This has been the summer from hell for the Catholic Church and our sins are blatantly exposed for the world to see. The recent tsunami of headlines about abuse of minors by a cardinal and priests in the United States; the tragic stories of abuse in Chile and other countries, together with re-runs of old stories from various places have brought the Church to her knees once again and filled us with anger, shame, sadness, frustration and discouragement. Many of us are perplexed and feel a deep hurt because our esteem and respect for Archbishop McCarrick were clearly misplaced. Anyone who discovers far too late that a family member or friend has a history of moral misconduct, we stand dumbfounded that that person lived a secret life and left us all in the dark. Is this not what many bishops and priests feel about the disgraced cardinal? What are we to make of the fact that the Holy See, through its various mechanisms, may well have dismissed multiple warning signs that should have stopped Archbishop McCarrick and others earlier in their careers? We therefore have a right to call into question everything the Church has done to safeguard children and adults from manipulation and violation.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rightly stated that this is a “moral catastrophe” and that that we are facing “a spiritual crisis that requires not only spiritual conversion, but practical changes to avoid repeating the sins and failures of the past that are so evident in the recent report [of the Grand Jury of Pennsylvania]. The Cardinal informed us that the USCCB has established three goals: (1) an investigation into the questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick; (2) an opening of new and confidential channels for reporting complaints against bishops; and (3) advocacy for more effective resolution of future complaints. These goals will be pursued according to three criteria: proper independence, sufficient authority, and substantial leadership by laity.

To watch television networks or read newspapers and the plethora of blogs, one would think that the sexual abuse of children is a uniquely Catholic problem, one indeed facilitated by a wicked lot of priests and bishops. What has come to light over the past months and weeks are cases from the past that have not been dealt with in the same ways that we deal with the cases today.  The Church responded poorly or inadequately in the past, putting more emphasis on “saving face for the institution rather than restoring dignity to the victim.”

Each time the heinous crime of sex abuse is reported, as it should be, victims and their families are wounded again and revictimized, the vast majority of faithful bishops and priests bow their heads in shame, and sincere Catholics, Christians, and people of good will experience another jolt of shock, sorrow, anger, and righteous indignation. Every single abuse case involving a minor, no matter when it took place, is a crime, and we must respond to those who have been victimized and hurt by any person acting in the name of the Church.  The Church stands by the victims and wishes to be an instrument of reconciliation and healing.

The Vatican’s Response

In 2001, Pope John Paul II assigned responsibility for examining cases of sex-abuse against minors to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, which was headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.  The experience gave him a familiarity with the pervasiveness of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic Church would have.  And driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as “filth” in the church, Cardinal Ratzinger responded to what he read and learned in those years.  After being elected pope, Pope Benedict XVI, he made the abuse cases a priority.

We must not forget that Benedict was the first pope ever to meet with victims of abuse, which he did in the United States and Australia in 2008, and again in Malta in 2010. He spoke openly about the crisis some five times during his 2008 visit to the United States alone.  Pope Benedict was the first pope to dedicate a Pastoral Letter on the sex-abuse crisis, his pastoral letter to Ireland. During his years of thankless service as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then as Supreme Pontiff, Benedict has pursued reform and has been determined to rid the Church of the filth which shames us.

No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than Pope Benedict XVI. The dramatic progress of the Catholic Church in the United States and Canada in particular could never have happened without the insistence and support of Pope Benedict. More than any other high-ranking Church official, he saw and understood the gravity of the situation and tried his utmost to chart a new course for the Church. Pope Benedict said that the calamity of clerical sexual abuse of children – as awful and destructive as it is for the Church – could also be an opportunity for the Church to repent of its clericalism, triumphalism, and its lack of transparency and be a time for a renewed commitment to put the protection of the vulnerable far ahead of fear of embarrassment for the Church and its leaders. Should we not see these events and movements that so profoundly affect our Church and our religious communities in their redeeming dimensions as the work of the Spirit alive in human history?

Pope Francis has made the crisis of sexual abuse in the Church a major focus of his Petrine Ministry these past five years – a focus that has intensified over the past three years in particular. In the eyes of some, both Popes Benedict and Francis have not done enough.  Much is left to be done to eradicate the evil, crime, and sin of the sexual abuse of minors. The task belongs not just to the bishops and priests but to the whole Church, especially very competent laywomen and men, with all working together in this fraught situation.

Toward the future

As we continue to address the burning issues that have surfaced over the past months of this crisis, we cannot and must not become imprisoned in the past. We must recognize the wounds and be about the work of healing and reconciling.  Our message and response must focus on several key elements: asking forgiveness from the victims, accountability for those who have made mistakes, and transparency in how cases have been handled and establishing overseeing bodies that deal not only with priests but bishops and cardinals. New policies and protocols must be implemented and strengthened in every diocese around the world. The credibility of bishops has been gravely compromised and has given strong reason of doubt to the faithful, and also to priests. The credibility of the Church will only be regained when we honestly recognize the failures of the past.

Clerical Celibacy

There are those who think incorrectly that obligatory clerical celibacy contributes to depression and causes the sexual abuse of children. Celibacy is not in itself a factor, but – like any form of the Christian life taken and lived seriously – it has its perils.  When celibacy works well for priests, it can be a blessed source of spiritual and pastoral fruitfulness for the Church; when it works badly it can be very damaging and have devastating effects.  Priests and religious who sexually abused children did so because of the sexual disorder of pedophilia or ephebophilia. They abused because of a sexual disorder, not because they were celibate.  The studies are clear on this point: most child abuse takes place within the family.  Sexual abuse of a child by a family member results in serious, psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest. We have a right to be angry over the current situation but no right to despair. We must pray for a true cleansing of the temple – of the Church.  We must pray that our anger and frustration not lead us to hopelessness but to a deeper witness of faith and a holy life especially in such difficult times.

Simon’s Boat

Let me conclude with a powerful image that can sustain us and guide us though the current storm.  It is an image that relates to the Church’s origins – not in a big city of the Roman Empire but rather to the small fishing village in Palestine, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus gets into Peter’s boat in order to teach the crowds. This is not the only time in the Gospels when the boat – the fishing boat – Peter’s boat, is featured in Jesus’ teaching to His Apostles. From the bark of Peter, the Church, Jesus continues to teach the whole world.

One time, while the Lord sleeps in the Gospels, a storm rages, putting the fear of death into the apostles. But the Lord wakes up and calms the storm. Another time, His desire to be with His brothers moves Him to walk upon the waters, and He challenges Peter to do the same. Both times, the Lord chides the apostles about their lack of faith – for if we have faith in Him, in His care for us, then no storm will overturn the boat in which we sail, and no water will open to swallow us up in darkness.

At certain times, during Church history, and perhaps at this time, it might seem as if the light of the Spirit had been all but extinguished.  But let us be honest and realize that the flame never went out.  The Church goes on, saving souls and journeying to its final harbour. In that blessed realm, beyond the seas of this life, all the things that threaten God’s Church in this world will be gone forever.

