ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, SLATERSVILLE RI

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s current doctrinal chief and principal drafter of “Fiducia Supplicans,” is shown during the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican, Oct. 9, 2023. / Credit: Edward Pentin/National Catholic Register

National Catholic Register, Dec 18, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Around this time last year, a Vatican document authorizing priests to provide nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples led to headlines around the world in the secular and Catholic presses. Some bishops from Africa rejected the pronouncement, some in Europe celebrated it, and bishops in various places issued guidelines explaining it. 

One year later, what has been the document’s effect on the Catholic Church in the United States? How common — or uncommon — are blessings of people in same-sex relationships in parishes? 

To try to find out, the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, earlier this month contacted all 177 Latin-rite dioceses in the United States asking for their experiences with implementing the document, Fiducia Supplicans, which allowed what the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith called “the possibility of blessings for couples … of the same sex,” providing the blessings be short, follow no liturgy to avoid looking like a wedding, and “not claim to sanction or legitimize anything.” 

Twenty-one dioceses responded. Some of those declined to comment. All who provided information said they don’t track blessings offered by priests; virtually none reported receiving either complaints or comments from priests or other people regarding practices stemming from the document. 

A year ago, supporters saw the document (which was followed by a clarifying statement two and a half weeks later) either as a useful pastoral approach to people in what the Church considers objectively sinful situations, or a step toward full endorsement of same-sex sexual relationships, which they welcomed. Some critics said it undermined Church teachings on marriage and sexuality; other opponents said that it didn’t go far enough. 

Spokane silence 

Father Darrin Connall told the Register that as vicar general of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, he speaks with many priests regularly and that not one has told him about a same-sex couple asking for a blessing. 

“I’m unaware of one case where that’s happened,” Connall said by telephone. “I haven’t heard a priest talk about it since last December, last January.” 

Bishop David O’Connell of the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, said he isn’t aware of any blessings of same-sex couples by priests in his diocese. 

“I don’t have any sense that it happened at all. It may have. But if it’s been done, it has been done clandestinely, and done without my knowledge,” O’Connell said. 

“I’m certainly aware of what the document says. I’m aware of the boundaries, and I have no problem discussing them, but it just doesn’t come up,” he said, adding that he hasn’t been asked personally to do such blessings.

In the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, discussion about the document quickly died down after its release, said Father Peter Karalus, vicar general of the diocese.

“There was initial discussion at the Presbyteral Council and other consultative bodies when the document was first issued but there have not been any follow-up discussions or requests for discussion,” Karalus told the Register by email through a spokesman for the diocese.

That mirrors the experiences of almost all other dioceses that provided comment to the Register. 

Highest percentage of same-sex couples 

An exception is the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The city of San Francisco has the highest percentage of same-sex couples among large cities in the United States. 

“We have had some issues over the past year with people trying to insist they be blessed in an illegitimate manner,” said Peter Marlow, a representative of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, by email. 

Marlow shared with the Register excerpts from a memo Cordileone sent priests of the archdiocese a few days after the Vatican document was released. 

In it, the archbishop said that such blessings must be “spontaneous” and not “pre-planned, pre-scheduled, or ritualistically celebrated.” 

He noted in the memo to priests that priests and bishops “are frequently asked by people to give them a blessing.” 

“I’m sure you, as I, never ask information about their moral lives or how they are living out their intimate relationships. We simply bless them,” Cordileone wrote. “Consequently, in the case of two people who present themselves as a couple in a marriage or marriage-like relationship, but it is evident that they are not in the bond of a valid marriage, it is always licit to bless them as two separate individuals.” 

But such blessings shouldn’t be given, he said, “if it would be a cause of scandal, that is, if it would mislead either the persons themselves or others into believing that there may be contexts other than marriage in which ‘sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning.’” 

The last phrase in quotation marks is taken from Fiducia Supplicans (No. 4). 

“As a consequence, any priest has the right to deny such blessings if, in his judgment, doing so would be a source of scandal in any way,” Cordileone wrote. 

Judgment calls 

Connall, of the Diocese of Spokane, told the Register that priests make judgment calls about blessings and many other things all the time. 

“There are all kinds of pastoral decisions that we make on any one day that the bishop respects,” Connall said. 

Fiducia Supplicans shifted the approach of a previous Vatican policy as stated in a document released in February 2021, which said that the Church can offer blessings “to individual persons with homosexual inclinations” but not to unions of same-sex couples, because God “does not and cannot bless sin.” 

