THE CATHOLIC THREAD

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Hindu nationalists trample papal image, call for Christian-free India

In this 2015 file photo, demonstrators shout slogans as they hold placards during a protest outside Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi. (Credit: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters via CNS.)

NEW DELHI, India — Hindu nationalists trampled a photo of Pope Francis near Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi in a video calling for a Christian-free India which was recently posted online.

The video shows a group of about 20 people chanting “Pope Francis murdabad,” meaning “down with Pope Francis,” after a speech by a man believed to be the controversial Hindu leader Om Swami Maharaj.

Muharaj accused Christians of promoting terrorism and threatened forcefully to expel them from India, reported ucanews.com.

The video began circulating on social media a few weeks after Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi wrote a letter calling for a one year prayer campaign leading up to India’s 2019 general elections.

[…]

The archbishop’s letter quickly sparked a controversy among the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Several BJP leaders condemned the archbishop’s letter, calling it a “divisive move.” One BJP parliamentarian, Subramanian Swamy, called for India to end all diplomatic relations with the Vatican in a Twitter message May 23.

[…]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m70UZLyPFI

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Daily life stable after Jerusalem embassy fracas, Holy Land prelate says [In-Depth]

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa arrives at the Church of the Nativity, built atop the site where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born. (Credit: AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed.)

ROME — While the controversial transfer of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem may have triggered a political and diplomatic hurricane, the top Catholic in the Holy Land says that in terms of daily life in the holy city, it’s been little more than a soft spring rain.

“In terms of the practical details of ordinary life, not much has changed,” said Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Apostolic Administrator of Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is traditionally a meeting point and a bridge for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, and now all that is gone, which is probably the most dramatic effect [of the move],” he said.

“But I repeat, that’s in terms of the political situation,” he said. “At the level of daily life, things are basically unchanged.”

[…]

It’s certainly not that Pizzaballa is blind to the human toll of the anger and hopelessness the decision has spawned in some quarters.

“Once again, the lives of many young people are being snuffed out and hundreds of families are crying over their dead,” he said, in a statement shortly after the embassy move happened. “One more time, in a sort of vicious circle, we find ourselves denouncing every form of violence, every cynical use of human life and disproportionate violence.”

On Saturday, he was more direct in terms of the political results of the move, saying both it and the response it generated demonstrated that the model of a peace process embodied in the 1993 Oslo Accords between then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and both then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, all of whom would receive the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, was over.

[…]

Asked if the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is now “impossible,” Piazzaballa said “it remains the ideal.”

“Obviously, dialogue is essential because the current situation cannot stand,” he said. “But right now, it’s hard to anticipate the what, how and when [of a new peace process], because now the parties are not only not dialoguing, there’s no will to dialogue.”

Pizzaballa also commented on long-running efforts to reach agreement between the Vatican and Israel on the legal and tax status of Church properties in the country, pursuant to a 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the two sides.

Ever since, a bilateral working commission has been attempting to work out a deal.

“At the moment, the churches are living in a sort of limbo,” he said.

“We’re still living under Ottoman law, but obviously the situation has changed since then,” he said. “What we need is full citizenship from a legal point of view.”

Pizzaballa said that a controversy earlier this year in which the storied Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christian tradition holds Christ was buried, was shut down during an attempted tax collection push by the Jerusalem Municipality, was a “flash point” illustrating the need for an agreement.

“It’s not that the churches don’t want to pay taxes,” he said. “But it must happen under the law, not through unilateral edicts of municipal governments. We have to define an agreed-upon, rational process, to create a way for the Church to live.”

[…]

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Chesterton report could put apologist on road to sainthood [In-Depth]

G.K. Chesterton in his garden. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.)

LEICESTER, United Kingdom — One of the best-known writers of the early 20th century could also be a model of sanctity, but the priest charged with compiling a report on the potential of sainthood for G.K. Chesterton says the Church has to determine how much ‘devotion’ to him exists, rather than simple ‘admiration.’

