Italian-language book to come out of the encounters with cardinals, three theologians — two women and one priest — look critically at the “Marian-Petrine principle” of Hans Urs von Balthazar and ask if other interpretations of Scripture, and of the Virgin Mary, could not give support to a ministry open to women. 

In the preface to this book, called “De-Masculinize the Church?”, Pope Francis writes that “we have realized, especially during the preparation and celebration of the synod, that we have not listened enough to the voice of women in the Church and that the Church still has much to learn from them.”

He says the starting point is Hans Urs von Balthasar’s reflection on the Marian and Petrine principles in the Church, “a reflection that has inspired the magisterium of recent pontificates in the effort to understand and value the different ecclesial presence of men and women.”

“The end point, though, is in God’s hands,” the pontiff adds.

“Here is what I desire at this point in the synod process: that we do not tire of walking together, for only when we walk are we what we must be, the living body of the Risen One on the move, going out, meeting our brothers and sisters, fearlessly, on the streets of the world,” he says.

For Pope Francis, the journey of the Synod on Synodality is the destination, and the journey is listening to the lived realities of our brothers and sisters in Christ and walking with them.

As the philosopher and theologian Lucia Vantini put it in her presentation to the Council of Cardinals last year: “The issue of ministries is not now on the agenda, but it is now in the air and its pressure is felt: Like a ghost it roams our rooms, disrupts thinking, and inhibits frankness among us.”

Archbishop Li Shan of Beijing, president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the state-managed Catholic organization in mainland China controlled by the CCP’s United Front Work Department. / Credit: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 1, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

A new report details the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to “exert total control” over the Catholic Church and other religious faiths within its borders and to “forcibly eradicate religious elements” that the party deems contrary to its political and policy agenda.

The analysis, published by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last week, asserts that the CCP’s “sinicization of religion” policy consistently violates the internationally protected right to freedom of religion. The term sinicization means to conform something to Chinese culture, but the policy essentially subordinates faiths to “the CCP’s political agenda and Marxist vision for religion,” according to the report.

Chinese officials have ordered the removal of crosses from churches and have replaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary with images of President Xi Jinping, according to the report. They have also censored religious texts, forced members of the clergy to preach CCP ideology, and mandated the display of CCP slogans within churches. 

To subordinate religions to the party, the government forces religious groups to enroll in various “patriotic religious associations” and their local branches. For Catholic churches, this means enrolling in the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, which is officially under the control of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs and the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

Anyone who practices religion outside of the state-approved associations is considered to be in a “cult” and subjected to anti-cult provisions in Chinese law, a policy that has resulted in mass arrests and imprisonment, according to the report. Chinese officials have enforced the anti-cult provisions against underground Catholics who do not recognize the authority of the government-backed clergy and the distortion of the faith.

USCIRF Commissioner Asif Mahmood told CNA that the CCP considers underground Catholics to be a threat because they do not recognize the government’s purported authority “to dictate religious doctrine and regulate religious affairs.”

“While some Catholics choose to worship legally within the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, they are certainly not free as they must comply with the CCP’s harsh mechanisms of control and interference,” said Mahmood, who was appointed to the USCIRF by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“Ultimately, the Chinese government is solely interested in instilling unwavering obedience and devotion to the CCP, its political agenda, and its vision for religion, not protecting the religious freedom rights of Catholics,” Mahmood said.

The report noted that the Vatican entered into an undisclosed agreement with the CCP in 2018 that established cooperation between Church authorities and Chinese officials in appointing bishops. However, the report states that “the government has unilaterally installed CCP-aligned bishops without the Vatican’s consultation and approval” despite that agreement.

“Authorities continue to disappear underground Catholic religious leaders who reject the state-controlled Catholic church, including Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin and Bishop Augustine Cui Tai,” Mahmood said. “The government also refuses to disclose the whereabouts of Catholic leaders who have been disappeared for decades, like Bishop James Su Zhimin.”

Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and a former commissioner of the USCIRF, told CNA that the CCP is “trying to sever the Catholic Church in China from the pope.” 

“Catholic bishops are special targets because of their essential role within the hierarchical Church in ensuring communion with the successor of St. Peter,” Shea said. “Those who resist [government intrusion] are placed in indefinite detention without due process, banished from their episcopal sees, placed under indefinite security police investigation, disappeared, and/or prevented from exercising their episcopal ministries.”