Vatican officials have said the December 2023 document does not alter Church teaching that sexual activity is moral only if engaged in by a man and woman married to each other who are open to the possibility of procreating new life. 

“The real novelty of this declaration,” wrote Cardinal Víctor Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a January clarifying statement, “… is not the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations.” 

Instead, he said, “it is the invitation to distinguish between two different forms of blessings” — what he called “liturgical or ritualized” on the one hand and “spontaneous or pastoral” on the other. 

That distinction is clear to priests in the Diocese of Buffalo, said Karalus, the vicar general there. 

He said: “Priests understand that it is not a blessing of a couple or a relationship but a blessing upon the individuals.” 

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, on Dec. 17, 2024, and has been adapted by CNA.

Pope Francis speaks with young men during a general audience. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 18, 2024 / 10:15 am (CNA).

In a message addressed to young people entering the workforce, Pope Francis, alluding to bosses, advised them not to “give in to requests that humiliate you or cause you discomfort, to ways of proceeding and demands that tarnish your authenticity.” 

Pope Francis sent this message to Italian teenagers and young people participating in LaborDì, a day of reflection to promote decent work organized by the Christian Association of Italian Workers.

The Holy Father began his talk with an invitation to hope, reminding them that they are “made for the light.” After adolescence, the pope continued, “the world scene opens up.” Faced with this challenge, he assured the youth that with their contribution “the world can be improved” and that “everything, really everything, can change.”

He urged young people to maintain the awareness of their uniqueness, “which transcends any success or failure,” and to establish sincere relationships with others, paying attention to the quality of human life.

The Holy Father invited young people to “guard your heart,” especially when they reach the age of taking on their first job. Faced with the demands and “too many directions and recommendations” that they can experience in the world of work, he asked young people to “remain at peace and free.”

“Don’t give in to requests that humiliate you and cause you discomfort, to ways of proceeding and demands that tarnish your authenticity. In fact, to make your contribution, you don’t have to accept just anything, or even bad things,” Pope Francis warned. 

The pontiff counseled them to “not conform to models you don’t believe in, perhaps to gain social prestige or more money since “evil alienates us, extinguishes dreams, makes us lonely and resigned. The heart knows how to notice it and, when this is the case, we must ask for help and team up with those who know us and care about us.” 

The pope emphasized that “results are not everything,” explaining that machines are already there for that.” Human, on the other hand, is “the intelligence of the heart, the reason that understands the reasons of others, the imagination that creates what is not yet.” We are all “unique pieces,” the Holy Father emphasized.

He then asked the adults who accompany them to not force them into conformity with the status quo or corrupt the young people: “Let us trust in what is planted in their hearts.”

Pope Francis concluded by encouraging young people to join forces and “build networks” to repair our common home and rebuild human fraternity. “The human heart knows how to hope. Work that does not alienate, but liberates, begins in the heart,” he concluded.

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

St. Nicholas, by Jaroslav Čermák (1831-1878). / Credit: Galerie Art Praha via Wikimedia (public domain)

CNA Staff, Dec 18, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of excavation work, the leader of an archeological expedition at the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey, announced this week that her team has found a sarcophagus that may contain the body of St. Nick — a discovery that could muddy the conventional wisdom about the true resting place of the saint’s relics, which is currently believed to be Italy.

In a recent interview, the leader of the expedition, Professor Ebru Fatma Fındık, said that sources point to Turkey’s southern Antalya Province as Nicholas’ resting place after his death, which took place in the 340s. 

She said that after an earthquake in the region in 529, archeologists believe the Church of St. Nicholas, long a popular pilgrimage site, especially for Russian Orthodox Christians, “may have been built near the burial place of the saint.”

In another interview, Fındık speculated that the sarcophagus, “the first sarcophagus unearthed in the church” after drilling work began in 2022, could have been covered by gravel and sand from a flood or tsunami, which she says is why it is so well preserved.

Turkish claims to the resting place of St. Nicholas are not new — in fact, Turkish officials have admitted for years that if they can prove that St. Nicholas is buried there, “tourism will gain big momentum.” The present excavations at the church were initiated by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

“We have been carrying out excavations in the church for months … During our drilling work in the two-story building that borders the courtyard of the church from the south, we came across a sarcophagus” that they believe belongs to St. Nicholas, Fındık said. 

“Geologists related to this subject will come soon, and they will actually investigate and examine it,” she said. 

Who was St. Nicholas?

Nicholas was an early Christian bishop born in the third century in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, at a time when Christians suffered sporadic but often brutal persecutions under the Roman Empire. He was ordained a priest and later ordained bishop of Myra, an ancient port city that corresponds to the modern-day Turkish city of Demre. 