[…]

In an era when the likes of Shaw, Oscar Wilde and H.G. Wells were challenging the tenets of Christianity, Chesterton was the leading voice challenging the modernist tendencies. It should be noted that despite his political differences with Shaw and Wells, he considered both men to be friends.

“There is clearly a huge amount of admiration for Chesterton around the world. But I have been tasked with finding about how much devotion to him is there rather than admiration,” said Canon John Udris.

He was given this task in 2013 by Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton in order to determine whether a cause for canonization should be opened for the writer.

“He [Doyle] has been receiving requests from around the world to open Chesterton’s cause and wanted to respond to those increasing requests,” Udris said.

“I have received testimonies from around the world, but the most significant support has come from the U.S., Canada and South America,” he added.

The report will be submitted later this summer.

Udris told Crux he has received many testimonies from people who credit their receptions into the Catholic Church to the influence of Chesterton, but he said the more significant stories are those “who describe that influence as a ‘live one’ whereby they felt his prayerful presence as they were reading him.”

The priest said a way of teasing out that difference between devotion and admiration “is to say it’s one thing to love reading Chesterton but does reading him lead into a relationship with him. And does that relationship lead to a deeper relationship with Christ?”

Udris admitted Chesterton certainly doesn’t fit the typical mold when it comes to sanctity, calling him a “cigar-smoking, pleasures-of-life-loving person.”

“But I think this may actually be a good thing,” the priest told Crux.

“He helps us see humor, for example, as part of holiness too, like one of his great patron saints, Thomas More. Also, because it would be good to have more married lay people like him to be role models for us,” he said.

[…]

“One of the questions it is necessary to answer is why it might be timely for Chesterton to be declared a saint in our time,” Udris said.

“I think he would be a great icon for the new evangelization because he combined clarity with charity. He had the ability to defend the Catholic faith in a very effective way with those who did not share his views. And making even his opponents feel respected and loved,” he said.

Pope Francis is certainly an admirer: While still Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he approved a prayer that Chesterton’s wisdom be more widely spread across the world.

And during one of his first daily Masses in his first year as pope, Francis quoted an “English writer” who said heresy is a “truth…that has gone mad.” That writer? Chesterton.

[..]

[OldWorldSwine]

+JMJ+

Chesterton report could put apologist on road to sainthood [In-Depth]

G.K. Chesterton in his garden. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.)

LEICESTER, United Kingdom — One of the best-known writers of the early 20th century could also be a model of sanctity, but the priest charged with compiling a report on the potential of sainthood for G.K. Chesterton says the Church has to determine how much ‘devotion’ to him exists, rather than simple ‘admiration.’

[…]

In an era when the likes of Shaw, Oscar Wilde and H.G. Wells were challenging the tenets of Christianity, Chesterton was the leading voice challenging the modernist tendencies. It should be noted that despite his political differences with Shaw and Wells, he considered both men to be friends.

“There is clearly a huge amount of admiration for Chesterton around the world. But I have been tasked with finding about how much devotion to him is there rather than admiration,” said Canon John Udris.

He was given this task in 2013 by Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton in order to determine whether a cause for canonization should be opened for the writer.

“He [Doyle] has been receiving requests from around the world to open Chesterton’s cause and wanted to respond to those increasing requests,” Udris said.

“I have received testimonies from around the world, but the most significant support has come from the U.S., Canada and South America,” he added.

The report will be submitted later this summer.

Udris told Crux he has received many testimonies from people who credit their receptions into the Catholic Church to the influence of Chesterton, but he said the more significant stories are those “who describe that influence as a ‘live one’ whereby they felt his prayerful presence as they were reading him.”

The priest said a way of teasing out that difference between devotion and admiration “is to say it’s one thing to love reading Chesterton but does reading him lead into a relationship with him. And does that relationship lead to a deeper relationship with Christ?”

Udris admitted Chesterton certainly doesn’t fit the typical mold when it comes to sanctity, calling him a “cigar-smoking, pleasures-of-life-loving person.”