Shea added the Vatican-China agreement “makes no accommodation for bishops who resist joining the association for reasons of conscience nor does it address religious persecution.” She said the religious persecution under Xi is “the most repressive for Chinese Catholics since the Mao era.”

The CCP’s efforts to control religion are not limited to Catholics but also extend to Protestants, Muslims, Taoists, Buddhists, and adherents of Chinese folk religions. Chinese officials also suppress the new Falun Gong religious movement.

One of the most egregious examples included in the report is the forced internment of Uyghur Muslims into reeducation camps, where they must pledge allegiance to the CCP and renounce their language, culture, and religious traditions. The report refers to the government’s actions as constituting “genocide and crimes against humanity” against Uyghur Muslims.

The report also notes examples of forced reeducation against Tibetan Buddhists and removing or altering religious texts and imagery. Chinese officials have also destroyed or altered statues and temples belonging to Chinese Buddhists and Taoists, suppressed practices that are seen as contradictory to its goals, and forced the display of CCP slogans.

Spanish theologian Cristina Inogés is among those designated by Pope Francis to participate in the Synod on Synodality. / Credit: Episcopal Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM, by its Spanish acronym) YouTube page/screenshot

Madrid, Spain, Oct 1, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Spanish theologian Cristina Inogés, appointed by Pope Francis to participate in the Synod on Synodality, argues in a recently released document that “Christianity should never have become a religion.”

In a September article titled “Del Sínodo al jubileo: construyendo comunidad en diálogo” (“From the Synod to the Jubilee: Building Community in Dialogue”), Inogés argues that Jesus sought to hand on a way of life and human relationships based on fraternity, not to found an institutionalized religion with hierarchies and “to separate a small part from the rest, the priests — the clergy — although with influence, a lot of influence, over the rest.”

“Jesus carried out his mission in everyday life, in the reality of every day and far from the temple, to which he only makes his way in order to be the protagonist in the only [incident of] enormous anger he has in the entire Gospel: an episode related to the abuse of power and which resulted in the expulsion of the merchants,” she states.

Inogés, who studied at the Protestant School of Theology in Madrid (SEUT), believes that the origins of the Synod of Synodality are found in the Aparecida Conference held in 2007 and, particularly, in Pope Francis’ greeting after his election in which “there were no triumphal gestures.”

For Inogés, the Synod on Synodality, which will hold its second session in October, must be based on the idea that Jesus Christ “did not leave us a pre-designed Church structure but a way of life.”

Reflections on the Eucharist

In another part of the article, Inogés gives an interpretation of the Gospel account of the celebration of the Passover before the Passion in which she downplays the sacrificial meaning of the Eucharist.

For the author, “in the account of the feast of the Passover that Jesus celebrated with all those who accompanied him — although the Gospels only speak of the Twelve — and that we have turned into the Last Supper, we see that the core of the celebration is not centered on the body and blood. The most important thing is that the one who is going to give his flesh and blood lowers himself once again to show that his logic is that of service and not of power.”

In her dissertation, the theologian affirms that “the table is for everyone. The only one who could create rules and laws for someone to approach it is Jesus, whose table it is. And he didn’t do it. And he doesn’t do it. And he won’t do it.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church develops the essential teachings on the Eucharist in Nos. 1322–1419, which presents it as the central sacrament of Christian life, instituted by Christ, in which he himself becomes truly present to nourish and strengthen the faithful on their journey toward eternal life.

The Code of Canon Law addresses related matters in Canons 899–933. The possibility of receiving Communion despite being in grave sin is restricted to there being ”a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.” 

Further, “those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy Communion.”

In developing her thesis, Inogés also states that “Jesus does not impose obligations like the Ten Commandments; Jesus presents a program [for living] in the Beatitudes.” 

However, the catechism states in No. 2072: “Since they express man’s fundamental duties toward God and toward his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart.”

‘Sacramental functionaries, men in meeting after meeting’

In a section dedicated to priests in the extensive 30-page article, Inogés points out that “all the baptized, but even more so priests, are called to proclaim liberating news and not sets of rules and prohibitions.”

She also sets forth her view that the initial formation of seminarians and the ongoing formation of priests after their ordination is too focused on “the fact that the priest must continue to be configured to Christ the servant, Christ the shepherd, Christ the priest, and Christ the head,” and thus wonders: “Where is Jesus the man?”

