Vírgenes y Santos
San Juan Diego. Diciembre 11
Nuestro Señora de Guadalupe. Diciembre 12
Envíenos sus fotos a
editor@jacksondiocese.org
Síganos en Facebook
@Diócesis Católica de Jackson
Visite Nuestra página web
www.mississippicatholic.com/Español Español Archives – Mississippi Catholic
By Rick Snizek
TEL AVIV (OSV News) – It’s a nightmare scenario that no parent would ever want to experience. Fifty days after her children were taken hostage, Hadas Kalderon did not see their names on the list of the first three rounds of released hostages.
Finally on the list of the fourth round of the hostage release Nov. 27, she saw her children, who are returning to Israel from Hamas captivity.
Two weeks after five members of her family were taken captive by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, two somber-faced members of the Israeli Defense Forces approached the home Kalderon has been staying at with a friend in Tel Aviv after hers was destroyed in the attacks.
She told them to go away before slowly collapsing to the floor crying in grief. She couldn’t bear to hear the news.
Shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, under the cover of hundreds of rockets being launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the militants broke through the security fence separating several kibbutzim along the southeastern border with the Palestinian territory.
Over the course of the next two hours, 29 of Kibbutz Nir Oz’s 400 residents would be murdered, and 80 would be taken captive and across the border, to be secreted somewhere in Gaza. Among them were Laderon’s two youngest children, son Erez, 12, and daughter Sahar, 16; their father, Ofer, 53; her mother Carmela, 80; and niece Noya, 12.
Recalling the IDF’s visit she said: “I told them, ‘Go away, I don’t want to hear from you,'” Kalderon told a visiting reporter from the Rhode Island Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Providence. “Who are they going to tell me is dead? I don’t know.”
“I was praying I don’t want anyone to die, but just not my children,” she said, crying.
The day before, Kalderon had organized a party to mark her mother’s 80th birthday, complete with a festive chocolate cake adorned with two, huge glittery candles forming the digits of her milestone age atop it.
That day, she would learn from the soldiers at her door that her mother and Noya, who was autistic, were found murdered in Gaza.
The last communication with her children came in the form of a frantic text message from another home in the kibbutz as the attack unfolded.
“They told me that they also have terrorists inside their house, and so they jumped from the window and were hiding in the bush. This was the last message I got from them,” Kalderon said.
At the time she was experiencing a nightmare of her own.
The Hamas militants, with the group being designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., as it rejects Israel’s right to exist and has dedicated itself to the formation of a Palestinian state in the Holy land, had now raided her home as well.
She described them as bloodthirsty, going house to house murdering and butchering residents, and even any cats or dogs they came across.
“I was in a safe room, all alone for eight hours, in the dark, with no electricity, no phone, no information, no water, no food, no nothing. For eight hours I was holding the door because they came into my house and broke everything and tried to go inside, and also through the window,” Kalderon said.
“I was sure I wouldn’t survive. I already prepared for my death. I said, ‘I’m in a jungle, I have to survive.’ I heard a lot of shouting and shooting, a lot of noise, a lot of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and other Arabic words. It was a terrifying nightmare.”
She held the doorknob to the safe room as tightly as she could, because the reinforced safe rooms are designed to protect occupants from bomb attacks, not terrorist intrusions, while she prayed.
“It was just me and God. I prayed. I could hear just the terrorists and the birds, nothing else; I remember that,” she said.
The only proof she had that Erez, her son, was still alive, at least as of the date it was filmed, was a video clip released by Hamas of him being taken into captivity.
“We saw that my son was picked up by two terrorists, carried away, with a lot of shouting. His face looked terrified and helpless and so confused,” she said of the video.
They had been taken from their home still dressed in pajamas, as it was very early in the morning.
Kalderon spends most days in Tel Aviv now joining other hostage family members in telling their stories to the media in order to keep the focus on those being held captive amid a destructive air and ground campaign being waged that has also killed thousands of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire.
She steadies her nerves with a cigarette as she worries about the safety of her remaining family in captivity, and how much violence they have been exposed to.