“But I think this may actually be a good thing,” the priest told Crux.

“He helps us see humor, for example, as part of holiness too, like one of his great patron saints, Thomas More. Also, because it would be good to have more married lay people like him to be role models for us,” he said.

[…]

“One of the questions it is necessary to answer is why it might be timely for Chesterton to be declared a saint in our time,” Udris said.

“I think he would be a great icon for the new evangelization because he combined clarity with charity. He had the ability to defend the Catholic faith in a very effective way with those who did not share his views. And making even his opponents feel respected and loved,” he said.

Pope Francis is certainly an admirer: While still Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he approved a prayer that Chesterton’s wisdom be more widely spread across the world.

And during one of his first daily Masses in his first year as pope, Francis quoted an “English writer” who said heresy is a “truth…that has gone mad.” That writer? Chesterton.

[..]

Yup. I ask for his intercession almost every day.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Holy Land churches cry foul over Israeli legislation on lands

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Fouad Twal (C) sprinkles holy water on worshippers outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, on Dec 24, 2015.
AFP/Musa Al-Shaer

Residents living in homes on such lands fear the churches could sell the lands to private developers

Three major Holy Land churches implored Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to prevent the advancement of a draft bill they said was aimed at expropriating their lands.Heads of the Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches in Jerusalem also accused the Israeli authorities of failing to keep a committment made just a few months ago that brought an end to a major crisis between the sides.

[…]

In their Monday letter to Netanyahu, the Christian leaders slammed the "scandalous bill," accusing its backers of an "unprecedented attack against the Christians of the Land".

"Certain elements in the government of Israel are still attempting to promote divisive, racist and subversive agendas, thereby undermining the Status Quo and targeting the Christian community on the basis of extraneous and populist considerations," they said.

The church leaders also said that despite the Israeli committment to communicate on these issues via a specially appointed committee headed by Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, "no dialogue whatsoever has taken place with us" since the end of February.

"We view such conduct, from those who promote the bill, as a flagrant violation and undermining of Your Excellency's commitment and of the basic and fundamental freedom of worship," the church leaders said.

They urged Netanyahu to swiftly "block the bill whose unilateral promotion will compel the Churches to reciprocate".

[…]

[Rachel Azaria, a lawmaker with the centrist coalition party Kulanu] said her bill did not single out churches, and was aimed at solving the problem of "thousands of Jerusalem residents who could lose their homes due to the demands of developers".

There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu's office while Hanegbi refused to comment.

A spokeswoman for Azaria said the bill was coordinated with Netanyahu and Hanegbi.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Cleveland Bishop Nelson Perez Says 'Churches Have No Borders'; Prays For Immigration Reform

Father Bill Thaden (standing) of Sacred Heart Chapel in Lorain hosted Cleveland Diocese Bishop Nelson Perez (seated) to celebrate the special Mass to pray for immigrant families and immigration reform.
KABIR BHATIA / WKSU

A Catholic church in Lorain hosted Bishop Nelson Perez yesterday for a special Mass to pray for immigrant families and for immigration reform.

Bishop Perez came to Sacred Heart Chapel because of the large number of Hispanics in the area — more than a fifth of the City of Lorain’s population. The Bishop says he came not to make a political statement but to hopefully show people that they cannot be indifferent to those who come to the U.S. illegally.

“The reality is that none of us, individually, really has the power to change laws, to reform immigration, to change policies. But remember what Paul said in that second reading: when you feel powerless, then you are powerful in God’s grace.

“For the church, there are no borders. The church cannot be detained. And the same church that was present in the lives of our brothers and sisters in their countries of origin — that encountered them and accompanied them — well they come here, and they’re embraced by the same church.”

ICE agents arrested more than 200 people in raids in Northeast Ohio last month. Church leaders say while none of the families at Sacred Heart were directly affected by those raids, parishioners are concerned that immigration actions could happen in Lorain.