The theologian then criticizes “the figure and being of the priest tending to be very spiritualized and centered on worship, running the risk of ending up being sacramental functionaries and men in meetings about having more meetings.”

Inogés explains that “transforming the pulpits into places for dialogue and the confessionals into welcoming places is not something that only challenges you as priests but must touch all areas of our churches, all parish settings.”

Synodality and the Second Vatican Council

In the last pages of the text, the theologian argues that the upcoming jubilee called by Pope Francis is a kind of extension of the Synod of Synodality “so that we can continue to enjoy the reconstruction of that Church that the Second Vatican Council designed so well, although it soon became blurred and ended up unrecognizable and, on many occasions, contrary to the council itself.”

For Inogés, with the Synod of Synodality “the time has come for the possibility of beginning to give shape to the conciliar dream of Vatican II.”

“The generation that was the protagonist of that council is in its last days. If we lose their memory, we will really lose our memory and we may repeat the mistakes that were made,” she adds.

The Second Vatican Council was one of the most important ecclesial events of the 20th century. It began in 1962 and was divided into four stages, which concluded in 1965 under Pope Paul VI. Approximately 2,000 council fathers from all over the world participated.

The theologian closes her article with a wish for reformulating the Nicene Creed to read: “‘I believe in a holy, catholic, apostolic Church for everyone, everyone, everyone. Amen.’”

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

null / Credit: Ivan U/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Despite the Catholic Church’s requirement that Catholics go to confession at least once a year — with more frequent confession highly encouraged, and required if a Catholic is conscious of mortal sin and wishes to receive Communion — Catholics in the U.S. don’t go to confession very often.

Polling from EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research (EWTN is CNA’s parent company) has consistently shown that over half of U.S. Catholics go to confession either less than once a year or not at all.

Yet within this year’s nationally representative EWTN poll results was one rather surprising detail: The number of Catholics who reported going to confession regularly is going up.

Although 18% of the Catholics surveyed this year said they never go to confession and 24% go less than once a year, this actually represents an increase over poll numbers from 2022. That year, 28% of respondents said they went to confession less than annually and 35% said they never went at all.

Fully 42% of the Catholics surveyed in 2024 said they go to confession at least once a year — in line with the Church’s requirements — while 16% go to confession at least once a month.

In the 2022 survey, just 10% of respondents that year said they went to confession monthly.

‘Leaving the light on’

In some corners of the country — in dioceses that have consciously sought to promote the sacrament of confession in recent years — the statistics were a welcome sign that their efforts are working.

The Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia — both of which share the bulk of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area — jointly created an initiative more than a decade ago designed to promote the sacrament of confession called “The Light Is On for You.”

The idea, which has since been copied by more than a half-dozen other dioceses nationwide, is a simple one: During the penitential seasons of Lent and Advent, every parish in the diocese opens its doors for several hours each Wednesday evening to allow people the opportunity to seek God’s mercy. 

In Arlington and Washington, the dioceses have promoted the initiative widely with ads on buses, radio, and TV spots, and other media that are designed to have a broad reach beyond Catholics who are regularly in the pews. 

Father Donald Planty, the pastor at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Arlington, told CNA he has seen the initiative lead to an increased demand for confessions — so much so that at his parish they decided to continue offering confessions every Wednesday night of the year. 

And the results have been positive: Planty said he and his fellow priests at the parish have heard an estimated 25,000 total confessions on Wednesday nights since 2014. And that doesn’t count all the confessions heard on the other four days of the week they offer it at St. Charles. 

Planty said they’ve found a simple but winning formula to get people to come back to the sacrament: Make confession more available and preach on it at Mass.

“It’s like a field of dreams: If you build it, they will come. If you offer it, they will come. It’s very simple,” he said. 

He emphasized for fellow priests the importance of putting people at ease when they arrive in the confessional, especially if they’ve been away from the sacrament for a while. He said he welcomes penitents to the confessional with a variation on the phrase he also preaches on during Mass, assuring them that the Lord welcomes them “with open arms.”

“‘In the sacrament of penance, the Lord Jesus welcomes you with open arms. He forgives your sins, and he forgets them. And you start a new life with his love, with his grace in your heart,’” Planty said, reciting the typical phrase he offers in his homilies. 

“I often add, especially when I’m preaching: ‘There is no unforgivable sin. There is no unforgivable sin. There is no unforgivable sin.’ I repeat it three times. There’s nothing to be afraid of, and everything to gain [by coming to confession],” Planty explained.