There are numerous legends about Nicholas, who was known for his generosity; perhaps the most famous of which is that he once dropped three bags of gold through an open window or down the chimney at a house in Myra to pay the doweries of the three women who lived there, ultimately saving them from a life of prostitution. This is likely the explanation for why the modern Christmas character of Santa Claus clandestinely brings gifts for children. 

Nicholas was imprisoned for a time under the persecution of Emperor Diocletian, only released when Constantine the Great came to power and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Nicholas later participated in the Council of Nicea in 325 and fervently defended the Church against heretics such as Arius. 

He died on Dec. 6, which is the day his feast is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church. He is deeply revered in the East as well, especially in the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Where are Nicholas’ relics?

The location of St. Nicholas’ mortal remains is already a matter of some dispute, and the discovery of the additional sarcophagus, depending on what it contains, will likely muddy things further. 

Churches across the world — including in Germany, Russia, and even Virginia — claim to possess relics of him. But the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, in Italy’s southern region of Puglia, has perhaps the strongest claim to St. Nicholas’ final resting place today. 

Amid the takeover of the Turkish region by the Muslim Seljuks, Nicholas’ bones were purportedly moved by merchants from Myra to Bari in 1087 — and a few bones reportedly made their way to Venice — not long after the Great Schism between Catholics and the Orthodox in 1054. 

A desecrated sarcophagus located in the Turkish church was previously thought to contain Nicholas’ body until it was taken — either for pious or opportunistic reasons, depending on whom you ask — to Italy.  

Pope Francis has visited Bari twice during his papacy, and during both the 2018 and 2020 visits, he stopped in the basilica’s crypt to venerate St. Nicholas’ relics. In the crypt where St. Nicholas is purportedly buried, there is an altar for the celebration of Orthodox and Eastern Catholic liturgies, making it an important ecumenical site. 

In 1953, scientific studies confirmed that bones from both Bari and Venice belonged to the same individual, though whether they were both from St. Nicholas remains inconclusive, Archaeology Magazine reported.

null / Credit: udra11/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 18, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Wednesday, Dec. 18, is a special day in the Catholic Church, though relatively few Catholics probably realize it. 

This Wednesday — along with the following Friday and Saturday, Dec. 20 and 21 — is an ember day, a day traditionally set aside for fasting and abstinence from meat. These three upcoming ember days are the last ones of 2024. 

But what are ember days, and why do they exist?

Ember days are tied to the four seasons of the year. The reason “ember” is associated with these days seems to be that the word is a corruption of the Latin phrase “quatuor tempora,” meaning four seasons. 

Each of the four seasons of the year contains three ember days. The 12 total ember days throughout the year are:

• The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Ash Wednesday

• The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Pentecost

• The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14)

• The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the feast of St. Lucy, which is Dec. 13 

Ember days appear to be a very early Christian practice, first attested to as part of apostolic tradition by Pope Leo I in the fifth century. The purpose of their introduction, according to The Catholic Encyclopedia, was to thank God for the gifts of nature (hence their tie to the natural seasons), especially the crops used to make bread and wine for the Eucharist; to teach people to make use of those gifts in moderation; and to assist the needy. 

Ember days also served as a response to the pagan festivals of Rome; the days encouraged Christians to counter the excesses and debauchery of those festivals by, instead, fasting and praying. At first the Church in Rome had fasts in June, September, and December, but the exact days were not fixed. The first record of the fasts for all four seasons being decreed comes in the writing of Pope Gelasius at the end of the fifth century. 

After Gelasius, the practice spread beyond Rome. Gelasius also started the practice of permitting the conferring of ordinations on ember Saturdays, which were formerly given only at Easter, The Catholic Encyclopedia records. That tradition of holding ordinations of ember Saturdays also continues today, and in addition, ember days have traditionally been days of prayer for vocations.

The observance of ember days was later prescribed for the entire Latin Church by Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085). So, ember days were a big part of Catholic life for quite a while. 

Though canon law no longer requires the observance of fasting and abstinence on ember days, they remain important for Catholics in many countries, and their continued observance by Catholics everywhere is certainly not discouraged. And in fact, some bishops in the United States have explicitly encouraged their Catholics to observe ember days and pray for specific intentions. 

Ember days are a fascinating and ancient tradition of the Catholic Church that has been largely forgotten, at least in the United States. Though certainly not required, consider observing the last ember days of the year, thanking God for nature and for the gifts he brings us through it.