The overall sentiment among Israelis is strongly in favor of removing Hamas from the power it has held in Gaza since it took control of the Strip from Fatah, the rival Palestinian political party, following a civil war in 2007, and has run it since as an autocratic state.
But the families of those taken hostage are calling for a more pragmatic approach in order to protect the lives of as many as possible.
“‘I’m a mom, I’m not a politician, not an army girl, I just want to believe they behave wisely with good judgment, and they know what they are doing,” Kalderon said of the Israeli government, which she feels should exchange whatever number of Palestinian prisoners are asked for by Hamas to secure the release of the hostages.
“What I want is to save my children. It’s not a game for children. You can’t make war at the expense of children. They are victims. We don’t know when it’s going to end.”
Her son had already been experiencing panic attacks, the result of living under constant rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas, and she said she would sit with him for one hour each night as he fell asleep.
“My girl and my boy are very sensitive children, very fragile, and I can’t even imagine what they go through,” she said.
It is the unspoken that is Kalderon’s deepest fear.
“My beautiful girl, she’s 16 and a teenager. Do you have children, do you have a daughter? Then try to imagine that,” she said.
While Kalderon moved away for 10 years from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where she was born, she moved back there to start a family, despite the dangers of living in what’s called the Gaza Envelope. The “Envelope” describes the populated areas in Israel’s southern district just over 4 miles of the Gaza Strip border.
Set peacefully amid agricultural land, in an area visited by the Rhode Island Catholic last December, Nir Oz offers open space for children to ride horses and bikes and to play soccer, activities that Erez, Kalderon’s son, greatly enjoyed in better times.
Sahar, her daughter, loved to play guitar, and to dance. She also liked to play Ping-Pong and to draw.
“Who’s going to calm my boy when he’s hysterical,” she asked. “It drives me nuts. It breaks my heart; I prefer not to think.”
About 1,200 people of Israeli and other nationalities were killed, and about 240 taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attacks, including about 30 children. Over a 100 Israeli service members have been killed so far during Operation Swords of Iron.
Israel began its response to the Oct. 7 attacks with an air campaign to eliminate Hamas resistance to protect the lives of the ground troops who would storm the Gaza Strip three weeks to the day later. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have been killed in the crossfire along with the intended targets, and Christian churches providing aid also have been damaged in the strikes.
Over 14,500 Palestinians have been killed, including over 5,500 children since Oct. 7.
While Kalderon’s children have been released by Hamas, their father still remains in captivity in Gaza.
(Rick Snizek is executive editor of Rhode Island Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Providence. He reported from the Holy Land.)
Por Cindy Wooden
CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (CNS) – La llamada a la “vigilancia” en Adviento no significa permanecer despiertos y vigilantes por miedo, sino más bien por el anhelo de la venida del Señor, escribió el Papa Francisco.
A veces la gente piensa en la virtud de la vigilancia “como una actitud motivada por el miedo a un castigo inminente, como si un meteorito estuviera a punto de caer del cielo”, dijo en el texto de su reflexión a la lectura del Evangelio del 3 de diciembre, el primer domingo de Adviento. “¡Pero, ciertamente, éste no es el sentido de la vigilancia cristiana!”
El Papa Francisco dirigió el rezo del Ángelus desde su residencia, Domus Sanctae Marthae, pero explicó que su bronquitis, aunque está mejorando, todavía le dificulta hablar, por lo que el texto de su comentario y de sus llamamientos a la paz fueron leídos por monseñor Paolo Braida, funcionario de la Secretaría de Estado vaticana.
En la lectura del Evangelio, Mc 13,33-37, Jesús cuenta la parábola de los siervos que esperan el regreso de su señor.
“La vigilancia de los siervos no se basa en el temor, sino en el anhelo, en la espera de ir al encuentro del amo que viene”, dice el texto del Papa. “Se preparan para su regreso porque lo quieren mucho, porque esperan que, cuando llegue, encuentre una casa acogedora y ordenada”.
By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Be courageous in caring for and accompanying others, helping them to dream big, cultivating their unique gifts and flourishing, Pope Francis told university chaplains and pastoral workers.
“The work of education is a true mission in which individuals and situations are accepted with all their lights and shadows – their shadows, too – with a kind of ‘parental’ love,” the pope said.