Variations on the “Light Is On for You” initiative have been implemented in dioceses all across the country: for instance in Dallas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Portland, Maine; Toledo, Ohio; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana; and Erie, Pennsylvania. It has even inspired bishops abroad. 

Danielle Cummings, chancellor and communications director for the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, similarly told CNA that they have seen a marked increase in demand for confessions since they began offering “The Light Is On for You” several years ago. 

And like in Washington and Arlington, the Syracuse Diocese buys time in major media markets to promote the initiative in the hopes that people who have been away from the sacrament for a while will come back. 

Cummings said they have found that people far and wide see and hear the ads inviting them back to confession and it “resonates in their heart” as something they ought to be doing.

It’s not a typical “penance service,” she added — it’s just an open church building with a prayerful atmosphere inside and priests available to hear confessions when people are ready. 

Every year after the initiative takes place, Cummings said she asks pastors for anecdotal stories about how it went. She said she has heard remarkable reports, including Catholics returning to confession after 50 years away and parishes adding permanent confession times due to increased demand after participating. 

“It has been just an overwhelming experience here in the diocese. I would recommend it to any diocese to begin this initiative,” Cummings said. 

“What it really [does] is make people remember going to confession and remember how relieved, how the burden has been lifted, when they walk out of the confessional.”

Similar to Planty, Cummings said they have found that the best advice they can give for dioceses wanting to replicate their success is: “Keep it simple.” 

“I would be very surprised to hear that any diocese [that has done this] has not seen a change in the number of confessions being sought after doing this kind of initiative,” Cummings said. 

Rediscovering the sacrament 

Father Wade Menezes, CPM, a Father of Mercy and a frequent contributor to EWTN, wrote a book on sin and God’s mercy titled “Overcoming the Evil Within: The Reality of Sin and the Transforming Power of God’s Grace and Mercy.” 

In a chapter dedicated to the sacrament of confession, Menezes lays out some of the most common reasons that Catholics avoid the sacrament: for example, they fear being judged or scolded for their sins; they don’t realize the importance of confession; or they consider confession unnecessary. 

But Menezes said he believes that regular confession and Eucharistic participation are essential for spiritual maintenance and growth, contributing to a person’s overall sanctity as well as his or her peace of mind.

“These two sacraments, confession and Eucharist, are precisely the two of the seven that sustain us in our daily vocation and walk in life — regardless of what that may be: single, married, widowed, consecrated religious, diocesan priest, etc. It’s a tragedy that some Catholics stay away from confession for so long,” he commented to CNA.

“I’m a huge advocate of monthly confession, 12 times a year, faithfully … The main purpose of a monthly confession is precisely to have only venial sins to confess. Hopefully, those who go monthly won’t have mortal sins to confess, at least not often. In other words, it’s the practice of monthly confession, per se, that’s helping to keep them away from committing mortal sin.”

Oftentimes, a big factor keeping people from seeking the sacrament is unavailability, Menezes noted.

While acknowledging that many priests are overwhelmed and may not feel they can offer confession more frequently, he encouraged priests to make more time for this sacrament anyway, assuring them that God will lighten their workload in other ways.

“We need to make ourselves more available as priests. This is why the programs that do exist that really promote confession, like [‘The Light Is On for You’], that several dioceses have taken on, is a wonderful, wonderful thing,” he said.

“Regarding the pastor who’s alone with no associate pastors to aid him — hopefully he’ll feel compelled to make more time to administer the sacrament of reconciliation; in doing so, I’m confident that he will discover that God cannot be outdone in his generosity,” he said. 

“God will help lighten up his schedule in other ways if he makes time to hear the confessions of the souls of his parishioners, because he’s first and foremost the guardian and caretaker of the souls in his parish.”

Laying out the nine chief benefits of going to confession, Menezes reiterated in his book how beneficial it is to go to the sacrament monthly, if possible. He encouraged Catholics to make use of an examination of conscience brochure available on the Fathers of Mercy website, which serves as both a guide for self-reflection and a mini-catechism, helping individuals prepare for confession effectively. 

His order distributes about 600,000 of these brochures annually, Menezes said.

“Monthly confession also brings you great peace with your past … Each monthly confession literally only looks back on that past four- to five-week period of your life. And there’s nothing more great than having that solidified, moral compass that, ‘Yes, I’m totally, totally at peace with my past,’” he explained to CNA.