We all are in this boat together. What does this mean for each of us?  It means, first, that we are to trust the Lord to show us the way, to bring us to our goals safely, and to feed our souls on the journey. We will encounter problems and crises – there will be days when we cast out our nets all day long, and at the end of the day, there might be nothing to show for it. At those times, we must listen to the Lord, as Peter did, and cast the nets again into the deep – for it is our faith that is being tested – not as to whether we profess it or not – but as to whether we are ready to do something about it or not.

We are not sailing on Noah’s Ark nor on the Titanic.  We are on the waters with Jesus.  We cannot be triumphal, clerical, or proud – pride was the undoing of our first parents – we must be humble, for only then can we remain united to one another in Christian love. Only then can we be together in that bark which sails across the sea of life. Only then can we be saved together by His strong arm – from hunger, from blindness, from the storm, from the chaos of our times.

Let us pray that we increase in every way our willingness to serve others, to see and to solve the needs of those we serve, and to find in every situation, no matter how hard, a way to love, to show the charity, justice, and mercy of God for those who are our brothers and sisters.

The Lord does not abandon those who come seeking His mercy and His forgiveness. He walks upon the waters.  He calms the storm. He guides the boat into safe harbour, and brings with Him the great catch, the great feast, to which we are all summoned. We pray that all those who have been abused, deceived, discouraged, repelled, and frustrated may begin to see the glimmer of light of the dawn of a new day. We beg the Lord that Church leadership be renewed and have the courage to take the necessary next steps.

Nor can we forget the deeply moving words of St. John Paul II in his final homily at Canada’s 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto.  This world ecclesial event was prepared and took place under the terrible shadow of the sex-abuse crisis that erupted in the USA in early 2002.  The Holy Father’s words were so important and consoling then as they are today:

“Even a tiny flame lifts the heavy lid of night. How much more light will you make, all together, if you bond as one in the communion of the Church! If you love Jesus, love the Church! Do not be discouraged by the sins and failings of some of her members. The harm done by some priests and religious to the young and vulnerable fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame. But think of the vast majority of dedicated and generous priests and religious whose only wish is to serve and do good! There are many priests, seminarians and consecrated persons here today; be close to them and support them! And if, in the depths of your hearts, you feel the same call to the priesthood or consecrated life, do not be afraid to follow Christ on the royal road of the Cross! At difficult moments in the Church’s life, the pursuit of holiness becomes even more urgent. And holiness is not a question of age; it is a matter of living in the Holy Spirit.”

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Image © 2014 Catholic News Service

Blessed Paul VI: The Helmsman of the Vatican

By: Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B 

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini was born on September 26, 1897 at Concesio (Lombardy) of a wealthy family of the upper class. His father was a non-practicing lawyer turned editor and a courageous promoter of social action. Even after entering the seminary (1916) he was allowed to live at home because of his frail health. After his ordination in 1920 he was sent to Rome to study at the Gregorian University and the University of Rome, but in 1922 he transferred to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome to study diplomacy and pursue his canon law studies at the Gregorian University. In 1923 he was sent to Warsaw as attaché of the nunciature but was recalled to Rome (1924), because of the effect of the severe Polish winters on his health, and assigned to the office of the Secretariat of State where he remained for the next thirty years. During those years he also taught the Ecclesiastical Academy and was named chaplain to the Federation of Italian Catholic University Students (FUCI), an assignment that was to have a decisive impact on his relations with the founders of the post-war Christian Democratic Party.

In 1937 he was named substitute for ordinary affairs under Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary of State. On Pacelli’s election as Pius XII in 1939, Montini was reconfirmed in his position under the new secretary of state, Cardinal Luigi Maglione. When the latter died in 1944, Montini continued to discharge his office directly under the pope. During World War II he was responsible for organizing the Vatican’s massive relief work and care of political refugees.

In the secret consistory of 1952 Pope Pius XII announced that he had intended to raise Montini and Domenico Tardini to the Sacred College of Cardinals but that they had both asked to be dispensed from accepting. Instead he conferred on both of them the title of Pro-secretary of State. The following year Montini was appointed Archbishop of Milan but still without the title of cardinal. Soon he became known and loved as the “archbishop of the workers.” He revitalized the entire diocese, preached the social message of the Gospel, worked to win back the laboring class, promoted Catholic education at every level, and supported the Catholic press. His impact upon the city at this time was so great that it attracted world-wide attention. At the conclave of 1958 his name was frequently mentioned, and at Pope John’s first consistory in December of that year he was one of 23 prelates raised to the cardinalate with his name leading the list.

Montini’s response to the call for a Council was immediate and even before it met he was identified as a strong advocate of the principle of collegiality. He was appointed to the Central Preparatory Commission for Vatican II and also to the Technical-Organizational Commission.

On the death of Pope John XXIII, Montini was elected June 21, 1963 to succeed him, taking the name of Paul VI. Few imagined the upheaval that would shake both church and world in the next decade. Within a short span of five years, Papa Giovanni had humanized the papacy and launched an ecumenical council that captured hearts, stirred imaginations and elevated hopes of many outside the Roman Catholic Church, as well as within.

In Paul VI’s first message to the world, he committed himself to a continuation of the work begun by John XXIII. The historical backdrop of the Council must never be forgotten: it was a post-war period where fears diminished, economies began to grow in many industrialized countries, a young Catholic president in the United States breathed courageous hope into what many had considered an uncertain future.

In a seeming flash, the hopes and dreams of the early 1960s were dashed as senseless, political assassinations were followed by violence, terrorism, race riots and a far-away war in Vietnam that would suddenly overtake our world. And with that war came a new wave of poverty, unemployment, violence, mass protests and massive disorientation. This was the modern world over which Pope Paul VI would preside; these were the confusing and often violent times into which Paul VI would introduce the themes of “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, “Gaudium et Spes”, “Lumen Gentium”, and “Dignitatis Humane”—first fruits of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The waters upon which the barque of Peter would sail those years were choppy and stormy.

Throughout his pontificate the tension between papal primacy and the collegiality of the episcopacy was a source of conflict. Paul VI overcame the resistance of reactionaries and implemented the reforms established by the council in the areas of liturgy, church governance and the attitudes of Catholics toward other religions. The pope’s highly personal encounters with other religious leaders ushered in a new openness of the Roman Catholic Church to other faiths.

On September 14, 1965 he announced the establishment of the Synod of Bishops called for by the Council fathers to pursue the council’s accent on episcopal collegiality. National conferences of bishops were strengthened or newly established, and Paul VI would preside over five synods of bishops from around the world. Certain issues that seemed suitable for discussion by the synod were reserved to himself. Celibacy, removed from the debate of the fourth session of the Council, was made the subject of an encyclical, June 24, 1967); the regulation of birth was treated in Humanae vitae July 24, 1968), his last encyclical. Controversies over these two papal documents often overshadowed the last years of his pontificate.

As the world came undone, Paul VI breathed into its very fabric the idea, hope and dream of a lasting justice and peace for humanity through a very personal campaign that was fought by his own, peaceful and passionate personal witness and his magnificent papal documents noted for their clarity, depth and beauty.