“This facilitates in a unique way the growth of those seeds that God has sown within each person,” he said Nov. 24 in an audience at the Vatican with people taking part in a conference on pastoral care in Catholic universities, sponsored by the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Pope Francis told them he had “three approaches that I consider important to your service: to appreciate differences, to accompany with care and to act courageously.”
“Each person must be accompanied as he or she is, and that is where the dialogue, the journey and progress begin,” he said, explaining the importance of seeing and appreciating people’s different qualities with patience, openness and creativity.
As the prophet Isaiah said, God “creates the brightness of the sun, but does not despise the flickering light of ‘a dimly burning wick,’” referring to accepting people’s “lights and shadows” with love, the pope said.
“Believing in the vitality of the seeds that God sows,” he said, means accompanying and caring “for what is silently growing and coming to light in the, at times, confused thoughts, desires and affections of the young people entrusted to you.”
“Your attitude has to be more than just apologetic, dealing with questions and answers, prohibitions: do not be afraid to confront those realities,” he said.
There are “certain ideological currents within the church, in which people end up being reduced to a figure that is flat, without nuance” and without the “edges,” “shadows,” breadth and depth of real individuals, he said.
Uniformity does not make people flourish, he said. “If we wisely value a person for who he or she is, we can make that person into a work of art.”
Jesus himself “teaches us the art of caring” and “how to draw out the best from his creatures, by caring for whatever is most fragile and imperfect in them,” the pope said.
“Care for all of them, without seeking immediate results, but in the sure hope that, when you accompany young people and pray for them, miracles spring up,” he said.
The pope also encouraged his audience to “act courageously” since “nurturing the joy of the Gospel in the university environment is an indeed exciting yet demanding undertaking” which requires courage and taking risks.
“Where there are no risks, there are no fruits: this is a rule,” he said.
He told them to do everything they can to help young people “dream and aspire to the measure of Christ: to the height, breadth and depth of his love.”
Por David Agren
MATAMOROS, México (OSV News) – Celebrando una Misa al aire libre en un campamento de migrantes en medio de una lluvia fría e implacable, el padre jesuita Brian Strassburger predicó sobre la paciencia. Habló de “La Parábola de las Diez Vírgenes” del Evangelio de Mateo, instando a los migrantes reunidos a “esperar bien” mientras aguardan por su momento, en condiciones difíciles.
“Las cosas no siempre van al paso que queremos o esperamos y a veces tenemos que esperar y tenemos que esperar bien”, dijo el padre Strassburger.
Para esperar bien, dijo, “pedimos la sabiduría de Dios para que nos consuele y nos ayude a ser más pacientes y a confiar en Dios”.
Les instó a involucrarse en tareas como el mantenimiento del campamento, la formación de amistades y el aprovechamiento de las clases de catecismo impartidas por sacerdotes locales – recordando cómo los migrantes han podido bautizar y confirmar a sus hijos mientras esperaban en los albergues.
“El tiempo de Dios es perfecto”, dijo. “No podemos pensar que nuestro tiempo aquí es tiempo perdido”.
Más de 2.000 migrantes esperan en Matamoros, frente a Brownsville, Texas, mientras intentan conseguir citas a través de una aplicación telefónica para entrar en Estados Unidos conocida como CBP One.
El proceso puede ser frustrante, ya que algunas de las citas se asignan al azar, mientras que otras se dan a personas que llevan mucho tiempo en el sistema, según el padre Strassburger.
Las largas esperas provocaron anteriormente que muchos migrantes cruzaran irregularmente a Estados Unidos. Pero el Servicio de Aduanas y Protección de Fronteras de Estados Unidos registró 240.988 encuentros con migrantes en la frontera suroeste de Estados Unidos en octubre, aproximadamente un 10% menos que el mes anterior.
Los observadores atribuyeron este descenso a que venezolanos prefirieron esperar a ver qué pasaba en lugar de cruzar la frontera sin cita previa con el CBP One, después que el gobierno estadounidense anunciara la decisión de iniciar las deportaciones a Venezuela, país con el que Estados Unidos ha mantenido relaciones poco amistosas.