“Regular Eucharist and regular confession helps create that solid moral compass in your life. There‘s no need to ever look back anymore.”

Father Michael-Joseph Paris, OCD, in front of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s tomb. / Credit: Father Michael Joseph/Ascension

CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Beginning Oct. 1, the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a 28-day podcast will guide listeners through “Story of a Soul,” the autobiography of St. Thérèse. Season 3 of Ascension’s “Catholic Classics” podcast on the popular saint will be hosted by Dominican Father Jacob Bertrand Janczyk and Father Michael-Joseph Paris, OCD. 

Paris is a Carmelite friar, a member of the same religious order to which St. Thérèse of Lisieux belonged in the late 1800s. He recently spoke to CNA about his own vocation story, the role St. Thérèse played in it, and why this beloved saint’s story is so important for Catholics today. 

Paris said he had a big conversion at the age of 18. “I really had made my life a mess and I was going in a bad direction,” he told CNA. He separated himself from the friends he was hanging out with and began to pray. 

“I just started asking God for help and he just had a certain way of showing me that he was answering my prayers, even though I was such a mess, and he loved me even though I was in a bad spot,” he said. “I started reading the Bible a little bit, the Gospels; the word of Christ just hit me to the heart that my biggest problem was that I didn’t love, that I was so selfish and so caught in myself, and his words just opened that up to me that love is the only path and following Jesus is the only way to really be able to live that love.”

After going back to Mass and confession, within two years Paris was seriously considering the priesthood. He thought that if Jesus had filled him with so much love and happiness, “Why not make my whole life about this?”

A book that helped him in his discerning process was “Story of a Soul.” He shared that reading St. Thérèse’s story gave him the confidence “that if God was calling me to be a priest, I could do it.”

“Before that I was like, ‘There’s no way I could be a priest’ … and reading St. Thérèse was like, ‘Wow, here’s this girl who is just so confident in God’s power in her life and what he could do for her, through her, and why can’t I have that confidence?’” he recalled. “So that really opened me up to the possibility of the priesthood. So I attribute a lot of my vocation to St. Thérèse.”

Paris decided to enter the seminary and after eight years was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. Three years into his assignment, he attended a retreat at a Carmelite convent and took with him a book on Carmelite spirituality. It was here that “everything changed in me. I was like, ‘My whole life should be about this.’”

Within two years of that experience, Paris became a Carmelite novice and took his final vows in 2022 as a Discalced Carmelite friar of the Province of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He shared that St. Thérèse also played a role in his discernment of becoming a Carmelite. 

“Every time I would visit a place or have a big moment of vocational discernment, there would be an image of Thérèse there. Thérèse just made herself very clear, very present that this was a good path,” he said. 

Paris reflected on St. Thérèse’s feelings of inadequacy that she experienced in her life as a young person as a reason so many can relate to this beloved saint.

“That sense of inadequacy, that sense of need … I think that experience [is one] that we can truly connect to St. Thérèse with and she really can teach us how to get out of ourselves and just live a life of love, regardless of what we feel like we’re not great at or whatever is in us that kind of holds us back,” he explained.

He advised that when moments of self-doubt enter our minds, do not to “give in to self-pity” and instead “turn that right to confidence in God.”

As for the podcast, Paris said he hopes listeners will “take away that they are profoundly loved with all their limitations, that they are infinitely and totally loved, and that they can have total confidence that God will make them into great saints, however that will look.”

The new season of Ascension’s “Catholic Classics” podcast follows Season 2, which focused on another great book, “The Confessions of St. Augustine.” The daily podcast also offers Catholic commentary and reflection.

Solemn Mass is celebrated at St. Clement Parish, Ottawa, Canada, which is entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). / Credit: Public Domain

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 30, 2024 / 17:53 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has announced it will carry out an apostolic visitation to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), an institution whose priests celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and which is in full communion with the Catholic Church.

The FSSP should not be confused with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist group that is not in full communion with the Catholic Church and which has an irregular canonical status.

The Sept. 30 statement from the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life says that “it has called for an apostolic visitation to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter … in order to deepen the understanding of this society of apostolic life of pontifical right and to offer the most appropriate support to its journey of following Christ.”