[…]

[Del]

+JMJ+

Cleveland Bishop Nelson Perez Says 'Churches Have No Borders'; Prays For Immigration Reform

Our faith has no borders. This is why fascists and communists, from Ku Klux Klansmen to Plutarco Calles, and people like Sen. Diane Feinstein, have always hated Catholics -- They fear that we might obey some foreign moral leader rather than worship the State.

The US Catholic bishops have been calling for immigration reform for decades. Our broken system has unjustly terrorized Hispanic families for too long, under Administrations of both Parties. The long policy of offering hope of jobs and a better life, letting people enter easily, and then punishing them for doing so must end.

It is past time for our politicians to work together an fix their own failures.

And if we value justice as a national virtue, then we must offer a generous amnesty to the families who have established themselves here during our decades of neglecting our own laws and borders.

[Hovannes]

+JMJ+

Cleveland Bishop Nelson Perez Says 'Churches Have No Borders'; Prays For Immigration Reform

Our faith has no borders. This is why fascists and communists, from Ku Klux Klansmen to Plutarco Calles, and people like Sen. Diane Feinstein, have always hated Catholics -- They fear that we might obey some foreign moral leader rather than worship the State.

The US Catholic bishops have been calling for immigration reform for decades. Our broken system has unjustly terrorized Hispanic families for too long, under Administrations of both Parties. The long policy of offering hope of jobs and a better life, letting people enter easily, and then punishing them for doing so must end.

It is past time for our politicians to work together an fix their own failures.

And if we value justice as a national virtue, then we must offer a generous amnesty to the families who have established themselves here during our decades of neglecting our own laws and borders.

+1!

[Thunktank]

+JMJ+

Cleveland Bishop Nelson Perez Says 'Churches Have No Borders'; Prays For Immigration Reform

Our faith has no borders. This is why fascists and communists, from Ku Klux Klansmen to Plutarco Calles, and people like Sen. Diane Feinstein, have always hated Catholics -- They fear that we might obey some foreign moral leader rather than worship the State.

The US Catholic bishops have been calling for immigration reform for decades. Our broken system has unjustly terrorized Hispanic families for too long, under Administrations of both Parties. The long policy of offering hope of jobs and a better life, letting people enter easily, and then punishing them for doing so must end.

It is past time for our politicians to work together an fix their own failures.

And if we value justice as a national virtue, then we must offer a generous amnesty to the families who have established themselves here during our decades of neglecting our own laws and borders.

+1!

Why is it that the Bay Area’s most socially progressive leaders are Catholics? I can understand the philosophy of freedom and liberty to allow certain actions and activities to be permitted, but these Catholic progressives are downright militant against Catholic moral principles in certain ways, especially in regards to sex and families. I just don’t understand why they persist as Catholics. Of course I say this as a person who isn’t a cradle Catholic, so I really don’t know how some people habitually call themselves Catholics just because that’s what they were born with.

[John-Boy]

Gentlemen, please migrate the immigration discussion to the Opt-In forum.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Gentlemen, please migrate the immigration discussion to the Opt-In forum.

The article explicitly says of Bp Perez that "[he] says he came not to make a political statement". His hands are clean.

I blame Del.

[TNLawPiper]

+JMJ+

Gentlemen, please migrate the immigration discussion to the Opt-In forum.

The article explicitly says of Bp Perez that "[he] says he came not to make a political statement". His hands are clean.

I blame Del.

It's always Unkel Del's fault.

[Jester]

<jb>Del's post has been moved to the appropriate thread in the Opt-In Sub-Forum.</jb>

We are discussing this very thing in the Opt In forum.

Gentlemen, please migrate the immigration discussion to the Opt-In forum.

[Thoth]

+JMJ+

Hindu nationalists trample papal image, call for Christian-free India

In this 2015 file photo, demonstrators shout slogans as they hold placards during a protest outside Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi. (Credit: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters via CNS.)

NEW DELHI, India — Hindu nationalists trampled a photo of Pope Francis near Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi in a video calling for a Christian-free India which was recently posted online.