President John F. Kennedy meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in July of 1963.

Those who knew him best, however, described him as a brilliant man, deeply spiritual, humble, reserved and gentle, a man of “infinite courtesy.” During the final years of his life, Paul VI often spoke of the burdens of age and the imminence of death. He was deeply troubled by the senseless violence and terrorism in the world and tried to stir human consciences to seek peace.

Though profoundly saddened at the cheapening of human life, he never failed to see beyond the tragedy of our times and glimpse the radiant beauty of the transfigured Lord. It was no coincidence that he closed his eyes on this sad yet beautiful world on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, also the day in 1945 on which the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Could it be that the Lord Jesus, whom Paul loved so deeply, was letting this successor of Peter know that despite the darkness of our times, the blazing radiant light of Jesus would overcome the shadows and the night, and lead Paul VI home to a place of enduring light and peace?

After 80 years of earthly pilgrimage, Paul VI found his own transfiguration in that Light. Pope Paul VI asked that his funeral be simple with no catafalque and no monument over his grave.

Pope Paul VI presides over a meeting of the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in 1963.

On October 19, 2014, during the concluding mass of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome, Pope Francis spoke these words at Paul’s Beatification:

“When we look to this great Pope, this courageous Christian, this tireless apostle, we cannot but say in the sight of God a word as simple as it is heartfelt and important: thanks! Thank you, our dear and beloved Pope Paul VI! Thank you for your humble and prophetic witness of love for Christ and his Church!”

In his personal journal, the great helmsman of the Council wrote, at the conclusion of its final session: “Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour” (P. Macchi, Paolo VI nella sua parola, Brescia, 2001, pp. 120-121). In this humility the grandeur of Blessed Paul VI shines forth: before the advent of a secularized and hostile society, he could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom—and at times alone—to the helm of the barque of Peter, while never losing his joy and his trust in the Lord.

May this great helmsman of the Church watch over us, teach us and help us to never lose our joy and our hope (gaudium et spes) in the Lord. Blessed Paul VI, pray for us.

This article came from Salt+Light’s 2014 Fall Magazine. To view the full magazine click HERE.

To view all of our past magazines, you can visit our website – http://saltandlighttv.org/magazine/

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Canada’s Catholic Television network began in 2003, on the wings of World Youth Day 2002. Since then there have been hundreds of programs, documentaries, films, and 10 years of our weekly radio program. Tune in this week for our 15th anniversary show with former S+L TV personalities, Kris Dmytrenko, Alicia Ambrosio, Gillian Kantor, and Matthew Harrison, as well as a featured interview with S+L TV founder, Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB.

Email us your comments, find Deacon Pedro on Twitter, or send us a direct voice mail message by clicking on the tab on the right side of this webpage —>

Full program:

This program is available thanks to the support of our generous donors. Thank you for your donation to keep the SLHour on the air.

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This week on the SLHour, Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, tells us what really went on in the Synod of Bishops; Emilie brings us the weekly news; Billy has another question about All Souls Day on Church for Dummies; Mark Matthews tells us what’s good in Hollywood (and Silicon Valley); and we reconnect with Catholic recording artist, Joe Melendrez.

Email us your comments, find Deacon Pedro on Twitter, or send us a direct voice mail message by clicking on the tab on the right side of this webpage —>

Full program:

This program is available thanks to the support of our generous donors. Thank you for your donation to keep the SLHour on the air.

More Information:

From Emilie:
Agenzia Fides: Young missionaries, witnesses of Christ giving their lives

From Deacon Pedro:
Visit our page on the Synod on Youth
Listen to Joe Melendrez’s first visit to the SLHour: June 7, 2014

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Why Study the Bible?

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB

To mark National Bible Week – November 18-24, 2018 in the USA, here’s a video to let you know why it’s important to know the Bible! As we look back over the sweeping changes in the life of the Church following Vatican II, we can never underestimate the important relation that exists between liturgy and the interpretation of the Bible.  This relation is directly linked to the Church fathers who were first and foremost men of prayer, even when they were writing their learned treatises and pursing their theological investigations.  They were never far from the Church’s worship.  In the liturgy they came to know Christ no so much as a historical figure from the past, but as a living person present in the Eucharist.  When they opened their bibles, they discovered this same Christ not only in the writings of the evangelists and St. Paul but also in the Old Testament.  In the liturgy the words of the Scripture are alive and filled with the mystery of Christ.

The Church and the Word of God are inseparably linked. The Church lives on the Word of God and the Word of God echoes through the Church, in her teaching and throughout her life (cf. “Dei Verbum,” n. 8).   

It is accurate to say that the Bible provided a lexicon of words for Christian speech and the liturgy a grammar of how they are to be used.  This must always be a guiding principle in our own efforts to make God’s Word come alive for the Church today.  If we read biblical texts and teach them only for their historical and philological accuracy or inaccuracy, we fail to read the Bible as a book of faith that is the privileged possession of a living, breathing, praying community. We forget that the Bible is more like a library than a single book.

In spite of its many accomplishments, a strictly historical approach to the Bible can only give us a medley of documents from different times and places in the ancient world.  It cannot give us the book of the Church, the Scriptures as heard by Christians for centuries, the psalms imprinted on the Church’s soul, the words and images that bear witness to the Trinity.

The key to biblical criticism is the recognition that, while the Scriptures are the word of God, they do not escape the limitations of history. It is not surprising that since then that several generations of Catholic biblical scholars has devoted themselves to catching up. Nor is it surprising that there have been excesses and criticisms along the way. The question is to what extent scientific methods of Scripture study should be used, as opposed to a more spiritual reading of the Bible.  As one who has taught Scripture for many years, nothing that can help us understand the Biblical text should be excluded, just as long as we keep clear what the purpose of the different approaches are, and what their limits are as well.

How can we make Scripture once again the “soul of theology” and bridge this growing divide between those who study scripture, those who teach theology, and those who are preparing for ministry in the Roman Catholic Church?  How can the hearts of our students and pastoral ministers, and the faithful to whom they will minister, be set on fire by the Risen Lord who begs people to touch the text of his words?

I would like to suggest three ways to move beyond the impasse and offer two examples of great Scripture scholars of our time who integrated the historical-critical method and their Catholic faith in remarkable ways.

Actualization

The “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”, a major document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission from 1993 emphasized the historical-critical method and accorded it primacy of place among the different methods and approaches discussed.  The commission called this method “indispensable” and insisted that the proper understanding of the Bible “not only admits the use of this method but actually requires it.”  But this important Vatican document also speaks of the importance of “actualization,” a term that is new to church documents on Scripture.  This term, transposed from the original French text, comes from actualiser, meaning “to make present to today.”