Pero la espera puede resultar agotadora, especialmente con la inseguridad reinante en Matamoros y los migrantes en el punto de mira de los secuestradores.
“Las personas no acuden a sus citas de CBP One porque están siendo secuestradas,” dijo a OSV News la hermana Norma Pimentel, directora de Caridades Católicas del Valle del Río Grande en Brownsville.
“Empecé a ver gente abandonando sus citas y cruzando el río porque tenían miedo” de permanecer en México, dijo la hermana Misionera de Jesús. Agregó que los funcionarios estadounidenses aún otorgan citas a quienes se ausentaron debido al secuestro.
Los migrantes que asistieron a la Misa en Matamoros hablaron de vivir con miedo si salían del albergue para migrantes.
“Muy poca gente se va de aquí por la inseguridad”, dijo Yessica Briseño, una migrante venezolana que ha pasado tres meses en Matamoros con su esposo y sus tres hijos de entre 10 y 12 años.
Briseño ha intentado infructuosamente obtener una cita con CBP One durante tres meses, algo que, según dijo, le está haciendo plantearse cruzar el río, sobre todo porque uno de sus hijos ha sufrido dificultades emocionales en el campamento y está siendo atendido por un psicólogo voluntario.
“Existe una verdadera tentación,” dijo sobre el cruce irregular.
Otros migrantes en el albergue describieron a México como el país más difícil de transitar en la ruta hacia el norte a través de América Central – incluyendo el traicionero Tapón del Darién, la espesa selva que separa Colombia y Panamá, controlada por el crimen organizado y plagada de bandidos.
“Los oficiales de migración se llevan todo”, exigiendo el pago para evitar ser detenidos, agregó Eusebio Quiñones, de 38 años, un migrante de Ecuador, que quería cruzar a Estados Unidos “legalmente” con la aplicación CBP One.
La Pastoral de Migrantes de la Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano emitió un comunicado el 15 de noviembre, en el que describió la estrategia de las autoridades migratorias mexicanas como “contención, detención, deportación y militarización,” al tiempo que advirtió:
“No vemos una estrategia clara de coordinación entre los tres niveles de gobierno en respuesta a las condiciones inhumanas que viven los migrantes y refugiados en México”.
También expresó su alarma por el gran número de migrantes atrapados en ciudades de todo México y advirtió que México “se está convirtiendo en una gran Estación Migratoria para las personas migrantes y refugiadas, en donde no se les permite tener una estancia regular (legal), pero tampoco se les permite transitar hacia su destino”.
La Misa en el albergue para migrantes – ubicado en un hospital abandonado rodeado de tiendas de campaña – termina con el equipo de jesuitas proporcionando información sobre migración de la mejor manera que entienden.
El padre Strassburger aconseja seguir con la aplicación CBP One, que según él ha mejorado después de haber sido “probada en versión beta con migrantes” tras su introducción en enero.
“Los albergues aquí estaban llenos de personas muy desesperadas y ahora están en Estados Unidos”, dijo a los migrantes. “Con paciencia y fe, todos van a recibir su cita”.
El padre Strassburger ha trabajado con migrantes varados en México desde su ordenación en 2021 y asignación para trabajar en la Diócesis de Brownsville.
Trabajando con el padre jesuita Flavio Bravo y el escolástico jesuita Joseph Nolla, el padre Strassburger celebra Misas para los migrantes, cuatro días a la semana en Matamoros y Reynosa, a 50 millas (80 kilómetros) al oeste, junto con las celebraciones en el Centro de Respiro Humanitario en McAllen Texas, donde los migrantes recién llegados reciben ayuda para llegar a sus destinos finales en los Estados Unidos.
A menudo les atiende en condiciones difíciles, como en un campamento a orillas del Río Grande, donde los migrantes que no quieren perder de vista la frontera estadounidense esperan a ser citados por el CBP One o se quedan hasta que pagan a los contrabandistas para cruzar el río.
En medio de las dificultades, él ve inspiración en la perseverancia de los migrantes.