The apostolic visit, says the text signed by the prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Joăo Braz de Aviz, and Sister Simona Brambilla, the dicastery’s secretary, is taking place “in the context of the process of accompanying the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life that were previously established by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and which Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes has placed under the jurisdiction of this dicastery.”

In a statement published by the FSSP on Sept. 26, the institution specified that “as the prefect of this dicastery himself made clear to the superior general and his assistants during a meeting in Rome, this visit does not originate in any problems of the fraternity but is intended to enable the dicastery to know who we are, how we are doing, and how we live so as to provide us with any help we may need.”

“The last ordinary apostolic visit of the fraternity was undertaken in 2014 by the Ecclesia Dei commission,” the statement added.

What is the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter?

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter states on its website that it is a society of apostolic life of pontifical right whose priests “work together for a common mission in the Catholic Church, under the authority of the Holy See.”

In its apostolate and mission, the FSSP uses “the liturgical books in force in 1962,” meaning it celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass, “as specified in its decree of erection of 1988, confirmed by decree of Pope Francis dated Feb. 11, 2022.”

In February 2022 the Holy Father authorized the FSSP to continue celebrating the TLM, but he also encouraged them to reflect on what is established in Traditionis Custodes. The authorization was then confirmed by the Holy Father himself in March of this year.

The general house of the FSSP is in Fribourg, Switzerland, and has about 368 priests and 201 seminarians. The society has eight members in Mexico, 10 in Chile, 13 in Spain, and a group of 25 in Canada.

What is the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei?

The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was created by Pope John Paul II in 1988 to dialogue with the Lefebvrists and to facilitate full communion with the Catholic Church for those “linked in various ways to the society founded by Archbishop [Marcel] Lefebvre” (the SSPX).

The Vatican further noted that “the pontifical commission exercises the authority of the Holy See over the various religious institutes and communities erected by it, which have as their own rite the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Roman rite [TLM] and preserve the preceding traditions of religious life.”

Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes

The Vatican published Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes on July 16, 2021. The text severely limits the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (extraordinary form), or Tridentine Mass, i.e. celebrated with the 1962 missal.

Pope Francis thus modified the provisions given by Pope Benedict XVI in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which in 2007 had liberalized the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

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

Cardinal Mario Grech and Pope Francis at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 28, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 30, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Mario Grech opened a two-day retreat on Monday for participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, encouraging synod participants and the Catholic faithful to pray the holy rosary for the duration of the Oct. 2–27 global meeting.

“I would like to invite everyone, in this month of October devoted to Mother Mary, to pray with the holy rosary during the synod so that this prayer may accompany us on the journey of these days,” Grech said. “The rosary is an endless rumination of the word of God.”

“Let us invoke together this month Mother Mary, model of the Church, so that the synodal assembly that begins its journey today may be a renewed Pentecost,” he added.

All 464 voting and nonvoting participants in the year’s synod meeting — including bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople — were invited to attend a retreat at the Vatican in preparation for synod discussions, which will start on Wednesday and include themes of pastoral care and formation, ecclesial structures, and the clarification of Church teachings and doctrine.

The retreat included the communal prayer of lauds led by Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini, OSB; two guided meditations given by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, spiritual adviser to the synod; time for personal prayer within the walls of the Vatican; and Mass in the evening.    

Mary: a model of prayer for the Church

At the beginning of the retreat, Grech reiterated the primary importance of prayer: “We begin our journey with the days of retreat. They are not a preparation for the synod but an integral part of it.”

“In fact, the synod cannot but be a prayer, a liturgy, in which the main actor is not us but the Holy Spirit,” he said to approximately 400 people gathered in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall for a time of prayer and reflection.

Grech gifted each participant with rosary beads from the Holy Father and exhorted those on retreat to turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “model and image of the Church,” to learn to be a listening Church with a “synodal style.”

“Mary is for us today a model of prayer as we live these intense days of the synodal assembly,” Grech said.

“Mary is also a synodal woman because with her life she teaches us that the Church — as emerges from the teaching and theological reflection of Benedict XVI — is not the work of our hands but the work of God.”

Radcliffe to retreatants: ‘Breathe deeply’ of the Holy Spirit

During his morning meditations, Radcliffe said the “challenge of the synod is for us to help each other to breathe deeply the rejuvenating Holy Spirit who makes us alive, young, in God.” 

“Let us give each other breathing space. The oxygen of the breath. The oxygen of the Holy Spirit,” Radcliffe said to his listeners.