To realize the potential of actualizing the word, however, requires a change of attitude and reconsideration of the biblical formation we are presently offering in our seminaries, Faculties of Theology and universities. Actualization is necessary because biblical texts were composed in response to past circumstances and in a language conditioned by the time of their composition.  Interpreting Scripture for today must not be a matter of projecting opinions or ideologies on the text, “but of sincerely seeking to discover what the text has to say at the present time.”  Actualization, unlike strict historical-critical exegesis, demands personal faith as a prerequisite and concerns itself with the religious meaning of the Bible.  According to the commission, “the Church depends on exegetes, animated by the same Spirit as inspired Scripture… .”   

Lectio Divina

Another way of moving beyond the impasse is to rediscover the art of Lectio Divina, “divine or holy reading”, the continuous reading of all the Scriptures, in which each book and each section of it is successively read, studied and meditated on, understood and savoured by having recourse to the whole of biblical revelation, Old and New Testament.  Thanks to this simple adherence to and humble respect for the whole biblical text, Lectio divina is an exercise in total and unconditional obedience to God who is speaking to human beings who are listening attentively to the Word.

Lectio Divina does not select passages suited to themes and subjects already previously chosen with a view to needs or tastes already felt or noticed by the reader or the community engaged in the reading.  It does not adopt the method of “biblical themes” but prefers to keep away from any theological picking and choosing from the message of the Bible.  It starts with the Word of God and follows it step by step from beginning to end.  Lectio Divina presupposes and takes seriously the unity of all the Scriptures.

The point of departure of Lectio Divina is “wonderment”, a spirit which is accompanied by listening, silence, adoration of the divine mystery and placing oneself in front of Scripture as the Word of God. It is an ideal from which we are very far removed. Current methods of teaching Scripture do not encourage wonderment, reverence, listening, silence and adoration of the mystery of God and his divine communication with human beings.   

The secret of the success of using Lectio Divina lies in the fact that we do not offer students, parishioners, young adults a philological lexicon, a catechism lesson or even a homily but rather the necessary means for them to put themselves face to face with the text so that they can try out lectio divina for themselves. Lectio divina prepares us for an encounter with the living Lord.

Experiencing the Holy Land: the Fifth Gospel

A final suggestion of moving beyond the impasse in contemporary Scripture teaching is to offer the Holy Land as a backdrop and stage for the Biblical story. It is essential to tell the biblical story in the context of a long pilgrimage against the background of the Holy Land.  It is even more important to go to the land and let it speak. The Holy Land is the Fifth Gospel, the key to understanding the other four!

The psalmist praises those whose hearts are “set on pilgrim roads” (Ps. 84:5).  We who are entrusted with the ministry of teaching and preaching Scripture must help others to prepare themselves to make the journey “as pilgrims”.  Tourists pass quickly through places, but the places pass slowly through pilgrims, leaving them forever changed.  Teaching the Scriptures without reference to the Holy Land, or without fostering, encouraging, and, when possible, leading others to visit it, is to tell only part of the story of the Bible. 

All of the best biblical renewal programs in the world, the most eloquent Vatican documents, vision statements, and even the most current analyses of the future of the church can never substitute for the hope, power and strength of the Word of God in our individual and communal Christian lives. Documents, statements and catechisms might never renew us, but the Word of God, especially experienced in its natural habitat will.

Contemporary Scripture studies have been a great blessing to the academy and the Church. I would like to pay tribute to two remarkable individuals known to all of us, and who were good friends, professors and mentors to me.  The late Passionist Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P.  and the Sulpician Fr. Raymond Brown, S.S.  In Frs. Stuhlmueller and Brown I observed three outstanding qualities at work, which may be instructive for other pastoral ministers and students of Scripture in their own biblical research, teaching and preaching.

First was their ability to present the Bible in an accessible way, as a “user-friendly” book or library.  Both men often recounted basic principles they learned in their youth:  “Read the Bible as we would listen to a friend.” Reading as a listener implies an openness to hear what is being said and an attitude of expectancy; listening as to a friend implies a large measure of confidence that the message will ultimately be a helpful guide for living, and sometimes for specific situations.  Of course, one listens to a friend critically, that is, with the full use of one’s faculties, education and experience.  By the same token, in the Catholic tradition, one never undertakes Scripture studies to master or criticize the Word, but to be mastered and criticized by it.  There is a way in which we must allow the Word of God to read us.

Second was their ability to present the Biblical story as a pilgrimage, a set of stories for the long haul.  How well I can still hear Fr. Stuhlmueller saying these words on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem or sitting by the lake in Galilee as we directed Scriptural renewal programs for priests and pastoral ministers in the Holy Land!  After all, what is the story of our salvation if not the passage from the Paradise Lost in Genesis to the Paradise found, and symbolized beautifully, in the New Jerusalem of John’s wild dream in Revelation? 

Third is the ability to see how Scripture is vivified in prayer and liturgy.  For it is in the silent adoration of prayer and in the congregation’s act of worship in liturgy that the Bible comes alive.  Liturgy reveals the fruits of scholarship.  Hence, we must ask ourselves if our teaching and preaching leads others into celebration, prayer and adoration of the Lord of history?  Or has our reliance on scientific methods and writings only compounded the confusion already found in the world?

May Fathers Stuhlmueller and Brown intercede for each of us as we study and pray God’s life-giving Word. And may our hearts be set on fire by the Risen Lord who begs us to touch the text of his words.

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Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple at Jerusalem: November 21, 2018

According to the tradition in the Eastern Church, when Mary was three years of age, Joachim and Anne took her to the Temple so that she might be consecrated to the service of the Lord. The legend says that they invited the young girls of the town to walk before her with lighted torches. As soon as they had reached the Temple, Mary, alone and unhesitatingly, went up the steps of the sanctuary where she was to remain, living in the contemplation of God and miraculously fed by the Archangel Gabriel, until the day she was espoused to Joseph, shortly before the Annunciation.

The theme of the feast is that Mary the Immaculate One, the Temple of the Living God, is offered to the Almighty in his holy house in Jerusalem. This day witnesses the bond between the Word and the Virgin predestined in eternity: this day is the fountainhead of all her privileges.

A more historical view is that the feast originates in Jerusalem in 543. In the Latin rite, it took many years for the feast to be widely accepted; it entered the Western calendar in 1585. Today, the feast celebrates the recognition of Mary as a temple in whom God dwells. In a very special way, the Blessed Virgin is herself a holy temple when she conceived the very Son of God in her immaculate womb, she became a true temple of the true God; when she cherished the word of God in her heart (see Luke 2:19, 51), loved Christ so ardently, and faithfully kept his word, the Son and the Father came to her and made their home with her, in accordance with the promise of the Lord (see John 14:23).

November 21 is the date upon which we celebrate Pro Orantibus Day marking the liturgical feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Temple. The day is dedicated to those who belong to contemplative religious orders. It’s a good opportunity to thank the Lord for the gift of so many people who, in monasteries and hermitages, dedicate themselves to God in prayer and silent work. Many contemplative communities throughout the world pray for Salt and Light Television.  For our part, we remember with gratitude these religious women of who as St Thérèse of Lisieux wrote choose to abide in the ‘heart’ of the Church.