The video shows a group of about 20 people chanting “Pope Francis murdabad,” meaning “down with Pope Francis,” after a speech by a man believed to be the controversial Hindu leader Om Swami Maharaj.

Muharaj accused Christians of promoting terrorism and threatened forcefully to expel them from India, reported ucanews.com.

The video began circulating on social media a few weeks after Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi wrote a letter calling for a one year prayer campaign leading up to India’s 2019 general elections.

[…]

The archbishop’s letter quickly sparked a controversy among the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Several BJP leaders condemned the archbishop’s letter, calling it a “divisive move.” One BJP parliamentarian, Subramanian Swamy, called for India to end all diplomatic relations with the Vatican in a Twitter message May 23.

[…]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m70UZLyPFI

This is both not surprising and ironic, in that there is a native Christian population in India (according to tradition dating back to St. Thomas and solid historical evidence from at least the 5th century) and it is has had a less than pleasant relationship with the Catholic Church (via the Portuguese).

More shocking is news of the Filipino president taking shots at the Catholic church...

[Thunktank]

+JMJ+

Hindu nationalists trample papal image, call for Christian-free India

In this 2015 file photo, demonstrators shout slogans as they hold placards during a protest outside Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi. (Credit: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters via CNS.)

NEW DELHI, India — Hindu nationalists trampled a photo of Pope Francis near Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi in a video calling for a Christian-free India which was recently posted online.

The video shows a group of about 20 people chanting “Pope Francis murdabad,” meaning “down with Pope Francis,” after a speech by a man believed to be the controversial Hindu leader Om Swami Maharaj.

Muharaj accused Christians of promoting terrorism and threatened forcefully to expel them from India, reported ucanews.com.

The video began circulating on social media a few weeks after Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi wrote a letter calling for a one year prayer campaign leading up to India’s 2019 general elections.

[…]

The archbishop’s letter quickly sparked a controversy among the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Several BJP leaders condemned the archbishop’s letter, calling it a “divisive move.” One BJP parliamentarian, Subramanian Swamy, called for India to end all diplomatic relations with the Vatican in a Twitter message May 23.

[…]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m70UZLyPFI

This is both not surprising and ironic, in that there is a native Christian population in India (according to tradition dating back to St. Thomas and solid historical evidence from at least the 5th century) and it is has had a less than pleasant relationship with the Catholic Church (via the Portuguese).

More shocking is news of the Filipino president taking shots at the Catholic church...

The Saint Thomas Christians were an ecclesiastical and theologically mess. They were half Hindu when the Portuguese showed up. Some chose to join Rome, others didn’t and yet others scattered under the Nestorians, Oriental and independent groups. A mess. No, it isn’t surprising that they don’t want Christians around, such is what happens when Christians of any type don’t conform to what the Hindu wants. The Pope is a visible sign of unity and authority. That’s really going to upset anyone who prefers the mess.

[Del]

Jesus promised us that we would be persecuted for the sake of His Name.

He should know. He was crucified for it.

[ksoii]

Wish I was in India right now. What a great opportunity to be Christ's witness.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Bishops sought to share journey with migrants, not join political fray

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, listens to immigrants recently released from U.S. custody July 1 at a Catholic Charities-run respite center in McAllen, Texas. A delegation of U.S. bishops traveled to the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, to learn more about the detention of immigrants, mostly Central Americans, at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Credit: Chaz Muth/CNS.)

[…]

Though many bishops come to know immigrants in the dioceses where they serve, except for the bishops along the border, few prelates witness that initial phase of the immigration journey that a group of bishops was privy to in early July.

They fed and spoke with a group of newly arrived immigrants to the U.S. at a Catholic Charities center and visited the controversial facilities where migrant children and teens have gotten their first taste of the U.S. — in detention — while temporarily separated from family. The bishops gave them rosaries and Bibles following a Mass they celebrated at one of the centers.

With their actions of charity and faith, they inserted themselves into the heart of the radioactive immigration debate the United States is experiencing, and one in which some Catholics remain aligned with political party ideology rather than with what the Church is saying on the topic.

