ROME, ITALY
FRANCIS CALLS FOR ‘PERMANENT CATECHUMENATE’ FOR MARRIED COUPLES
(CNA/EWTN News) Pope Francis has stressed the need for ongoing formation for couples, before and after marriage, saying that even the basic teachings of the Church “could not be taken for granted.” The pope spoke in an address to participants in a recent course on marriage and family life held in Rome.
Speaking Sept. 27 in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran to an audience of priests, deacons, and lay people, Francis renewed his call for a “permanent catechumenate for the sacrament of marriage,” saying it was essential for couples to receive ongoing formation both before and after their wedding.
The course, which ran Sept. 24-26, was sponsored by the Diocese of Rome and the Roman Rota, the Church’s highest appellate court which handles marriage nullity cases.
Francis has previously insisted on the need for better, longer, more comprehensive instruction for couples in his annual addresses to the Rota. “The greater effectiveness of pastoral care is realized where the accompaniment does not end with the celebration of the wedding, but escorts them at least for the first years of married life” the pope said.
Francis told the attendees that marriage was “a vast, complex and delicate apostolic field” which required the full energy and enthusiasm of the Church. The work of marriage preparation is, according to the pope, best achieved through joint efforts by priests and married couples, though he stressed the importance and pre-eminence of the role of the parish priest.
Pope Francis emphasized that the work of preparing couples for marriage needed to include basic formation in the faith, noting that in many cases marriages broke down not because of any inherent problem with the couple, but simply because they lacked the depth of faith needed to live the sacrament fully.
USA
PRIEST BLOGGER: BISHOPS SEND CONSERVATIVE PRIESTS TO PSYCH HOSPITALS FOR ‘REPROGRAMMING’
(LifeSiteNews) American bishops are sending traditional-minded or conservative priests to psychiatric hospitals for “reprogramming” or as punishment, a priest blogger has alleged. Father John Zuhlsdorf, also known as Fr. Z, wrote on his popular blog September 25 that the number of priests sent for psychiatric evaluations has increased, and that it’s conservative and traditional priests who are targeted.
“Over the last few months I have been contacted by diocesan priests (and a religious) who were being sent by their bishops (superior) to be ‘evaluated’ at one of these psych clinics for clergy,” he said. In an “alarmingly similar pattern,” the bishop sends the priest to the psychiatric facility for an evaluation after some “dust up” in the parish, according to Fr. Zuhlsdorf, a priest who resides in the Diocese of Madison.
After two or three weeks, the priest is released, with the clinic assuring him all is fine, but then he’s summoned to see his bishop who tells him the institute has evaluated him “and it is always about the same” with “narcissism and borderline bi-polar,” wrote the priest-blogger.
The priest is then pressured to go back for treatment. He is told it will last “for three months or so,” but when he arrives, his cell phone is taken away, as is his shaving kit, the staff “start pumping him full of drugs and monitoring/controlling email,” and he is told it will be six months, Zuhlsdorf asserted. “A common characteristic of the priests: they are conservative or traditionalists,” he added.
WASHINGTON D.C.,
PRO-LIFE MOMENTUM? 40 DAYS FOR LIFE CAMPAIGN BEGINS IN OVER 400 CITIES
(CNA) The 40 Days for Life 2018 fall campaign began on Wednesday, claiming groups in a record 415 cities are taking part. “The momentum in the pro-life movement is ours to keep or lose,” Shawn Carney, president of 40 Days for Life, said Sept. 23. “We are going all in this fall.” “We have received more media coverage, conducted more leader training, and offered more free materials to local campaigns than ever before,” he added.
The outreach campaign, launched in 2007, takes place in both the spring and the fall. It aims to use prayer, fasting and peaceful vigils to end abortion and to ask God to “turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life, thus bringing an end to abortion,” the campaign website says.
According to its own figures, 40 Days for Life outreach has helped save over 14,600 lives from abortion. Its volunteers have held over 5,600 campaigns in 769 cities in 50 countries, with about 750,000 total participants.
During these campaigns, 96 abortion facilities have closed and 178 abortion workers have quit their jobs, the group says. One group in the eastern U.S. began the fall 2018 campaign a week and a half early, and learned that one abortion worker quit during their sidewalk witness.
The campaign explicitly encourages a “positive, prayerful presence” and participants avoid shouting, confrontations with patients and employees, and the use of graphic images of abortion.
Tej Francis
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