This story was first published Dec. 17, 2022, and has been updated.

null / Credit: Diocese of Lansing, Michigan

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2024 / 17:40 pm (CNA).

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel this week released the fourth report in a series of investigations the state is conducting into abuse by Catholic clergy there. 

The attorney general’s report, released on Monday, looks at reported abuse in the Diocese of Lansing. Previous reports, released in 2022 and 2024, examined alleged abuse in the dioceses of Kalamazoo, Gaylord, and Marquette.  

As with the earlier investigations, the Lansing report looks at allegations of abuse dating back decades. The report includes “allegations of sexual abuse and other sexual misconduct, including grooming and misuse of authority against minors and adults.”

The attorney general’s office lists a total of 56 clergy and religious in its report, including two bishops, with more than 150 abuse allegations identified in the investigation.  

The majority of the individuals on the list, 37, are “known or presumed to be dead.” Of the remaining 19, just one — a deacon — is in “active ministry” in the Lansing Diocese, while three retired priests have “no restrictions on their ministry.” 

The report says the “vast majority” of the alleged abuse occurred prior to 2002, the year the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgated its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” 

Numerous allegations involve the alleged abuse of minors, while others involve inappropriate conduct or abuse of adults. One allegation involves a 5-year-old child.

The attorney general’s office said the materials in the report were gathered from “[a] tip line, victim interviews, police investigations, open-source media, paper documents seized from the Diocese of Lansing, and the electronic documents found on the diocesan computers,” as well as “reports of allegations disclosed by the diocese.”

Nessel on Monday said the state government “made a promise to the survivors years ago” to produce the abuse reports and that the investigations serve the purpose of “sharing their stories and validating their experiences.” 

The prosecutor’s office noted that prosecution of many of the allegations is barred by Michigan’s statute of limitations, though Nessel said that “criminal prosecutions are just one accountability metric.”

“Ensuring each victim is heard, regardless of how long ago the sexual abuse and misconduct may have been, is important in acknowledging their pain and fostering a culture that prioritizes these victims over their silence,” she said.

In a statement on Monday, the Diocese of Lansing noted that the attorney general’s report indicated that “the 1970s and ’80s were the peak decades for alleged instances of sexual misconduct” regarding clergy in the diocese.

“Over half” of the allegations, from 1950 until the present, occurred during those decades, the diocese said.

Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea said in the statement that his “heart breaks for all those who have suffered due to the evil of clerical sexual abuse.”

The bishop described the abuse as “a great betrayal of Jesus Christ, His Holy Church, the priesthood, and, most gravely, those victims — and their families — who were harmed physically, emotionally, but above all spiritually when they were so young.”

“To all those injured by such criminal and immoral actions I say clearly and without hesitation: these terrible things should never have happened to you; I am so deeply sorry that they ever did; please be assured of my prayers, penance, love, and support,” the prelate said. 

Diocese of Lansing general counsel Will Bloomfield, meanwhile, said on Monday that since the 2002 charter, the diocese has been referring abuse allegations to law enforcement and removing clerics “credibly accused” of abusing minors. 

The diocese mandates that “all allegations of grave clerical misconduct, including those involving adult victims, are professionally investigated and reviewed by a body of lay professionals called the Code of Conduct Advisory Council,” Bloomfield said. 

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims at his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 9, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Madrid, Spain, Dec 17, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

Did you know Pope Francis was a nightclub bouncer, his favorite movie is “La Strada” by Federico Fellini, and that he doesn’t watch television? On the occasion of his 88th birthday, these and other interesting facts about Pope Francis are highlighted below.

1. How did he discover his vocation?

On the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, Pope Francis discovered his vocation to the priesthood after going to confession when he was 16 years old. It happened on Sept. 21, 1953. It was Student Day in Argentina, which coincides with the day when spring begins in the southern hemisphere and is celebrated with a big party.

“Before going to the party, I passed by the parish I attended and I found a priest I didn’t know and I felt the need to go to confession. This was for me an experience of encounter: I found Someone who was waiting for me.”

“I don’t know what happened, I don’t remember, I don’t know why that priest was there, whom I didn’t know, why I had felt that desire to go to confession, but the truth is that Someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for a long time. After confession I felt that something had changed,” the Holy Father shared.

He said that after that confession he said that he was no longer himself: “I had heard something like a voice, a call: I was convinced that I had to be a priest.”

