Tag: Christianity

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.

Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso County to revoke the organization’s nonprofit registration, which would prohibit it from continuing to operate in Texas.

“The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where [nongovernmental organizations] funded with taxpayer money from the Biden administration facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling,” Paxton said in a statement. “While the federal government perpetuates the lawlessness destroying this country, my office works day-in and day-out to hold these organizations responsible for worsening illegal immigration.”

In response to the lawsuit, Annunciation House issued a statement that called Paxton’s actions “illegal, immoral, and anti-faith” and his allegations “unfounded.” According to the statement, the organization has “provided hospitality to hundreds of thousands of refugees for over [46] years” and that if its activities are illegal, “so too is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks.”

“Annunciation House has kept hundreds of thousands of refugees coming through our city off the streets and [has] given them food,” the statement read. “The work helps serve our local businesses, our city, and immigration officials to keep people off the streets and give them a shelter while they come through our community.”

The attorney general’s office first approached Annunciation House on Feb. 7 of this year with concerns that it may be facilitating illegal immigration. Paxton’s office ordered the nonprofit to immediately turn over various documents and records to examine whether it is engaged in illegal activities.

Annunciation House’s lawyers requested 30 days to respond, but the attorney general’s office refused. Rather, Paxton’s office informed the organization that if it did not provide the requested documents by Feb. 8, which was the following day, that it would “be in noncompliance.”

Annunciation House quickly filed a lawsuit against the attorney general’s office on Feb. 8, which argues that the demand violates the nonprofit’s right to due process. In its public statement, Annunciation House stated that it wants the court to decide which documents the attorney general’s office is legally entitled to receive.

“There is nothing illegal about asking a court to decide a person’s rights,” the statement read. “The [attorney general’s office] has now made explicit that its real goal is not records but to shut down the organization. It has stated that it considers it a crime for a Catholic organization to provide shelter to refugees.”

A spokesperson for Annunciation House declined to speak about the lawsuit when reached by CNA but said the organization will hold a news conference on Friday, Feb. 23.

When contacted by CNA about Annunciation House’s response to the legal action, the attorney general’s office referred back to Paxton’s original statement.

Cyprus, February 22, 2024

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

Several miraculous healings have been reported in Cyprus through the presence of the Holy Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos this month.

The sacred relic, which is cared for by Vatopedi Monastery on Mt. Athos, has been venerated by hundreds of thousands of Cypriot faithful in the Metropolises of Constantia and Famagusta, Limassol, and Paphos. OrthoChristian reported earlier this week that 100,000 venerated the relic Cyprus: 100,000 venerate Belt of the Theotokos in Limassol (+VIDEOS)Thousands of Orthodox faithful were blessed to venerate the Holy Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos during its recent week-long stay in the Cypriot city of Limassol.

“>in Limassol, and according to the Orthodoxia News Agency, 200,000 have venerated it overall thus far.

The visit of the Holy Belt has been extended by three days until March 7 due to the overwhelming turnout of the faithful.

Archimandrite Augustinos Kharas spoke with the Top News podcast yesterday, where he shared a few of the miracles that have been occurred, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

The blessing of the Panagia was felt so strongly in the Metropolis of Constantia, said Fr. Augustinos, that after her Belt left, many people came and confessed for the first time in their lives.

The report continues:

With patience, people waited in lines to worship, and he emphasized that we learn from those who suffer and place their hopes in the Panagia. “We experienced instances of miracles at the same time,” he stated, referring to the case of an infant with respiratory problems, which, after being blessed, was discharged the next day. He also mentioned a young woman who came to be blessed one day before a scheduled surgery, and the next day she reported that what had been noted in the pre-surgical examinations was not found during the surgery. “Our only hope is God, our Panagia,” he said.

“Miracles happen because we believe,” he stressed.

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Two victims of notorious priest abuser and famed Catholic artist, former Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, have revealed their names publicly for the first time and have demanded complete transparency as a Vatican investigation moves forward.

They have also called for a full inquiry into what they say has been a systemic mishandling of the case similar to the so-called “McCarrick report” – a Vatican report that detailed the church hierarchy’s handling of allegations against ex-cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick – including what the pope’s own role might have been.