“Me parece que los migrantes son el mejor ejemplo de cómo utilizan su fe como fuente de esperanza en medio de una situación que de otro modo puede ser tan desesperante”, dijo el padre Strassburger. “A menudo me inspiran”.
(David Agren escribe para OSV News desde Ciudad de México. Viajó a Matamoros para informar sobre la situación fronteriza entre Estados Unidos y México.)
By Sister Rosemary Schmalz, SP
ST. MARY OF THE WOODS, Ind. – Sister Loretta Picucci, SP died on Nov. 9 in Providence Health Care. She was born on June 23, 1941 in Chicago to Joseph and Lucy Paoletti Picucci and was baptized Loretta Louise.
Sister Loretta entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence on Sept. 12, 1964 and received the name Sister Loretta Joseph. She professed final vows Apr. 24, 1976. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University, Chicago. Of her 59 years as a Sister of Providence, she ministered as a primary teacher for 14 years in schools in Indiana, Illinois and Washington DC. Committing herself to working with the poor, she served as an assistant director of a Congregation Day Nursery in Chicago for two years, an outreach minister at Sacred Heart Southern Missions in Mississippi for eight years, a family care professional in Chicago for five years and an ESL teacher in California for five years. Her last 15 years of active ministry were at Providence in the Desert in Coachella, California, a sponsored ministry of the Congregation serving a Hispanic community, many of whom were farm workers. There she continued to teach English. Retiring in 2018, she moved to the motherhouse where she committed herself totally to the ministry of prayer.
All of Sister Loretta’s ministries were rooted in compassion and love. She never rushed. No matter what needed to be done, she worked from a contemplative center, living in the present, giving her full attention to the task at hand and the person she was serving.
Sister Loretta is survived by a sister Josephine Mooney of Pittsburgh. She is preceded in death by a brother, Peter Picucci.
A Mass of Christian Burial was held on Tuesday, Nov. 21 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, with burial in the cemetery of the Sisters of Providence.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Sisters of Providence, 1 Sisters of Providence, St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN 47876.
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Whether simple or elaborate, the same every year or constantly changing, a Nativity scene echoes “the beauty of our faith,” Pope Francis wrote.
Marking the 800th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi putting together the first Christmas crèche in a cave in Greccio, Italy, the Vatican publishing house compiled texts by Pope Francis about Nativity scenes and asked him to write a special introduction.
A key message of the Nativity scene is that the mystery of Christmas “loves to hide within what is infinitely small,” the pope wrote in “Christmas at the Nativity,” which was released in English in the United States by New City Press.
“Awe and wonder are the two feelings that move everyone, young and old, before the Nativity scene, which is like a living Gospel overflowing from the pages of Holy Scripture,” he wrote.
The Italian edition of the book went on sale Nov. 21, just two days before the Vatican post office was to begin selling its 2023 Christmas stamps, which also celebrate the staging of a live Nativity scene in Greccio by St. Francis in 1223.
“The Incarnation of Jesus Christ remains the heart of God’s revelation, although it is easily forgotten that its unfolding is so unobtrusive, to the point of going unnoticed,” the pope wrote. “Littleness, in fact, is the way to encounter God.”
“Safeguarding the spirit of the Nativity scene becomes a healthy immersion in the presence of God manifested in the small, sometimes trivial and repetitive, everyday things,” he continued.
“The shepherds in the manger are those who welcome God’s surprise and live in wonder at their encounter with him, adoring him: in littleness they recognize the face of God,” he said. “Humanly we are all inclined to seek greatness, but it is a gift to know how to really find it: to know how to find greatness in that smallness that God so loves.”
On Christmas night, the angels lead the shepherds to a baby born in a manger – “not a sign of power, self-sufficiency or pride. No. The eternal God is reduced to a helpless, meek, humble human being. God lowered himself so that we could walk with him and so that he could stand beside us, not above and far from us.”
Pope Francis’ introduction to the book also included a special message to young people.
While the night sky is filled with an infinite number of stars, in the Christmas story “a special star stands out, the one that prompted the Magi to leave their homes and begin a journey, a journey that would lead them where they did not know.”