2. What is his favorite dish?

Nov. 19, 2022, was one of those rare occasions when Pope Francis left the Vatican without an official program. The reason? A family reunion in Asti, the Italian city where his cousin Daniela di Tiglione lives, who was celebrating her 90th birthday.

On that occasion, Pope Francis was able to enjoy his favorite dish: Bagna Cauda, ​​a typical Piedmont dish prepared with anchovies, oil, and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables.

3. A passion for tango

Before being ordained a priest, especially during his youth, Pope Francis enjoyed tango, one of the most emblematic dances of Argentina. He also liked the milonga, another typical dance from his homeland.

4. He was a bouncer in a nightclub

Like any young man, Jorge Bergoglio worked various jobs to earn his first salary. Although his first job was scrubbing the floors of the hosiery company where his father worked, in 2013 he confessed to a group of young people that he was also a bouncer at a nightclub. Thanks to that experience, he began “to guide the disillusioned to the Church.”

5. He’s missing a lung

When he was 21, he had to have a lung removed due to an infection, which has caused him to suffer from some breathing difficulties in recent years.

6. He has refused forgiveness only once

On more than one occasion, Pope Francis has encouraged priests to forgive “everything” in the confessional and to “not torture” the faithful in the confessional.

During an interview on Italian television in January, he stated that in his more than 50 years as a priest he has refused forgiveness only once, “because of the hypocrisy of the person.”

7. The prayer he says every day to keep his good humor

On several occasions, Pope Francis has praised a good sense of humor and stressed that sadness is not a Christian disposition. He has even gone so far as to say that the “hallmark of a Christian” is joy and not being a sourpuss. 

To be good-humored, he says a prayer from St. Thomas More every day, a prayer he has referred to in numerous public appearances, most recently with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.

“Lord, give me a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and be able to share it with others,” the Holy Father prays every day.

8. St. Joseph, his help in difficulties

There is an image of St. Joseph that Pope Francis is very fond of that shows the “silent” saint  lying down asleep.

During his apostolic trip to the Philippines, the pontiff referred to St. Joseph as “a strong man of silence” and said that he keeps this figurine on his desk. “Even when he sleeps, he takes care of the Church,” he said.

“When I have a problem, a difficulty, I write a little note and put it under St. Joseph so that he can dream about it. In other words, I tell him: Pray for this problem!” the Holy Father confessed.

9. Pope Francis favors taking a daily nap

Pope Francis usually goes to bed at 9 p.m. and wakes up around 4 a.m. He sleeps about six hours a day, as he usually reads for an hour after going to bed, until 10 p.m.

“Later I need a nap. I have to sleep for 40 minutes to an hour. I take off my shoes and fall into bed. And I also sleep deeply and wake up alone. On days when I don’t take a nap, I notice it,” he once said.

10. What is his favorite soccer team?

Even though he no longer lives in Argentina, Pope Francis continues to root for the San Lorenzo de Almagro team from Buenos Aires. He keeps up to date thanks to a Swiss Guard who informs him of the team’s news every week, since the pope doesn’t watch the games.

In fact, during an audience at the Vatican in September, a delegation from the San Lorenzo club asked the Holy Father for his blessing to name the club’s next stadium after him.

11. The day his life was saved

At the age of 44, Pope Francis suffered from gangrene of the gallbladder, a serious complication that occurs when the tissue of this organ of the digestive system becomes necrotic due to an interruption of blood flow.

“I felt like I was dying,” said the Holy Father, referring to the night in 1980 when he was operated on by Dr. Juan Carlos Parodi, an eminent Argentine surgeon who saved the life of then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In 2014, 34 years later, the two held a private meeting in the Vatican.

12. Where does he want to be buried?

Unlike many pontiffs throughout the history of the Church, whose coffins are in the crypts of the Vatican in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father revealed that he has had his tomb prepared in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome due to the great devotion he has to the Virgin Salus Populi Romani (protectress of the Roman people), to whom he made a promise.

In addition, in December 2022, the pontiff gave an interview in which he announced that he had signed his resignation in case his health did not allow him to continue exercising his ministry.

13. What is his favorite movie?

“La Strada” by Federico Fellini, winner of the Oscar for best foreign film in 1957.

14. He doesn’t watch television because of a promise to Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Pope Francis says he hasn’t watched television since July 15, 1990, when he promised Our Lady of Mount Carmel that he would no longer do so. The Holy Father made this promise because he “felt that God was asking me to do it.”

15. He went to therapy at age 42

In the book interview “Politics and Society” by Frenchman Dominique Wolton, Pope Francis recounted that, when he was provincial of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, he went to therapy for six months with a Jewish psychologist. “She was very good, very professional,” the Holy Father said.