Speaking during a Feb. 21 press conference at the Rome headquarters of the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), two former members of the “Skupnosti Loyola” or Loyola Community, co-founded by Rupnik and Slovenian nun Ivanka Hosta in Slovenia in the late 1980s, shared their stories publicly for the first time, having previously spoken with pseudonyms.

The women – Mirjam Kovac, 62, and Gloria Branciani, 60 – recounted years of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse they and many fellow sisters endured, saying they sounded the alarm over Rupnik’s abuses in the early 1990s, but were routinely ignored while Rupnik was protected.

Kovac, who is Slovenian, said that in total, Rupnik abused “at least 41 sisters” in the Loyola Community, which is “a big number for us.”

“We were all young women, full of ideals. But these ideals, together with our formation in obedience and trust in the people who guided us, were exploited for abuses of various kinds: conscience, spiritual, power, psychological, physical, and even sexual,” she said.

Branciani, a native Italian who said she was serially sexually abused by Rupnik for years, spoke of how she first met him when she was a young medical student interested in art, and that almost immediately he began grooming her by playing on her insecurities and desires for approval.

“He was very friendly, sweet, available, (he) supported all of my emotional and physical needs,” she said, saying he paid her compliments and showed her special attention.

She described Rupnik as “a spiritual father” who seemed “very spiritually advanced,” and as someone whom she trusted with her deepest desires and aspirations.

However, Branciani said Rupnik was also critical of her physical interactions with others, chastising her for being “too open” when she gave friends a hug or a kiss on the cheek while also incorporating physicality into their own relationship.

“He often watched me as he painted,” she said, saying one time he lifted the bottom of her skirt, saying it was like the Virgin Mary revealing Jesus’s humanity.

Branciani said Rupnik was exceptionally good at manipulating the people around him, and that at one point, he told her that she was special and had a vocation as a mystic. He would often celebrate Mass for her privately, coming up to give her a hug and a kiss afterward, she said.

“He said he kissed me with the passion with which he kissed the altar during the Eucharist,” she said, saying these hugs and kisses gradually became more intense, and that while she was “disoriented” by them, she was told, and believed, that the physical contact would lead to spiritual growth.

At the same time, Branciani said she grew distant from friends and family, becoming “very dependent” on Rupnik’s approval and that if she had “doubts or didn’t correspond to his desires,” she was somehow being unfaithful to God.

She recounted one episode in June of 1986 when Rupnik, prior to leaving for Greece to work on Byzantine icons, had asked to celebrate Mass with her, and that during the liturgy he asked her to undress and groped her.

When she questioned what happened afterward, she said Rupnik “exploded aggressively” at her, telling her she was good for nothing, but that she had been chosen by God to be close to him, and could be a special person in his life.

Branciani said she entered the Loyola Community in 1987, and that afterward, the physical contact with Rupnik increased and “became more violent.” Rupnik, she said, often made long car trips for his various commissions, and would use these drives to commit “more serious abuses…including the loss of my virginity.”

“Every time I tried to talk, to say that for me it was a mistake, he said this was me being unable to live sexuality, that it was related to my rigid personality,” she said.

After making her perpetual vows, she said Rupnik approached her about having a threesome with another sister in imitation of the Holy Trinity – God as father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“To prove that our relationship was in the image of the Trinity, we needed to invite another sister to be sexual with us, she had to represent third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who united our way of having relations,” Branciani said.

She said she felt “trapped,” but agreed, as she was told by Rupnik that she was selfish, egotistical, and incapable of living a healthy sexuality. He would also tell her that her personality lacked determination and strength, and that she needed to develop those skills through sexuality.

Rupnik, she said, wanted a “collective orgy” and had twice brought her to see pornographic films, adding, “It was obvious that he was a frequent attendee of these films.”

After suffering from panic attacks and becoming deeply confused and disoriented, Branciani said she tried to bring her concerns to Hosta, the superior general, but was ignored, so she finally left the Loyola Community in 1994.