“This indestructible peace does not mean that we live in perfect harmony. We are gathered in this assembly because we do not,” he said. “But no discord can destroy our peace in Christ, for we are one in him.” 

Reflecting on the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, Radcliffe said the disciples, who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, “share in [Jesus’] risen life” and are “ready to be sent out to preach.”

“The mission of the synodal Church calls us to be like Mary Magdalene, the beloved disciple [John], and Peter — ‘searchers’ for the risen Lord,” he said. “We, too, must be close to the ‘searchers’ of our time, but we shall only become preachers of the Resurrection if we are alive in God.”

The Oct. 2–27 meeting to be held in the Vatican with Pope Francis will close the discernment phase of the Synod on Synodality. The conclusions of both the 2023 and 2024 global sessions — as accepted and approved by the pope — are then expected to be implemented in all local Churches with the purpose of creating a listening and more participative Catholic Church worldwide.

Catholics gather for the second annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 28, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Washington D.C., Sep 30, 2024 / 16:40 pm (CNA).

More than 3,000 Catholics joined Dominican friars to celebrate the Virgin Mary and her gift of the holy rosary for the second annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. 

College students, families with young children, and older Catholics filled the basilica to pray the rosary in the upper church surrounded by Marian shrines to hear lectures about the rosary and the Blessed Mother, to partake in adoration and confession, to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, and to enjoy an outdoor concert by the Hillbilly Thomists — a folk band composed of Dominican friars.

The daylong pilgrimage, organized by the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, saw a growth in participation from the previous year and opened participation to more faithful with a Spanish-language worship track held in the crypt church on the lower level. In addition, they provided more priests for confession and included a concert in the evening — which was not part of the previous pilgrimage.

Many of the faithful had also joined the Dominicans in a nine-month rosary novena leading up to the pilgrimage that preceded the month of the rosary, which begins in October.

Attendees who spoke with CNA were united in their love for the rosary and desire for Catholic community.

Scott Durkin, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the University of Virginia, told CNA that he came to the pilgrimage with a group of fellow Catholic students who also attended the pilgrimage last year.

“[The novena] continually brought me back to the rosary and made the rosary a [prominent] part of my prayer life,” Durkin said.

“[The rosary is] a very recognizable symbol and a great tool for evangelization,” he added.

Pat Ober, who heard about the pilgrimage at her parish, told CNA she enjoys the community aspect of gatherings like this, saying: “It’s really nice to get pumped up, seeing other people [praying together].”

For most of the scheduled events in the upper church, the faithful filled the pews, which can seat about 3,500 people. Some attendees stood toward the back or along the side aisles and others filtered into the various shrines to the Blessed Mother along the sides of the church, which has limited seating.

One of the English-language lectures, given by Dominican Father James Sullivan, broke down the various mysteries upon which Catholics meditate when praying the rosary. He encouraged the faithful to consider “the Annunciation as a gateway to the rosary,” which he said is “the scenic view we really need in our lives.” The Annunciation is the first joyful mystery, when the archangel Gabriel tells the Blessed Mother she will give birth to the messiah, Jesus Christ. 

“When we pray the rosary, … we stop, we look at a mystery,” Sullivan said. “... [We think] about what that mystery means in [our lives]. [We] can imagine the graces that flowed from that mystery.” 

The four sets of mysteries upon which Catholics meditate when praying the rosary — the joyful, the luminous, the sorrowful, and the glorious — all focus on different aspects of our spiritual lives, according to Sullivan.

He said the joyful mysteries are focused on “the movement of love” and “when we pray the joyful mysteries, we are brought into that love.” The luminous mysteries, he said, focus on the gifts provided by God, such as the institution of the Eucharist, in which “he changes nature completely” to maintain a physical presence with the faithful after his death and resurrection.

The sorrowful mysteries, Sullivan said, focus on reconciliation and saying “I’m sorry” to God and serve as a reminder that “suffering is not an end in itself but it’s a means to something greater.” The glorious mysteries, he added, serve as a reminder to say “thank you” to God for the graces he provides us in our lives.

During the vigil Mass, homilist Father Dominic Verner, OP, focused on the power of the Virgin Mary and the rosary. In one example, he highlighted St. Pius V calling on the faithful to pray the rosary ahead of the Battle of Lepanto — in which Christian states dealt severe damage to the Ottoman navy in 1571, preventing an expansion into southern Europe and saving Christendom. 

