Angelus News | May 17, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 18
A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”
A priest waits while sitting in a confessional box in the Cathedral of Barcelona. A new bill making its way through the California legislature would seek to force priests to break divine law in order to follow civil law. But would requiring priests to break the seal of confession in cases of alleged child sexual abuse really prevent abuse? On page 10, editor Pablo Kay weighs both sides of the debate surrounding SB 360 and looks at how similar legislation has fared in other places. On page 13, contributing editor Mike Aquilina recounts the history of confessional secrecy as a key part of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Catholic faith. And on page 3, Archbishop José H. Gomez writes why the bill is a “mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic.”
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WORLD<br />
L’Arche founder dies<br />
The pope does not call most<br />
people on their deathbeds. Then<br />
again, Jean Vanier was not most<br />
people.<br />
The Canadian founder of the<br />
L’Arche community died Tuesday,<br />
<strong>May</strong> 7, in France at the age<br />
of 90. Pope Francis called the<br />
ailing Vanier a week before his<br />
death. “I wanted to express my<br />
gratitude for his witness,” Francis<br />
told reporters after the news of<br />
Vanier’s death broke.<br />
Though Vanier had no direct<br />
heirs, he leaves behind a strong<br />
family — the L’Arche (French for<br />
“the arc”) community he founded<br />
in 1964 in which people with and<br />
without developmental disabilities<br />
could live together. L’Arche<br />
has communities in 38 countries<br />
and has revolutionized the way<br />
that people with developmental<br />
disabilities are cared for and<br />
included in society.<br />
“He saw people locked up, and<br />
he decided to make a gesture,<br />
inspired by the Bible,” the<br />
leader of L’Arche facilities, Pierre<br />
Jacquand, told the Los Angeles<br />
Times.<br />
“He felt a calling to defend the<br />
most marginalized.” <br />
Medjugorje pilgrimages get a more official OK<br />
The Church has not definitively approved the authenticity of the purported<br />
Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, but that shouldn’t stop pilgrims from<br />
making pilgrimages there — at least, not according to Pope Francis.<br />
Two Vatican officials confirmed on Sunday, <strong>May</strong> 12, that the pope has<br />
authorized pilgrimages to the site in present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina.<br />
Papal spokesman Alessandro Gisotti clarified that the apparitions “still<br />
require an examination by the Church” — a process that is still underway<br />
— and that the authorization of pilgrimages is not an authentication of the<br />
apparitions.<br />
The alleged apparitions began June 24, 1981, and have long been both a<br />
source of controversy and inspiration. Many pilgrims to the site believe it is<br />
a place of holiness and conversion, while others, including Francis himself,<br />
have expressed skepticism that apparitions have continued. <br />
HER GRACES CONTINUE — Pilgrims hold candles as they pray during a vigil at the Fátima<br />
shrine in Fátima, Portugal, on <strong>May</strong> 12, the day before Our Lady of Fátima’s feast day.<br />
Thousands of pilgrims converged on the Fátima Sanctuary to celebrate the anniversary of<br />
Fátima’s miracle when the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in <strong>May</strong> 19<strong>17</strong>.<br />
PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES<br />
Church attacked in Burkina Faso<br />
JEAN VANIER ASSOCIATION<br />
Jean Vanier in 2015.<br />
At least six people were killed, including one priest, during an attack on a<br />
Catholic church in the country of Burkina Faso in West Africa on Sunday,<br />
<strong>May</strong> 12.<br />
Toward the beginning of a Sunday morning Mass, between 20 to 30 gunmen<br />
attacked the northern town of Dablo, setting fire to the church, nearby<br />
shops, and a health center, according to multiple news outlets.<br />
This is the second of such attacks this year on Catholic churches in the<br />
region, which has been under a state of emergency since December due to<br />
a rise in Islamist attacks. <br />
4 • ANGELUS • <strong>May</strong> <strong>17</strong>, <strong>2019</strong>
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