[…]

To explain the situation to Catholics and others opposed to the presence of the migrants and how they entered the country, [Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Rockville Centre, New York] said he focuses on the humanity of the situation. But it is important to listen to all sides of the situation, he said.

“Even people who would want to be tougher on the (immigrants), we all share that sense of humanity,” said Brennan. “I think there is compassion, but we have to acknowledge people’s fears and acknowledge them as valid. We have to start meeting everyone where they are and recognizing those fears and concerns.”

There are solutions to bring about security at the border in ways that are humane and that’s what Brennan said he wants to get across. And those who may be voicing their stance against the migrants, “they’re not heartless,” Brennan said, but they might be reacting to other factors.

“You see chaos in the world around you and that worries you and that’s why the bishops have been so strong about comprehensive immigration reform, it’s not just fancy words,” he said. “We have to look at the whole picture and when we look at the whole picture, it’s not as complicated as it seems.”

[…]

For the bishops, whose actions and words are amplified and often publicly scrutinized, “sharing the journey” when it comes to immigration meant sharing a story that some in their flock resist hearing because of the political rhetoric surrounding the issue. But the prelates tried to direct the attention away from the politics of it and directed it toward its human cost and why the Church cares about it.

“It’s not just a matter of politics, it’s a matter of humanity,” said [Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles] during a July 2 news conference closing the prelates’ visit.

[…]

Regardless of the political implications, some like Kevin Appleby, senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York, maintain that the life and death implications and damage to families by the Trump administration’s policies merits the involvement of the Church.

“The visit to the border was an important step, but bishops across the country need to be loud and clear that President Trump and his administration should not prosecute asylum-seekers who are fleeing for their lives, detain them indefinitely, and deny them due process protections,” he said. “This is a moment in which the Catholic community should be united in their opposition to the administration’s zero-tolerance policy, as it undermines family unity, a core principle of Catholic teaching.”

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Papal confidantes rue prosperity gospel, distorted ‘American dream’

Pope Francis accepts an issue of La Civilta Cattolica from Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Jesuit-run magazine, during a Feb. 9 meeting with editors and staff. (Credit: CNS.)

NEW YORK — In a follow-up to their much-discussed July 2017 article condemning an alliance between conservative U.S. Catholics and Evangelicals as an “ecumenism of hate,” papal confidantes Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro and Presbyterian pastor Marcelo Figueroa have published a new essay in which they criticize the “prosperity gospel” and its influence on the idea of the “American Dream.”

In their latest essay in the influential Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, the authors argue that the prosperity gospel, which traces its origins to the Unites States in the late 19th-century, views wealth and success as synonymous with true religious conviction, and consequently, sees “poverty, sickness and unhappiness” as a lack of faith.

Spadaro, who is Italian, and Figueroa, an Argentinian, chronicle the global embrace of the prosperity gospel movement, which has swept across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In their essay, however, the two specifically identify its origins in the United States, where the American Dream — the idea that the country is a place of “open opportunity” where migrants can pursue the prospect of success in ways “unreachable in their old world” — has been translated into religious belief, defined by affluence.

Although U.S. President Donald Trump’s name is only mentioned once in the article’s text — along with multiple footnote citations — the two clearly see the current occupant of the Oval Office, a wealthy businessman turned politician, as emblematic of their criticisms that a theology defined by prosperity has, in Pope Francis’s words, “overshadow[ed] the Gospel of Christ.”

[…]

A consequence of the prosperity gospel’s entanglement in the idea of the American Dream, according to Spadaro and Figueroa, is that the economic success of the United States has been viewed as a direct result of its faith.“It leads to the conclusion that the United States has grown as a nation under the blessing of the providential God of the Evangelical movement,” they write. “Meanwhile, those who dwell south of the Rio Grande are sinking in poverty because the Catholic Church has a different, opposed vision, exalting poverty.”