Similarly, Kovac said she suffered psychological abuse and abuse of conscience by Rupnik and Hosta, and that she also left in a state of disorientation and confusion because of the internal culture of abuse.

When the Archbishop of Ljubljana began conducting an inquiry into the Loyola Community in 2019 after receiving complaints from several sisters, Kovac said she was asked to contact other sisters who had left, and it was after that that some began speaking out.

Last fall, Hosta was sanctioned by the church to a life of prayer for the victims of her and Rupnik’s abuses, and the Loyola Community was dissolved.

Rupnik, 68, is perhaps the Catholic Church’s most famed contemporary artist, whose murals adorn shrines, chapels, and basilicas throughout the world, including the Vatican and the Marian shrine in Lourdes, but he has also become of the church’s most notorious alleged abusers.

He was briefly excommunicated in 2020 for absolving a woman with whom he’d had sexual relations, one of the church’s most serious crimes, however, the excommunication was lifted two weeks later.

Called delicta graviora, these crimes are handled by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), which at the time was run by Spanish Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, meaning a fellow Jesuit, and potentially Pope Francis himself, who is also a Jesuit, would have authorized Rupnik’s rapid reinstatement.

In 2021, nine former members of the Loyola Community complained to the Vatican about Rupnik’s abuse, yet when the allegations against him broke publicly in October 2022, the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refused to open a formal canonical inquiry, citing a statute of limitations for the abuse of adults, despite the fact that this provision has been waived in other cases.

Despite the DDF’s decision, the Jesuits barred him from ministry and imposed restrictions on his travel and commissions for new art projects. In December 2022, they invited anyone with other claims against Rupnik to come forward, which yielded 15 new complaints against him.

After refusing to cooperate with an internal Jesuit inquiry, Rupnik was expelled from the order for disobedience in June 2023.

Branciani during Wednesday’s press conference said she was among the women who provided a testimony to the DDF in 2022, and that she also gave her testimony to the Jesuits when they were conducting their own internal inquiry, but heard nothing more afterward, which is why she chose to speak out with a pseudonym.

Despite holding a meeting last September with a close ally of Rupnik, who has been incardinated into the Slovenian Diocese of Koper, Pope Francis a month later reversed course, and waived the statute of limitations on the Rupnik case, allowing a canonical trial against Rupnik to proceed.

Branciani and Kovac said they were contacted by the Vatican to be interviewed as part of the investigation into Rupnik, which is being conducted by the DDF, but that they waited because they did not want to speak without a lawyer.

Laura Sgrò, a high-profile Italian attorney with credentials in both civil and canon law, is representing Branciani and Kovac in the Rupnik case. She told journalists Wednesday that the women “will go to testify” before long.

She said the case is being handled as abuse of vulnerable adults, and indicated that they are also exploring other level avenues in the case, including potential civil charges against Rupnik at the Vatican tribunal, but offered no details.

Questions arose as to whether the DDF would continue handling the Rupnik case, or whether it might be transferred to another dicastery following a Jan. 30 “Clarification on Vulnerable Adults” from the DDF stating that their office is only responsible for abuse cases involving adults when there is a mental impairment.

Since that is not the case with Rupnik’s accusers, there was confusion as to which Vatican department was conducting the inquiry.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement following Wednesday’s press conference that the Rupnik case is still being handled by the DDF and that in recent months, “the dicastery has contacted institutions involved in the matter in various capacities to receive all of the available information relating to the case.”

“After having broadened the scope of the research to entities not previously contacted and having just received the last elements in response, it will now be a matter of studying the documentation acquired in order to identify which procedures will be possible and useful to implement,” Bruni said.

In addition to the physical abuses, Rupnik is also accused of “false mysticism,” using spiritual imagery and symbolism in his alleged abuse, styling it as part of a mystical experience of the divine, which is considered a crime against the faith.

For centuries, the DDF has prosecuted cases of false mysticism and similar crimes, however, the precise nature of these crimes is not clearly defined, and there are no provisions for these crimes in the Code of Canon Law, making it difficult for investigators to prosecute.

This legal gap has left some observers wondering whether modern abusers, such as Rupnik or a slew of other charismatic clergy and founders who stand accused of weaving false mysticism into their sexual abuse, might get away with their crimes due to a lacuna in the church’s own penal code.