16. An ‘incognito’ pope on the streets of Rome

In 2013, the year he was elected bishop of Rome, a Vatican source informed the Huffington Post that Pope Francis went out at night dressed as a priest to give alms and help the poor on the streets of Rome.

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

An Ontario judge has acquitted Linda Gibbons, a 76-year-old Christian grandmother and pro-life activist who was charged with protesting within an “buffer zone” outside an abortion clinic. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Campaign Life Coalition

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2024 / 16:40 pm (CNA).

Here’s a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related updates.  

Ontario judge acquits elderly pro-life activist

Linda Gibbons is not your average grandmother. This year, she was arrested four times — all for her pro-life activism outside abortion clinics.

The 76-year-old Canadian was brought in and out of an Ontario court in handcuffs before she was finally acquitted on Dec. 5. Ontario judge Maria Speyer ruled that Gibbons was not guilty of criminal mischief to property.

Gibbons was on trial for holding up a sign outside a Toronto abortion facility that performs abortions up to the middle of the second trimester of pregnancy. 

Gibbons stood in the 50-meter (164-foot) buffer zone, enacted in 2017 as part of the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act. She held her characteristic sign with an image of a young child that read: “Why Mom? When I have so much love to give.”

Gibbons “did not accost anyone or impede any patient as they made their way to the clinic other than having to step around her,” the judge found. The judge ruled that Gibbons “never stepped onto the walkway leading to the door,” making her not guilty of mischief. 

Gibbons, who remained silent during the hearing, has spent a combined nearly 11 years in prison for her pro-life work. She had been in jail since June.

“Justice was done for Linda,” Pete Baklinski, communications director for Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s national pro-life organization, told CNA. 

“The judge clearly saw that Linda’s actions of peacefully witnessing to life in front of the abortion mill in no way amounted to the criminal activity of ‘mischief.’ My hope is that this ruling adds to the growing body of jurisprudence that pro-life advocates have a right to speech in front of abortion centers and that it will be used in future cases to defend their right,” Baklinski said.  

Proposed Oklahoma bill would protect unborn 

A Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill to increase protection for unborn children and classify abortion as a felony for providers. Oklahoma Rep. Jim Olsen’s House Bill 1008, if passed, would revive a previous Senate bill that was struck down by the Oklahoma Supreme Court after being signed into law in 2022. 

Olsen rewrote S.B. 612 to match the preferences of the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling. H.B. 1008 prohibits providers from performing abortions “unless necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman.” The bill provides more protections for unborn children by requiring the medical provider to preserve both the life of the mother and the baby wherever possible unless the birth of the child is a threat to the mother’s life. Abortion is currently only legal in Oklahoma to save the life of the pregnant woman.

The bill would also make it a felony to perform an abortion, with a fine of up to $100,000, jail time of up to 10 years, or both. The proposed bill specifies that this would not apply to a woman with any criminal offense in the death of her own unborn child. It would also not prohibit contraceptive drugs used before the time that pregnancy could be determined. The bill notes that a physician would not be liable if the medical treatment provided to a pregnant woman accidentally resulted in the unborn child’s injury or death.  

Missouri abortion clinics pause abortions ahead of court ruling

Missouri’s pro-abortion amendment legalizing abortion went into effect on Dec. 6, but local Planned Parenthood clinics are still waiting to begin abortions pending a court ruling on whether abortion restrictions still on the books are valid.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers along with ACLU of Missouri are awaiting a judge’s decision before beginning to perform abortions after suing to strike down regulations on abortion clinics.

Some of the regulations include a 72-hour waiting period between an initial appointment and an abortion and a requirement that the same abortionist who saw the patient is the one to perform the abortion. The law also requires that abortionists have hospital admitting privileges. Abortions fell from an annual average of 5,000 to 167 in 2020 amid these requirements. After Roe v. Wade, a trigger law went into effect, protecting unborn children except for when abortions were medically necessary. In November, Missouri passed Amendment 3, which added “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” to the state constitution.

Pope Francis meets political authorities, civil leaders, and diplomats in the Republican Palace in Baghdad on March 5, 2021. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI MENA, Dec 17, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has revealed that he narrowly escaped two attempts on his life during his visit to Iraq in March 2021 in the city of Mosul.

In a new book titled “Spera” (translated as “Hope”), set to be released on Jan. 14, 2025, the Holy Father recounts his personal story, including details of the planned attack during his trip.