Marian devotion has always been important for my own religious family, the Congregation of Priests of St. Basil (Basilian Fathers). Their support of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network has been constant over the past 15 years. In his History of the Basilian Fathers, Fr. Charles Roume, CSB, recalls that it was on November 21, 1822, Feast of the Presentation of Mary, that all the French confrères finally agreed to come together for their first ‘Chapter’.  They elected Fr. Joseph LaPierre as the first Superior General of the Basilian Community. For this reason, Basilians chose November 21 as our foundation day.

Here is a link to the documentary on our foundation in France after the French Revolution: http://saltandlighttv.org/whenithinkofannonay/

In remembering the Blessed Virgin Mary’s presentation in the Temple at Jerusalem on this day, we honour one whose hidden life brings light and warmth to the Church in every place. May her example give all consecrated religious, and those with whom we live and work, the courage to seek wisdom, the strength to radiate light and warmth to the Church, and the ability to become dwelling places of God’s consoling and compassionate presence on earth.

Let us pray:

Almighty and ever living God, today we honour the memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose hidden life brings light and warmth to the Church in every place. Her presentation in the temple at Jerusalem reveals her as a temple where God truly lives among us. May Mary’s example give us the strength to radiate that light and warmth to the Church, and help us to be dwelling places of God’s joyful presence on earth. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB
CEO Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation

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Canada’s Catholic Television network began in 2003, on the wings of World Youth Day 2002. Since then there have been hundreds of programs, documentaries, films, and 10 years of our weekly radio program. Tune in this week for our 15th anniversary show with former S+L TV personalities, Kris Dmytrenko, Alicia Ambrosio, Gillian Kantor, and Matthew Harrison, as well as a featured interview with S+L TV founder, Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB.

Email us your comments, find Deacon Pedro on Twitter, or send us a direct voice mail message by clicking on the tab on the right side of this webpage —>

Full program:

This program is available thanks to the support of our generous donors. Thank you for your donation to keep the SLHour on the air.

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Reflection for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord – February 2, 2019

In 1997, St. John Paul II established the special Day of Consecrated Life to coincide with the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem (February 2). The pope gave three reasons for his selection of February 2 as a special day for religious women and men: first, to praise and thank the Lord for the gift of consecrated life; second, to promote the knowledge and appreciation of consecrated women and men by all the People of God; and third, to invite all those who have dedicated their life to the cause of the Gospel to celebrate the wonderful ways that the Lord has worked through them.

Biblical background

According to the Mosaic law (Leviticus 12:2-8), a woman who gives birth to a boy is unable for forty days to touch anything sacred or to enter the Temple area by reason of her legal impurity. At the end of this period, she is required to offer a year-old lamb as a burnt offering and a turtledove or young pigeon as an expiation of sin. The woman who could not afford a lamb offered instead two turtledoves or two young pigeons, as Mary and Joseph do in today’s Gospel. They took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord: as the firstborn son (Luke 2:7), Jesus was consecrated to the Lord as the law required (Exodus 13:2, 12), but there was no requirement that this be done at the Temple. The concept of a presentation at the Temple is probably derived from 1 Sam 1:24-28, where Hannah offers the child Samuel for sanctuary services. The law further stipulated (Numbers 3:47-48) that the firstborn son should be redeemed by the parents through their payment of five shekels to a member of a priestly family. Luke remains silent about this legal requirement.

Let us reflect on the very poignant Gospel scene of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple found in chapter 2 of Luke’s Infancy narrative (2:22-38). In this touching scene, we encounter four individuals who embrace the new life of Jesus held in their arms: the elderly and faithful Simeon, the old, wise prophetess Anna, and the young couple, Mary and Joseph, who in faithful obedience offer their child to the Lord. Luke writes that “when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, [the old man Simeon] took him into his arms and blessed God” (Lk 2:27-28). At that point the evangelist places on Simeon’s lips the canticle Nunc Dimittis – this beautiful prayer is really an anthology of the prayer of ancient Israel. The liturgy has us repeat it daily at night prayer: “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel” (2:30-32).

The Holy Spirit was at work in Simeon and also in the life of the prophetess Anna who, having remained a widow since her youth, “never left the Temple, but worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer” (2:37). She was a woman consecrated to God and, in the light of God’s Spirit, especially capable of grasping God’s plan and interpreting God’s commands. “And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem” (Lk 2:38). Like Simeon she, too, without a doubt was moved by the Holy Spirit in her encounter with Jesus.

The prophetic words of Simeon and Anna not only announced the Savior’s coming into the world and his presence in Israel’s midst but also his redemptive sacrifice. This second part of the prophecy was directed precisely to Mary, mother of the Saviour: “This child is destined for the rise and fall of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (2:34-35).

Two important perspectives for the consecrated life flow from this deeply touching Gospel story. The Presentation of God’s own son into Jerusalem’s majestic Temple takes place amidst the many comings and goings of various people, busy with their work: priests and Levites taking turns to be on duty; crowds of devout pilgrims anxious to encounter the God of Israel in his earthly dwelling in Jerusalem. Yet none of them noticed anything special about the scene unfolding before them. Jesus was a child like the others, a first-born son of very simple, humble, holy parents.

The Temple priests, too, were incapable of recognizing the signs of the new and special presence of the Messiah and Saviour. Rather it was two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, who were able to discover the great newness present in the person of the child Jesus. Because they were led by the Holy Spirit, Simeon and Anna found in this Child the fulfillment of their patient waiting and faithful watchfulness. Upon seeing the Child, Simeon and Anna understood that he was the Long-awaited One. He was the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams.

Simeon and Anna, coupled with the simplicity and piety of Mary, Joseph, and the baby reveal the sheer humanity of this meeting. The old man holds the child in his arms – the torch of life somehow spanning two generations of faithful Jews. Holding this child in his arms, he knows that he is holding his very future close to his heart. What contentment to know that he is embracing in his arms the continuity of his own life! Simeon has hoped, he has believed, and now his hope, in the shape of a baby, is here, full of vitality and future promise. The old man rejoices that others will continue his work; he is happy that in his own decline there is indeed a reawakening, a rebirth, a future that is opening up.

Anna, too, is not afraid to bless the newness and challenge that this child brings. It is not easy for the old person that lies within each one of us to welcome the new, to take the baby up in our arms. There is always the fear that the baby will not survive, that the newborn will not share the same ideals, that this child will betray our ideals and in so doing put us aside and take our place. Though elderly, Simeon and Anna embodied a hopeful, youthful vision. They were evergreen.

This story is played out each time I have visited my elderly confrères in our various retirement homes and congregational infirmary. There are those who rejoice in us younger brothers, like Simeon and Anna, because they see us carrying the torch forward. And there are those who fear that we will not survive, that we will betray their ideals and not pay attention to them because they are simply old. If we hope to be consecrated men and women of vision in the Church today, it is because we are standing on the shoulders of giants, of those who have gone before us. We must never forget this fact. Each time we have attempted to go forward, not remembering what and who went before us, we have paid a dear price.