Asked what the legal prescription was for Rupnik’s case, since there are no canonical provisions for false mysticism, Sgrò said this information was not disclosed by the DDF, and called for transparency, saying, “This is a case that merits transparency.”

“The victims deserve it, and the Jesuits deserve it, and all those in the church who are in front of a Rupnik mosaic deserve it,” she said, and condemned attempts by Rupnik allies to discredit his accusers.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of clerical abuse survivor advocacy group Bishop Accountability, which organized Wednesday’s press conference, lamented that five years after Pope Francis’s 2019 summit on child protection, little progress has apparently been made.

Rupnik’s case indicates an “egregious coverup,” and is indicative that “little has changed in this supposed reform.”

She called for a full report detailing “every superior who may have turned a blind eye” to Rupnik’s abuses from the 1990s until now, a report she said must also address “the most troubling questions around Pope Francis’s own role in this case.”

Branciani lamented that every attempt by sisters to raise concerns about Rupnik were blocked, and that she was told that it was her problem.

“It’s not that the situation has changed…the management from the beginning has not been transparent,” she said, voicing hope that she and Kovac will be “listened to,” and that their decision to speak out would help “promote more transparency and awareness.”

“What we want is for the truth to be recognized, the wrong that we have suffered, and for us also to be given visibility because we are many, but they ask us to remain silent, to disappear in some way. They discredit us and this is no longer acceptable,” Branciani said.

As the case proceeds, Branciani said she wants “truth and justice, and that this deafening silence be broken…I do no accept that in certain circles we are defined as sissies infatuated with [Rupnik]. The harm that I and twenty others of the forty-one sisters have suffered must be recognized.”

Bucharest, February 22, 2024

Photo: ​basilica.ro     

The first Romanian Orthodox missionary priest to Latin America, who labored there for more than four decades, has reposed in the Lord.

Fr. Costică Demetriu Popa, who was first sent to Venezuela in 1968, was a month shy of his 99th birthday when he reposed in the Lord, reports the Basilica News Agency.

A parish dedicated to Sts. Constantine and Helen was established in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, by the efforts of Fr. Costică, with a wooden church in the Maramureș style.

May Fr. Costică’s memory be eternal!

***

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel recounts the life of the missionary priest in his condolences message.

Fr. Costică was born on March 25, 1925, in the town of Beceni, Buzău County. His father was the mayor of the commune.

He graduated from the Theological Seminary in Buzău and the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest, after which he was ordained to the priesthood on November 2, 1946. He served in the Diocese of Buzău for seven years until he was forced out of his native place by the godless regime. He then served in the Metropolis of Oltenia.

Fr. Costică was then sent to Venezuela in 1968, thus becoming the first Romanian Orthodox missionary priest to Latin America. After 31 years of sacrificial service there, he saw the fulfillment of a dream when the Church of Sts. Constantine and Helen was consecrated by His Beatitude Patriarch Teoctist in 1999.

The missionary priest also occasionally served in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Panama.

He was twice awarded with the Patriarchal Cross and several other ecclesiastical awards for his labors.

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What happens to us when we experience a dark night of the soul? What’s happening and what’s to be our response?

There are libraries of literature on this, each book or article making its own point, but here I want to share a rather unique and highly insightful take on this by Constance FitzGerald, a Carmelite nun and someone well-versed in the various classical spiritual writers who speak about the dark night of the soul.

She uses the word “impasse” to render what is commonly called a dark night of the soul. For her, in effect, what happens in a dark night of the soul is that you come to an “impasse” in your life in terms of your emotions, your intellect, and your imagination. All the former ways you understood, imagined, and felt about things, especially as this relates to God, faith, and prayer, no longer work for you.

You are, so to speak, paralyzed, unable to go back to the way things were and unable to move forward. And part of the paralysis is that you cannot think, imagine, or feel your way out of this. You are at an impasse — no way back and no way forward. So, what do you do? How do you move beyond the impasse?