Advised not to go

According to Corriere della Sera, the Italian newspaper that shared excerpts from the book, the pontiff stated that most people had advised him against undertaking the apostolic visit to a land ravaged by jihadism and extremist violence. Those challenges were compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the extremely high security risks.

“But I wanted to go at all costs. I felt I had to do it,” Francis said. He said that he felt an obligation to visit and meet “our forefather Abraham,” from whom Jews, Christians, and Muslims all trace their lineage. 

The Holy Father also stressed that he did not want to disappoint the Iraqi people. Two decades earlier, Pope John Paul II had been unable to visit the country because then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rejected the plan.

The city that left a mark on his heart 

The city of Mosul, as the book conveys, was “a wound in the pope’s heart.” Francis described how deeply the city affected him. Viewing Mosul from a helicopter, the sight struck him like “a punch to the gut.” The historic old city, once a place of coexistence imbued with centuries of tradition and civilization, had been reduced to ruins during the three-year reign of ISIS. From above, Mosul appeared to him like an “X-ray image of hatred.”

Warnings

In the book, the pope also revealed that as soon he landed in Baghdad, Vatican security was informed by the police that British intelligence had passed on a warning: a young female suicide bomber was heading to Mosul with the intention of detonating herself during the pope’s visit. In addition, a speeding truck had been launched for the same purpose. 

Despite these threats, the journey proceeded as planned.

The ‘joy and honor’ of meeting al-Sistani

Reflecting on his visit to Najaf, Pope Francis said his meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani “filled his soul with joy and honor.” 

He described al-Sistani’s decision to welcome him into his home as being more eloquent than any words, declarations, or documents, as it embodied friendship and a shared sense of belonging to one human family. 

The Holy Father carried with him something al-Sistani said as a “precious grace”: “People are either brothers in faith or equals in humanity.”

The day after his meeting with al-Sistani, the pope asked Vatican security about the two reported attacks. The commander responded succinctly: “They no longer exist.” 

This reply also left a mark on the pope because those attacks, he noted, were the bitter fruit of a poisonous war but in the end, they were dissipated.

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

Pope Francis laughs with some religious sisters at his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Aug. 30, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis on Tuesday penned an essay for the New York Times on the importance of fostering a sense of humor, of quelling narcissism through “appropriate doses of self-irony,” and of avoiding “wallowing in melancholy at all costs.”

“The Gospel, which urges us to become like little children for our own salvation (Matthew 18:3), reminds us to regain their ability to smile,” Pope Francis wrote in an essay adapted from his new book, “Hope: The Autobiography,” set to be published in January. 

The pontiff called the many children he meets, as well as the elderly, “examples of spontaneity, of humanity.” 

“[T]hey remind us that those who give up their own humanity give up everything, and that when it becomes hard to cry seriously or to laugh passionately, then we really are on the downhill slope. We become anesthetized, and anesthetized adults do nothing good for themselves, nor for society, nor for the Church,” he wrote.

“Irony is a medicine, not only to lift and brighten others but also ourselves, because self-mockery is a powerful instrument in overcoming the temptation toward narcissism,” the pope continued. 

“Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us. It will prove the truth of that old proverb that says that there are only two kinds of perfect people: the dead and those yet to be born.”

Pope Francis has spoken about humor several times throughout his papacy; in June of this year, he hosted and entertained a group of over 100 comics, stand-up comedians, and humorists in the largest — and possibly only — gathering of comedians in the Vatican since Pope Pius V eliminated the role of the papal jester in the 1500s.

During a recent visit with French President Emmanuel Macron in Corsica, Pope Francis recommended that Macron read his apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exultate, drawing attention to a passage referencing St. Thomas More’s prayer for a sense of humor.

“Lord, give me a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others,” reads the prayer, which Pope Francis has previously described as “very beautiful” and recites daily.

The pope in his essay offered examples of good humor shown by his fellow popes St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II.

St. John XXIII, for example, was said to have showcased his self-deprecating wit when he joked that he often resolved to speak with the pope about serious problems before remembering “that the pope is me.”

Relaying an anecdote about St. John Paul II’s playful resistance to rigid expectations of clerical conduct, Francis wrote that the saint was once, while still a cardinal, rebuked for enjoying many outdoor sporting activities, whereby John Paul responded that “these are activities practiced by at least 50% of cardinals.” In Poland at the time, there were only two cardinals.

“[S]ometimes we [popes] unfortunately come across as bitter, sad priests who are more authoritarian than authoritative, more like old bachelors than wedded to the Church, more like officials than pastors, more supercilious than joyful, and this, too, is certainly not good,” the pope wrote.