The second unique perspective of Luke’s Presentation Gospel scene is that of bearing Christ to the world. If our religious congregations, our local communities, our educational institutions, our parish structures, our varied apostolic works do not bear Jesus to the world and do not speak about him openly, then we are not fulfilling the mission entrusted to us by God and the Church.

The newness, effectiveness, power of proclamation of our educational and pastoral efforts do not primarily consist in the use of dazzling, original methods or techniques, which certainly have their effectiveness, but in being filled with the Holy Spirit and allowing ourselves to be guided by Him. The novelty of authentic proclamation of the Good News lies in immersing ourselves deeply in the mystery of Christ, the assimilation of His Word and of His presence in the Eucharist, so that He Himself, the living Jesus, can act and speak through poor instruments like us.

Pope Francis is a magnificent example of the New Evangelization in the flesh. He speaks so often about the “culture of encounter” that brings us face to face with other human beings. If you want to know what Evangelization looks like, feels likes, smells like, look at Francis, himself an elderly man, who lives the Gospel of Joy. Pope Francis as not lost his hopeful, youthful vision. He, too, is evergreen.

In paragraph #88 of his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the Bishop of Rome writes:

“Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel. For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.”

A Kairos Moment

When Mary and Joseph arrived at Jerusalem’s Temple with the Child Jesus in their arms, it was not just one more ordinary moment in the life of an old priest and a faithful prophetess on duty that day. It was the divinely appointed moment. Ordinary time “chronos” was suddenly transformed into “the moment from God.”

Because we live in this very same kairos, the “appointed time and hour” of our history, we cannot speak of the future of the Church, the future of our parish community, the future of our dioceses and religious congregations, the future of our activities of education and evangelization, indeed the future of anything! The only real issue for us is Jesus and the future of the Church, Jesus and the future of our parish community, Jesus and the future of our dioceses and religious communities, Jesus and the future of our educational and pastoral programs and activities, Jesus and the future of everything! Too often our look at the future is purely scientific or sociological, with no reference to Jesus, the Gospel, or the action of the Spirit in history and in the Church.

On this special day when we give thanks to God for the consecrated life, we must ask ourselves some significant questions. Why do some of our contemporaries – brothers and sisters in religious life – see and find Christ, while others do not? What opens the eyes and the heart? What is lacking in those who remain indifferent? Does our self-assurance, the claim to knowing reality, the presumption of having formulated a definitive judgment on everything not close us off and make our hearts insensitive to the newness of God? How often are we dead certain of the idea that we have formed of the world, of the Church, of the consecrated life, and no longer let ourselves be involved in the curiosity and intimacy of an adventure with God, who wants to meet us and draw us closer to Him?

How frequently do we place our confidence in ourselves rather than in the Child of Bethlehem, and we do not think it possible that God could be so great as to make himself small so as to come really close to us? How could it be that God’s glory and power are revealed in a helpless baby?

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the carefully chosen words of Simeon’s prayer invite us into contemplation and adoration of the Word made flesh, dwelling powerfully among us. We all lead busy lives. We do important, good works. Many of our lives are deeply enmeshed with the institutions and enterprises we serve. At times are we not so caught up with the comings and goings of so many people in our daily existence that we forget to notice Jesus in our midst?

Jesus, who comes to us in the distressing disguise of the poor, the unbalanced, the angry, sad, and confused people who make up our worlds? Jesus, who comes to us from very simple, humble, holy parents who cannot do anything for us, except simply to be there? Could it be that we consecrated women and men, like those in Jerusalem’s Temple, are incapable of recognizing the signs of the new and special presence of the Messiah and Saviour? And when we do encounter the radical newness that is Jesus, will we hold the baby in our arms, welcome him, make room for him in our lives? Will the “newness” he brings really enter into our lives, or will we try to put the old and the new together hoping that the newness of God will cause us minimum disturbance?

How do we see God’s glory in our lives? Do we thirst for justice and peace? What are the new situations and who are the new people who have entered our lives in the last little while? What new realities are we avoiding or afraid of or rebelling against? How are we truly light and salvation for other people? Are we capable of warming human hearts by our lives? Do we radiate joy or announce despair? Do we live the Gospel of joy?

I conclude with the striking words of a great theologian and teacher of the second century, Origen (185-223). They are from his homily on Luke’s account of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple:

“Simeon knew that no one could release a man from the prison of the body with hope of life to come, except the one whom he enfolded in his arms. Hence, he also says to him, “Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, in peace” (Lk 8,44). For, as long as I did not hold Christ, as long as my arms did not enfold him, I was imprisoned, and unable to escape from my bounds. But this is true not only of Simeon, but of the whole human race. Anyone who departs from this world, anyone who is released from prison and the house of those in chains, to go forth and reign, should take Jesus in his hands. He should enfold him with his arms, and fully grasp him in his bosom. Then he will be able to go in joy where he longs to go… .”

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This week, on a special edition of the SLHour, we speak with Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, about what went on at the Synod on Youth last October, and we reconnect with singer/songwriter Mikey Needleman, who’s been building a parish from the ground up. Also, S+L producer Sebastian Gomes tells us about the Magisterium of the People, and we we meet singer/songwriter Aly Aleigha.

Email us your comments, find Deacon Pedro on Twitter, or send us a direct voice mail message by clicking on the tab on the right side of our webpage.

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People carry a banner of Archbishop Oscar Romero in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 22, 2014. CNS photo/Roberto Escobar, EPA

Who will Finish the Eucharist? A reflection on Blessed Oscar Romero

By: Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB

The Catholic Church recognizes martyrs as people who were killed for refusing to renounce their faith, often during bouts of anti-Christian persecution. The declaration of martyrdom exempts the candidate for sainthood from the beatification requirement that the Vatican confirm a miracle attributed to his or her intercession. A second miracle is usually required for canonization. Martyrdom assumes that the killer intended to kill out of hatred for the person’s belief in Christ, such as the many Christian martyrs who were killed in Latin America and those being killed today in the Mideast at the hands of Islamic extremists. If in the past the term ‘in odium fidei’ (hatred of the faith) was strictly linked to the faith, today it is filled with the great themes of charity, justice and peace.

One of the most significant examples of Christian martyrdom in recent history is that of Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Goldamez, born in 1917 in the town of Ciudad Barrios, in the mountains of El Salvador near the border with Honduras. As a newly ordained priest, Fr. Romero served in a country parish before taking charge of two seminaries. He was appointed in 1967 as Secretary General of the El Salvador National Bishops’ Conference.

Oscar became bishop in 1970, serving first as assistant to the then-elderly Archbishop of San Salvador. Within three years he was Archbishop of San Salvador. Just one month after his inauguration as Archbishop, Fr. Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit who headed a rural parish, and who was one of Romero’s closest friends, was killed by state agents. This tragic event would leave a deep and lasting mark on Oscar’s life and ministry.