There’s no simple or quick path out of this. You cannot imagine, think, or feel your way out of this because the vision, symbols, answers, and feelings you need, in effect, don’t exist yet, at least they don’t exist for you. That’s the exact reason why you are at an impasse and so emotionally and intellectually paralyzed. The new vision and feelings that can reset your vision, thoughts, and feelings first have to be gestated and given birth to through your own pain and confusion.

At this stage, there is no answer, at least not for you. You may have read accounts of others who have undergone the same impasse and who now offer counsel as to how to undergo the dark night. That can be useful, but it’s still your heart, your imagination, and your intellect that are in the crucible of fire. Knowing that others have gone through the same fire can help give you vision and consolation in your paralysis, but the fire must still be gone through in your own life to reset your own imagination, thoughts, and feelings.

For FitzGerald, being in this state is the ultimate liminal space within which we can find ourselves. This is a crucible within which we are being purified. And, for her, the way out is the way through. The way out of a dark night of this kind is through “contemplation,” namely, staying with the impasse, waiting patiently inside it, and waiting for God to break the impasse by transforming our imagination, intellect, and heart.

So ultimately, this impasse is a challenge for us to become mystics, not that we begin to search for an extraordinary religious experience, but that we let our disillusion, broken symbols, and failed meanings become the space wherein God can reset our faith, feelings, imagination, and intellect inside of a new horizon wherein everything is radically reinterpreted.

How do we do this concretely? How do we contemplate? We do it by sitting in the tension, helpless, patient, open, waiting, and staying there however long it takes for us to receive in the depth of our souls a new way of imagining, thinking, and feeling about God, faith, and prayer — beyond the impasse.

Moreover, the broken symbols, the disillusion, and our helplessness to think or feel our way out of the impasse is precisely what assures us that the new vision which is given to us comes from God and is not the product of our own imagination, projection, or self-interest.

One of the most penetrating criticisms of religious experience ever given was made by Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that all religious experience, all of it, is ultimately human projection. He argued that we create God in our self-image and likeness for our own self-interest, and that is why a lot of sincere faith and religion can be hypocritical and false.

Reacting to this, Michael Buckley, the renowned Jesuit philosopher and theologian, made this counterclaim: Nietzsche is 95% correct. Ninety-five percent of what claims to be a religious experience is in fact human projection. But, Buckley adds, Nietzsche is 5% wrong, and that 5% makes all the difference — because in that 5% God’s revelation flows untainted in our lives.

Now, and this is the essential point here, that 5% happens precisely when we are in a dark night of the soul, when our symbols are broken, our intellect is impotent, our imagination is empty, and our hearts are at a loss. It is precisely then, when we are helpless to help ourselves that we are also helpless to fudge and taint the way God is entering us.

God can flow into our lives pure and untainted when we are at an impasse and unable to substitute our vision for God’s vision.

Morphou, Cyprus, February 22, 2024

Photo: TASS     

The Western elites, the New World Order, and the demonic forces that drive them are very active in the world today, as seen in the war and ecclesiastical situation in Ukraine and other manifestations, says His Eminence Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou.

The hierarch of the Cypriot Orthodox Church gave an interview to the Russian TASS agency that was published yesterday in which he discussed Tucker Carlson’s interview with President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, the relationship between the Russian and Cypriot Churches, and more.

Met. Neophytos notes that he watched President Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson because he “tries to listen to interviews with people who determine the history of the world… who determine thoughts, decisions, actions, right deeds and mistakes.”

He explains that he feels close to President Putin even though they’ve never met, and that he prays for him and other top Russian politicians at every Divine Liturgy at the request of Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of former Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev.

His Eminence notes that he was impressed by the historical overview that President Putin presented to Carlson. “This is purely Byzantine and Eastern,” he said, because only leaders of ancient nations “can talk about modern events in an historical context,” whereas Westerners “proceed from the understanding that politics is primarily concerned with money, pipelines, geostrategic and geopolitical interests.”

In His Eminence’s view, the interview showed that the Russian head of state “doesn’t want war—he wants peace,” while it is the Western elites who want war.