At that time, Verner said the pontiff urged the faithful to “take up the sword of prayer [and] call upon Our Lady.” Verner also called on the faithful to employ the power of the rosary to combat modern-day errors, such as the systematic killing of the unborn, a new feminism that “despises motherhood,” the spread of gender ideology, the use of euthanasia on suffering patients, the pride emboldened by social media, and the lack of dignity given to the poor.

“The world does not yet remember, but it is beginning to notice something has been forgotten,” Verner said. 

Father John Paul Kern, OP, the executive director of the Dominican Friars Foundation, told CNA that the rosary is “a means of preaching the Gospel and a spiritual weapon that’s been powerful through mission.” He said the rosary can be used “to reach out to and bring back to the Church those who have been led astray by error — by heresy.”

During the pilgrimage, the Dominicans unveiled a processional statue of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, which depicts the Blessed Mother extending the rosary to those before her. Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, OP, told CNA that Dominicans will travel the country with the statue to preach the rosary.

Father Joseph-Anthony Kress, OP, promoter of the holy rosary, urged all of the pilgrims to enroll in the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary, which is a community of clergy and laity committed to praying 15 decades of the rosary every week. In response to his invitation, about 1,000 pilgrims committed to enrolling in the confraternity.

The Dominican friars intend to continue the annual pilgrimage next year, which they have scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025, at the basilica.

Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on Sept. 28, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina. / Credit: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).

Catholic agencies in western North Carolina are mobilizing to help with relief efforts amid devastating flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which dumped torrential rain on mountain communities there leaving serious damage and dozens dead. 

Patricia Guilfoyle, assistant director of communications for the Diocese of Charlotte, said churches across the diocese are gearing up to serve as aid distribution points. Municipal water systems have been swamped and damaged, roads and access points have been washed away, and utility lines have been downed since the flooding began in earnest on Friday. 

The city of Asheville, a gateway to the Smoky Mountains, was especially hard-hit along with hundreds of smaller communities. The death toll for Helene continues to rise, standing at at least 121 across six different southern states, The Washington Post reported. This includes at least 35 deaths in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, local police reported. 

Monsignor Patrick Winslow, vicar general and chancellor of the Charlotte Diocese, and other diocesan leaders have been contacting pastors in the affected areas to survey parishes’ immediate needs and evaluate how best to help, the local Catholic News Herald reported. Asheville is about 125 miles west of Charlotte.

In Hendersonville, North Carolina, flooding and leaks from the roof and windows at Immaculata School inundated multiple classrooms, the gym, and its new STEM lab. The adjacent Immaculate Conception Church also experienced water damage in the sacristy, the diocese reported.

Most of the Charlotte Diocese’s churches, however, including a historic basilica in Asheville that recently received a major renovation grant, are “relatively undamaged, thank God,” Guilfoyle, the diocesan communication professional, told CNA via email.

Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte is running a donation campaign to raise funds for relief efforts. Catholic Charities of East Tennessee, a ministry of the nearby Diocese of Knoxville, is also accepting donations. At least 150 people have been reported missing in Tennessee as of Sunday. 

“Electricity, drinkable water, food, medical care, and cellphone service are in critically short supply in western North Carolina in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene,” the Charlotte Diocese noted. 

Emergency relief supplies are being collected at the Charlotte Diocesan Pastoral Center (1123 S. Church St. in Charlotte) this week for daily delivery to parishioners and residents of Hendersonville and other areas of western North Carolina, the diocese said. 

Needed supplies include bottled water, sanitary wipes, nonperishable food, baby food, formula, diapers, pet food, flashlights, zip-close bags, and batteries. Supplies can be dropped off between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 30, through Thursday, Oct. 3.

Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte on Friday dispensed Catholics from their Sunday Mass obligation in places impacted by the storm. Some churches held Sunday Mass as usual even without power, the diocese noted. 

Helene made landfall in Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region on Thursday night as a Category 4, bringing a 9-foot storm surge to some areas and knocking out power for millions. Weakening into a tropical storm over land, it brought deadly flooding and damaging winds inland to Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas.

Numerous dioceses in Florida, which bore the brunt of the storm, are collecting donations and coordinating aid with the help of Catholic Charities USA. 

President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for 25 North Carolina counties on Saturday, making residents there eligible for federal assistance through FEMA.