“But generally, we priests tend to enjoy humor and even have a fair stock of jokes and amusing stories, which we are often quite good at telling, as well as being the object of them.”

The pope in his essay also told a joke involving himself, printed here in its entirety:

As soon as he arrives at the airport in New York for his apostolic journey in the United States, Pope Francis finds an enormous limousine waiting for him. He is rather embarrassed by that magnificent splendor, but then thinks that it has been ages since he last drove, and never a vehicle of that kind, and he thinks to himself: OK, when will I get another chance? He looks at the limousine and says to the driver, “You couldn’t let me try it out, could you?” “Look, I’m really sorry, Your Holiness,” replies the driver, “but I really can’t, you know, there are rules and regulations.”

But you know what they say, how the pope is when he gets something into his head … in short, he insists and insists, until the driver gives in. So Pope Francis gets behind the steering wheel, on one of those enormous highways, and he begins to enjoy it, presses down on the accelerator, going 50 miles per hour, 80, 120 … until he hears a siren, and a police car pulls up beside him and stops him. A young policeman comes up to the darkened window. The pope rather nervously lowers it and the policeman turns white. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, and goes back to his vehicle to call headquarters. “Boss, I think I have a problem.”

“What problem?” asks the chief.

“Well, I’ve stopped a car for speeding, but there’s a guy in there who’s really important.” “How important? Is he the mayor?”

“No, no, boss … more than the mayor.”

“And more than the mayor, who is there? The governor?”

“No, no, more. …”

“But he can’t be the president?”

“More, I reckon. …”

“And who can be more important than the president?”

“Look, boss, I don’t know exactly who he is, all I can tell you is that it’s the pope who is driving him!”

Holy Mass is celebrated in Mariamite Greek Melkite Catholic Cathedral, Damascus, on Dec. 15, 2024. / Credit: Lama Ghosn/ACI MENA

ACI MENA, Dec 17, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

After more than 13 years of death, oppression, and destruction, the bells of Syrian churches are once again ringing with hope. It is a hope for the rebirth of Syria — a once-lost aspiration whose absence has been a source of profound anguish for Syrians everywhere.

This past Sunday, churches in Syria witnessed a remarkable surge in attendees across cities and towns as people gathered to pray freely with a renewed spirit of hope.

Not a single incident of assault or restriction was reported. Christmas decorations adorned church facades and even some neighborhoods with a significant Christian presence. The Latin Church in Latakia announced plans to illuminate its Christmas tree on the evening of Dec. 17.

During the Sunday Mass at the Holy Cross Church in Damascus, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Antioch and all the East, John X (Yazigi), emphasized that Christians are not mere guests in this land but rather “a deep-rooted part of Syria, as ancient as the jasmine of Damascus and the apostolic heritage of Antioch — this land that has marked the world with the name of Jesus Christ.”

He addressed Muslims directly, declaring: “My Muslim brothers, between the ‘you and us,’ the divisive ‘and’ should fall… Leaving behind it ‘we.’ We are one, sharing a history filled with victories and downfalls, and we share one destiny.”

Articulating the vision for Syria’s future, Yazigi explained: “We want a civil state where everyone is equal in rights and duties, preserving the personal status laws for all components. We want a state of citizenship, coexistence, and civil peace. A state governed by laws, where religion, freedom, and human rights are respected. A democratic state, where power transitions peacefully.”

The patriarch stressed that achieving these goals hinges on drafting a new constitution. He cautioned against misappropriating Christian narratives in the media and warned of false rumors propagated through media outlets and social media.

In a similar vein, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan called for the establishment of a transitional government that upholds transparency, reconciliation, and justice for all citizens. He urged a smooth political transition that shields Syrians from retaliation and revenge. Younan also warned against any ventures aimed at demographic or religious changes in the country.

The Sunday liturgies coincided with the return of students to schools and universities. 

George Daekh, principal of the Melkite Catholic Al-Woroud School in Aleppo, revealed to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, that Christian schools resumed on Monday, maintaining Sunday as a day off along with Saturday. He shared that the administrative and support teams had spent hours in the preceding days removing symbols of the old regime and raising Syria’s new flag.

As Christmas approaches, church groups and associations across Syria have launched humanitarian, service-oriented, and spiritual initiatives. These include visiting the elderly, cleaning and painting streets and sidewalks, distributing awareness flyers, organizing Christmas markets with sales stalls, and hosting evenings of carols and prayer.