Romero poses for a photo in this undated photo.
CNS photo/Octavio Duran

There was growing unrest in the country, as many became more aware of the great social injustices of the peasant economy. Romero’s pulpit became a font of truth when the government censored news. He risked his own life as he defended the poor and oppressed. He walked among the people and listened. “I am a shepherd,” he said, “who, with his people, has begun to learn a beautiful and difficult truth: our Christian faith requires that we submerge ourselves in this world.”

Oscar Romero was brutally killed on March 24, 1980 by right-wing death squads—while celebrating mass. He was murdered because every week he told the truth about the violence endured by the poorest: who had been arrested, who had disappeared, who had been assassinated. His killers were presumably baptized Catholics from overwhelmingly Roman Catholic El Salvador—who vehemently opposed his preaching against the repression of the poor by the army at the start of the country’s 1980-1992 civil war. Romero’s last words in the homily just minutes before his death reminded his congregation of the parable of the wheat. “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grain of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies…”

Oscar Romero was not a theologian and never considered himself part of Liberation Theology, a radical Catholic movement born of Vatican II. But he shared with the liberationists a vision of a Gospel meant to protect the poor. “Between the powerful and the wealthy, the poor and the vulnerable, who should a pastor side with?” he asked himself. “I have no doubts. A pastor should stay with his people.” It was a wise, pastoral and political decision, but justified theologically.

The spirituality and faith behind Romero’s struggle for life flows from his belief in the God of the living who enters into human history to destroy the forces of death and allow the forces of life to heal, reconcile, and lift up those who walk in the valley of death. Poverty and death go together. His fundamental moral choice was between dialogue and violence. Dialogue is not about making compromises. It is not about negotiation but transformation. The deepest truths are only attainable through patient exchange, building friendship, transforming our hearts and minds. It is the very opposite of violence.

For Romero meditation on the Word of God involves a much more disturbing experience. It subverts our shallow and narrow identity, and sets us free for friendship with God and unexpected people. Romero said: “I always wanted to follow the gospel but I did not know where it would take me.”

On May 23, 2015, thirty-five years after his assassination, Oscar Romero was proclaimed blessed in a ceremony in San Salvador. His cause for beatification and sainthood was delayed for years by the Vatican, primarily due to opposition from conservative Latin American churchmen who feared his perceived association with liberation theology would strengthen the movement that holds that Jesus’ teachings require followers to fight for social and economic justice. It was also delayed over related questions about whether Romero was killed out of hatred for his faith or his politics. If killed for his politics, it was argued, he couldn’t be declared a martyr of the faith.

Tomb of Blessed Romero at the metropolitan cathedral in San Salvador.                      CNS photo/Luis Galdamez, Reuters

In the final moments of his pontificate, Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI gave the go ahead to proceed with Romero’s cause. But it was a Latin American Pontiff, Francis of Argentina, who decreed that Romero was killed as a martyr out of hatred for the faith, or “in odium fidei.” Such a decree confirmed the acceptance of a new understanding that martyrs can be killed, even by church-going Catholics, out of hatred for their Gospel-inspired work in favor of the poor and disenfranchised. Oscar Romero’s life was rooted in the Word of God, a word of friendship. It invites us to go out from our cocoons, from our imaginary spiritual bubbles and hermetically sealed theological constructs—to be liberated from self-obsession. It calls us to flourish and find true happiness in a love that knows no bounds. Is this not the essence of Gospel joy of which Romero modeled and which the current Latino Bishop of Rome so powerfully embodies for the entire world?

Archbishop Oscar Romero did not finish the celebration of the Eucharist. Neither was the Eucharist of his funeral Mass finished. Gunfire and death were again present, and people had to rush into the cathedral for cover. Romero’s blood continues to cry out today wherever women and men are tortured, belittled, humiliated and killed, especially for the faith. Many see the “unfinished Eucharist” of Romero as symbolic of what yet needs to be done in El Salvador, in Central and South America, and in every place that people suffer in their struggle for liberation. Who will finish the Eucharist? The Eucharist is the re-enactment of the drama of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Oscar Romero was doing in ritual what he had done throughout his life: offering himself with Christ as a peace offering, so that the earth might be reconciled with its creator, and sins be forgiven. Blessed Oscar Romero gives hope and consolation to the new wave of martyrs today, and to all those who stand up for the truth. The beatification process has also begun for his friend, Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ—the inspiration for his ministry in favor of the poor. Let us hope and pray that Romero’s beatification has now paved the way for similar martyrs from Latin America and from many other parts of the world.
Blessed Oscar Romeo’s own words in The Violence of Love sum up very well what his beatification is all about:

“For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is found the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.”

Blessed Oscar Romero and Servant of God, Rutilio Grande, SJ, pray for us.

This post was an excerpt from Salt+Light’s Winter 2015 Magazine

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Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB celebrates mass for the Tuesday of Holy Week.

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Watch Fr. Thomas Rosica’s interview with CBC’s Andrew Nichols to learn why Pope Francis will not apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential schools at this time. A letter released this week by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that the Pope can’t personally apologize for residential schools. Father Rosica helps us to understand the Pope’s decision at this time.

For full text of the letter click HERE.

The post Pope Francis’ Residential School Apology Refusal Explained appeared first on Salt + Light Blog.

On Thursday, August 4, 2016, Fr. Thomas Rosica celebrated the Daily Mass for the Memorial of St. John Vianney, Patron Saint of Parish Priests.

Salt + Light CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, recalls his memorable experiences up close with Pope John Paul II as the Pontiff’s health was declining during World Youth Day Toronto in 2002.

S+L CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB recalls the extraordinary Way of the Cross celebrated on University Avenue in downtown Toronto during World Youth Day 2002.

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, appeared on CBC Radio PEI on Friday October 21, 2016 to discuss Salt + Light, Pope Francis, the Vatican and more.

Listen below:

CNS photo/Bob Roller

*This article was originally published on CNEWA on November 22, 2016. 

Readers of CNEWA’s materials — magazine, blog, social media and appeals for help — are aware that this special agency of the Holy See depends on its partnerships with men and women in all walks of life to carry on its mission of service to the Eastern churches. Together, we build up the church, affirm human dignity, alleviate poverty, encourage dialogue and inspire hope.

Without these relationships, Catholic Near East Welfare Association would be merely an idea, not even a vision.

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica is one of those partners, a companion committed to the mission of CNEWA who in a very real way works “to connect you to your brothers and sisters in need.”

Born, reared and educated in Rochester, New York, Father Tom entered the Congregation of St. Basil and was ordained to the priesthood in Rochester in 1986. It was during his years of advanced studies at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem that Father Tom became well acquainted with the work of CNEWA and the staff of our Jerusalem office, then led by Brother Donald Mansir, F.S.C., and (then) Father Denis J. Madden. These were hopeful and exciting years in Jerusalem, with peaceful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians making headway — invigorating CNEWA’s outreach to the poorest of the poor through the local churches — and dialogue among the Holy City’s church leaders, coordinated by CNEWA, that would eventually lead to the restoration of the great dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In a very real way, Father Tom began connecting the people served through CNEWA with hosts of concerned men and women after he founded in 2003 Salt+Light Television, Canada’s first national Catholic television network. A fruit of World Youth Day and the visit of St. John Paul II to Canada in 2002 (which Father Tom directed at the request of the Canadian Catholic bishops), Salt+Light has become a major resource for Catholics not just in Canada, but throughout the English- and French-speaking world.