Such a view, they believe, “exasperates individualism and knocks down the sense of solidarity.” In particular, Spadaro and Figueroa identify the consequences that such a belief system yields when responding to marginalized individuals or communities.

“Sad and disastrous events, including natural ones, or tragedies such as those of migrants and others in similar situations do not offer winning narratives that help to keep the faithful tied to the thought of the prosperity gospel,” they argue.

“This is why there can be a lack of empathy and solidarity in these cases from its followers. There can be no compassion for those who are not prosperous, for clearly they have not followed the rules and thus live in failure and are not loved by God.”

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has routinely criticized a theology of prosperity, emphasizing that salvation is given, rather than something that is derived from material success or prosperity.

[…]

Although not an official publication of the Vatican, La Civiltà Cattolica is reviewed by the Vatican’s Secretary of State before publication, and under Spadaro, who serves as its editor-in-chief, it has been considered one of the foremost vehicles for understanding the views of the current pontificate.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

New blood stain analysis casts doubt on authenticity of Shroud of Turin

In a 2015 file photo, the Shroud of Turin is displayed at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)

LEICESTER, United Kingdom — Checking bloodstains, re-enacting crimes, hitting the lab to check the results: It has been the bread-and-butter of police procedurals since “CSI” first premiered in 2000.

Now it has been used to test what some say is the surviving evidence of the most important killing in history: The Shroud of Turin, which many people purport to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Matteo Borrini, a forensic anthropologist at the Liverpool John Moores University in England, used bloodstain pattern analysis on the Shroud of Turin.

Together with fellow researcher Luigi Garlaschelli, he published the results this month in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

[…]

Borrini began conducting his research in 2014, and has presented his findings before, but this was the first publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

“When we have bloodstains — you can have bloodstains on the walls, on the objects, on the victims, on the perpetrator or on the clothes — the approach is to analyze the shape and the direction of that stain to understand what happened during the crime,” Borrini told Crux, explaining the science behind bloodstain pattern analysis. “This is a forensic technique that is used to reconstruct a criminal event, to determine how that event occurred.”

Using a volunteer, he “reconstructed the crime” and studied how the blood would flow from the wounds depicted on the Shroud. Although some of the stains were consistent with what you would expect from someone crucified and then placed in a burial garment, there were also “inconsistencies.”

“The BPA of blood visible on the frontal side of the chest (the lance wound) shows that the shroud represents the bleeding in a realistic manner for a standing position while the stains at the back—of a supposed post-mortem bleeding from the same wound for a supine corpse—are totally unrealistic,” the article reads.

“What we see on the Shroud is a ‘double bleeding.’ There is a bleeding on the chest, and a few rivulets near the lumbar region that are running horizontally across the body from left to right,” Borrini told Crux.

“We did this test: If you have a person standing affixed to a cross, the blood flows from the top of the body to the bottom, as you would expect because the blood is following the gravitational flow from the chest to the bottom of the body. And this is what we see on the Shroud, so this part seems to be consistent,” he said.

However, Borrini said there is no way while the person is standing that the blood can flow across his lumbar region, so he tested whether or not the bleeding may have occurred post-mortem, after the body was placed in the grave.

“We repeated the test, and what we obtained is completely different than what we have on the Shroud. If the body is lying down on the Shroud inside the grave, what happens is the blood runs from the chest to the armpits and then behind to the shoulders. What we have is a big huge stain on the fabric … and this is not what we see on the Shroud,” he told Crux.

However, defenders of the Shroud’s authenticity have called Borrini’s work “non-scientific.”

“This stuff does not have the rigor of other investigations such as those carried out forty years ago on cadavers,” said Emanuela Marinelli, an expert on the Shroud of Turin, saying these studies had “different results” than those of Borrini and Garlaschelli.

In an interview with Vatican Media — an organ of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication — Marinelli questioned why Borrini’s Liverpool university would fund the study.

“It is undeniable that behind some of these are groups that want people to believe that the Shroud is a not a true artifact,” Marinelli said, pointing to the strong controversies surrounding the carbon dating in the 1980s.

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