“It happens the same way in our lives,” the pope wrote. “At a certain moment some special ‘star’ invites us to make a decision, to make a choice, to begin a journey. We must forcefully ask God to show us that star that draws us toward something more than our habits, because that star will lead us to contemplate Jesus, that child who is born in Bethlehem and who wants our full happiness.”
Pope Francis also noted that the first Nativity scene in Greccio consisted of only a “crib with the hay, the ox and the donkey.”
“Before the Christmas scene, the people who flocked to the place manifested an unspeakable joy, never tasted before,” he said. “Then the priest, at the manger, solemnly celebrated the Eucharist, showing the link between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist. On that occasion, there were no figurines in Greccio: the Nativity scene was created and experienced by those who were present.”
(Editor’s note: Columnist Ruth Powers wrote a column for Mississippi Catholic entitled “Thanks to St. Francis, 800-year tradition of nativity scene born.” You can read it online at https://bit.ly/3Rsubkm.)
NATION
HOBOKEN, N.J. (OSV News) – For the last decade, Msgr. Paul Bochicchio of St. Francis Church in Hoboken has been advising as a spiritual consultant on the upcoming film “Cabrini,” produced by Angel Studios about the life and ministry of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, set to debut in theaters in March 2024. The movie, from the studio that produced “The Chosen” and “Sound of Freedom,” gives a dramatic look into the life of Mother Cabrini, as she is best known, and the uphill battle she faced ministering to the immigrant poor of New York. Msgr. Bochicchio, a priest of 52 years, has had a lifelong devotion to the first American saint. His great-grandmother knew Mother Cabrini personally, as they were both community leaders among New York Italian immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. Noting his grandmother had an enormous influence on his vocation to the priesthood, he found that he had a calling to work with Italian immigrants due to his background and had the perfect model in the patron saint of immigrants. As one of many technical advisers on the set of “Cabrini” but also as a Catholic priest, Msgr. Bochicchio accompanied the cast and crew on work retreats, where he would celebrate Mass every day and give spiritual reflections on the saint. As a script adviser, he would receive every revision and be asked to comment on its accuracy.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (OSV News) – The late James Madison Smith Sr. and Catherine “Kitty” Smith, formerly enslaved Catholics, are being recognized as agents of the Underground Railroad. The Smiths, a freed married couple, are buried in St. Louis Cemetery in Louisville in a once-segregated section of the cemetery. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service announced in late September that the Smiths’ burial site would be included in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Its mission is to “honor, preserve and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight,” according to its website. During the 1850s, worsening conditions for Black people in the South led the Smiths to move from Louisville to Jennings County, Indiana. Their farm – located about 29 miles from the Ohio River – became a shelter for enslaved people fleeing for freedom, said Deacon Ned Berghausen, who led the effort to recognize the Smiths. He serves at St. Agnes Church. Years earlier, James Madison Smith had purchased his freedom and that of Catherine Smith and they were married in 1837 at St. Louis Church, now the site of the Cathedral of the Assumption. Though they left Louisville, the couple remained connected to the city’s Black Catholic community.
VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Vatican announced Pope Francis’ Christmas liturgy schedule Nov. 28. It includes: – Dec. 24 at 7:30 p.m., the pope will celebrate the Mass of the Nativity of the Lord in St. Peter’s Basilica. – Dec. 25 at noon, Pope Francis gives his message and blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. – Dec. 31 at 5 p.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope presides over evening prayer and the chanting of the “Te Deum” in thanksgiving to God for the year that is ending. – Jan. 1 at 10 a.m. in the basilica, the pope celebrates Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day. – Jan. 6 at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s, Pope Francis celebrates Mass for the feast of the Epiphany. – Jan. 7 at 9:30 a.m. in the Sistine Chapel, the pope presides over a Mass for the feast of the Baptism of the Lord and baptizes several infants.