Millions of homes have learned about the miracles of Bethlehem University, the hopes of Pope Benedict XVI’s special assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, the challenges of the churches in the lands made holy by the blood of martyrs, and the crises in Ukraine and the role of the churches there in healing a people scourged by war.

In televised features and interviews with CNEWA president Msgr. John Kozar and staff members, such as Canada’s national director Carl Hétu, Father Tom has explored what makes CNEWA tick, revealing CNEWA’s love for the poor and passion for the truth.

In these times of fear, trouble and uncertainty, Father Tom has been a clear voice of reason, serving the Holy See as a consultant for the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, media attaché for synods and papal transitions and as an English-language assistant for the Holy See’s press office. An engaging man with a lively wit and a clear understanding of the church’s role in engaging and transforming rather than condemning society, Father Tom is, nevertheless, critical of those instruments used to divide the people of God. The Internet, for example, “can be an international weapon of mass destruction, crossing time zones, borders and space,” he said upon accepting the St. Francis de Sales Award given by the Diocese of Brooklyn earlier this year, describing it as “an immense battleground that needs many field hospitals set up to bind wounds and reconcile warring parties.”

“The church must shine with the light that lives within itself, it must go out and encounter human beings who — even though they believe that they do not need to hear a message of salvation — often find themselves afraid and wounded by life,” he added.

“The light of Christ reflected in the church must not become the privilege of only a few elect who float enclosed within a safe harbor or ghetto network of communications for the elite, the clean, the perfect and the saved.”

CNEWA is grateful to Father Tom for his heroic work to help us reflect “the light of Christ” — and spread that light around the world, especially among those most in need.

A Message from the CEO:

We move to our new Salt + Light Media Broadcast Centre beginning this afternoon, December 7, 2016. It’s amazing what we have been able to accomplish in such a small space for over 13 years! We were only supposed to be in this converted warehouse for a few years. But like all things Catholic, “few” means a minimum of 12!

Our new home at 250 Davisville Avenue in Toronto features a proper television studio and ample office space. As we leave our old home, let us pray that we never forget these humble origins of Canada’s Catholic Television Network, born on the wings of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto!

Many thanks to our major donors and sponsors, especially the Supreme Council of The Knights of Columbus, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Diocese of Hamilton, and many religious congregations of women and men across Canada who have believed in us, supported us and encouraged us in our mission.

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB

Salt + Light finds more room to stretch at new headquarters

However much the suits from media companies may complain at CRTC hearings, broadcasting is big business in Canada — to the tune of $17.3 billion in 2014 revenues

But for the one priest and 36 lay people who mount Canada’s premier Catholic broadcasting enterprise, it’s something entirely different.

“There’s nobody here with a puffed up sense of what broadcasting is. This is a mission,” said Salt and Light Media Foundation CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica. “There’s not one person here who doesn’t have a mission at heart.”

It has been 14 years since the tiny digital television service launched on a shoestring in the afterglow of Toronto’s 2002 World Youth Day. For 2017, the TV station which strives “to give the flavour of the Gospel and the light of Christ to a world that is steeped in darkness and tastelessness at times” has acquired the tools and the space to do the job.

On Dec. 9, Salt + Light moved from its century-old building at the corner of Richmond and Jarvis in Toronto into new space at Davisville and Mt. Pleasant in mid-town. The broadcaster has added a real studio — a broadcast theatre big enough to stage event broadcasts — and nearly tripled its floor space from 8,500 square feet (790 square metres) to 22,000 (2,044 square metres).

The fairly modern but far from new building where Salt + Light now does most of its production has such advantages as a low likelihood of floods (Salt + Light almost lost its master control room to flooding last year), a newer power grid (annoying little blackouts are a problem downtown) and some solid, vibration-proof concrete.

In the old studios with the century hardwood floors and exposed brick, camera tripods had to be secured with sandbags to try to keep vibration to a minimum when trucks passed by on Richmond Street.

The new studio space is only part of a trajectory which has seen the not-for-profit broadcaster leap to the forefront of Catholic broadcasting.
Salt + Light produces programming in English, French, Italian and Chinese. Its work is available on seven different platforms — television, radio, a blog, Internet TV, a Roku channel, social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and a monthly magazine.

The Toronto broadcast centre is supplemented with French-language operations based in Montreal.

The next frontier is New York. Salt + Light and the Archdiocese of New York are in talks about a permanent Salt + Light presence at the new Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, named in honour of former New York Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

There was nothing about Rosica’s training as a Basilian priest, including years spent at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, that prepared him for life as a broadcasting executive.

“I consider my role to have been sort of a talent scout, a coach and bringing people on board,” he told The Catholic Register.

What Rosica brings most is a lively faith in doing whatever is possible as well as possible.

“The Catholic community and the non-Catholic community — they deserve excellence,” Rosica said. “They deserve authentic reporting, truthful reporting. They don’t deserve filth. They don’t deserve the bombastic stuff.”

No one ever described Rosica as shy, but he takes no credit for Salt + Light’s success.

“I’m a firm believer in divine providence. This had to happen,” he said. “This is the realization of a dream.”

The original post can be found here

Here’s a snapshot of our move:

Daily Mass December 12, 2016 from Daily TV Mass on Vimeo.

CNS/Paul Haring

This article was originally published on The Catholic Register by Jean Ko Din on February 15, 2017. 

Fr. Thomas Rosica is stepping down as national coordinator of the World Youth Day delegations.

Rosica, CEO of Salt + Light Catholic Media Foundation, has organized the Canadian delegations to the international World Youth Day gatherings since he worked as the national director of WYD 2002 in Toronto.

After 15 years, Rosica is succeeded by Isabel Correa, director of the Youth Ministry office at the Archdiocese of Montreal.

“I have known Isabel from the preparations of WYD 2002 in Toronto and have long admired her bold, courageous, diligent leadership,” Rosica told The Catholic Register in an email.

“She is one of the best youth ministers in Canada and has truly seized the momentum and dynamic of World Youth Days. She is eminently qualified to be leader of future delegations to other world-class events. I congratulate her and thank her for her willingness to take up the torch of St. John Paul II in challenging young adults to give a reason for their hope, to believe in Jesus, and to unite and to live out their faith.”

Correa has worked as the youth ministry director in the Archdiocese of Montreal since October 2004. She has organized Montreal’s youth delegations to seven international World Youth Days, including a delegation of about 250 pilgrims to Krakow, Poland, last year.

“The goal (of World Youth Day) is to build disciples of the new millennium, to have young people experience the presence of Christ,” Correa told The Catholic Register last June. “We want them to make that connection so that they can come back and live that every day.”

Correa will be coordinating the next Canadian delegation to WYD in Panama City, Panama, on Jan. 22-27, 2019. The theme of the celebration is based on Luke 1:30, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”