TURIN, Italy (OSV News) – On Oct. 30, three days after Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations and opened the path for a church trial and possible removal from the priesthood for former Jesuit and mosaic artist Father Marko Rupnik, a woman previously known as Anna gave the world her real name, revealing it in the Italian daily newspaper Domani. Emerging as Gloria Branciani, she openly wanted to protest church policies that put the alleged victims in more pain instead of healing. Branciani alerted church authorities about Father Rupnik’s behavior years ago, but it was a losing battle, she told OSV News. In a first-ever interview by an alleged victim of Father Rupnik, published by Domani Dec. 18, 2022, she spoke about a “descent into hell” she experienced for nine years and recalled how “Father Marko at first slowly and gently infiltrated my psychological and spiritual world by appealing to my uncertainties and frailties while using my relationship with God to push me to have sexual experiences with him.” Father Rupnik was expelled from the Jesuit order June 9 because of his “stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.” The artist had been accused by several women of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuses that according to media reports over a 30-year period. Branciani said she hopes that in the canonical process recently reopened against Father Rupnik will lead to the truth being recognized.
WORLD
PARIS (OSV News) – If classical literature characters could become saints, France has a perfect example. The real bishop behind Victor Hugo’s famous Les Misérables character is likely to be beatified. The French bishops, gathered in Lourdes Nov. 3-8 for their plenary assembly, voted in favor of opening the diocesan process for his beatification. Bishop Bienvenu de Miollis (1753-1843) was the Bishop of Digne from 1805 to 1838 and an inspiration for Victor Hugo’s character Bishop Myriel in the novel Les Misérables, published in 1862. Bishop Myriel was close to the poor and lived a sober life. He took in the main character, Jean Valjean, who had just been released from the penal colony. The next day, Valjean was recaptured by the police for stealing Bishop Myriel’s silverware. But the prelate pretended it was a gift, and doing so, he saved Valjean from re-arrest. This gesture of mercy marked the beginning of a profound transformation of Valjean, which continued throughout the book. He remained attached to the memory of the bishop all his life. Renowned for his kindness, Bishop de Miollis was very attentive to the poor and beggars, whom he gathered together at the Hospice of Charity, and lived very modestly himself. In 1806, Bishop de Miollis took in a freed convict by the name of Pierre Maurin, whom no-one wanted to take in, and looked for ways to help him regain his dignity – a story that inspired the author of Les Misérables.
BUENOS AIRES (OSV News) – The Nicaraguan government has released a series of photos and videos of imprisoned Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa – purportedly as proof of him receiving preferential treatment – that have sparked alarm over the prelate’s emaciated appearance and indignation over his continued incarceration in one of the country’s most notorious prisons. Nicaragua’s interior ministry published the photos and videos from 10 separate occasions between March 25, 2023, and Nov. 2, 2023, as part of a 20-page press release issued Nov. 28, according to independent Nicaraguan news organization Confidencial. The photos and videos show Bishop Álvarez greeting his brother and sister during prison visits, watching TV in an area full of snacks, and receiving medical attention. “As can be seen in the video and photographs, the conditions of confinement are preferential and the regime of medical consultations, family visits, referral and receipt of packages is strictly complied with, contrary to what slanderous campaigns would have us believe,” the ministry said in its statement. The bishop, 57, appeared emaciated in the photos, according to ecclesial colleagues on social media. An outspoken prelate, who routinely denounced the abuses of Nicaragua’s regime, Bishop Álvarez was convicted Feb. 10 on charges of conspiracy and spreading false information and sentenced to 26 years in prison after a closed trial in which he was denied a lawyer of his choosing.
MARAWI, Philippines (OSV News) – A deadly bomb that exploded during a Mass Dec. 3 killed at least four people and injured dozens at a university in a predominantly Muslim city in southern Philippines. Media reports that the explosion caused panic among dozens of students and teachers in a gymnasium, where Mass was taking place, at Mindanao State University in Marawi, capital of Lanao del Sur province. The explosion took place at around 7 a.m. local time. Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the deadly blast, according to Reuters and The New York Times. Nearly 80% of the Philippines’ population of 114.6 million people is Catholic. About 6% of the population identifies as Muslim. After praying the Angelus, Pope Francis assured the victims of his prayers. A telegram, addressed to Bishop Edwin de la Peña of Marawi, assured the people of the Holy Father’s spiritual closeness amid this tragedy, and that he commended the souls of those who died to God’s mercy and prayed for “the divine gifts of healing and consolation upon the injured and bereaved.”