Further, he states that as hierarchs of the Church, their concern should not be about how to get Russian pilgrims to Cyprus without direct flights, but rather “eliminating the disunity, the split between Greek and Russian Orthodoxy that arose after the granting of autocephaly to Ukraine.”

Many unfortunately look at pilgrimage as tourism and an opportunity to make money, “however, a true Orthodox has much deeper motives—he ascends to Heaven during a pilgrimage,” the Cypriot hierarch said.

In any case, the ban on direct flights between Russia and Cyprus “was introduced by Western elites” and “their master is Satan, who doesn’t want ties between people, doesn’t want pilgrimages, and opposes the holy Orthodox Liturgy.”

And concerning the issue of Russians living in occupied Northern Cyprus, Met. Neophytos warns: “May there not be a big mistake on the part of the Russian Patriarchate … in sending their priests to occupied Cyprus. Then the problem will turn from a political one into a spiritual one.”

Concerning the Church situation in Ukraine, the Metropolitan repeats his well-known stance of recognizing only the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its ascetic primate His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.

According to Met. Neophytos, God sends virtuous primates to Local Churches that are undergoing trials. For example, the Serbian Church was led by His Holiness Patriarch Pavle during the NATO bombing in 2000, and now the Ukrainian Church is led by Met. Onuphry. Meanwhile, the schismatics of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” should show Orthodox obedience and repent of their sins before Met. Onuphry, says the Cypriot Metropolitan, but “they show arrogance and satanic demonism.”

A serious problem in the Church today is that Synods, primates, and bishops don’t always follow Church guidelines, but often proceed from national interest. “The policy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate … proceeds from national criteria,” Met. Neophytos states. “You see, this is a very big problem—the connection between the Orthodox faith and national consensus. The Russians have the same problem, and the Serbs have the same problem.”

“And where Church decisions fail to convey the truth of Christ to the people, the Lord humbly provides an opportunity for politicians, the military, and economists to implement their own plans…,” His Eminence states.

Hierarchs must rise above personal and political interests “and not cooperate with the KGB, the CIA, or the Cypriot Intelligence Service, to be an open person who relies on the Holy Gospel and the canons of the Orthodox Church.”

And turning to the war in Ukraine, His Eminence points to the New World Order and the demonic forces underlying it:

The war that is happening now isn’t a war with NATO. This is a war against demonic forces and their energy. The Orthodox must understand this. Therefore, they [representatives of the new world order] undertook to separate us so that we would quarrel with each other. Weaken us. What for? Because only Orthodox service to the Lord gives birth to saints. Demons and the New World Order are afraid of saints…

The legalization of gay marriage, digital identity cards, and COVID vaccines are all part of the New World Order plans, Met. Neophytos explains. He continues:

Various geophysical cataclysms are coming, which will occur in America, Europe, and Asia, and their consequences will be terribly catastrophic. And at the very end they will escalate into a world war. When the Israelis strike Iran’s nuclear program, countries such as Russia and China will be obliged to respond. The prophecies of the saints say that nuclear weapons will be used. And the most dramatic thing is, you know what? That Russia and China don’t want this. This is what the New World Order really wants. They push them, put pressure on them to do it, to then say, “It’s their fault!” We said that the goal of the New World Order is to reduce the world’s population. Therefore, nuclear weapons and world war, like epidemics, are an excuse for them.

Finally, addressing the question of restoring communion and dialogue between the Russian Church and the Cypriot primate and other hierarchs who recognize the Ukrainian schismatics, His Eminence states: “Understand what I said earlier. Epidemics, world wars, earthquakes, floods—all those events that will lead a man to kneel and repent before Christ are already knocking on the door…”

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Francesca Cabrini was born in Italy in 1850. After being rejected by three religious orders because of her “weak constitution,” she founded her own missionary congregation in Codogno, Italy. At the time, it was the only missionary order comprised solely of women.

In 1889, she and six of her Missionary Sisters set off for New York City. Over the course of 34 years she established an astonishing 67 hospitals, orphanages, and schools, mostly for Italian immigrants. She was canonized in 1946 by Pope Pius XII — the first American citizen to be named a saint — and was proclaimed patron saint of all immigrants.

The first biopic ever dedicated to the life of Mother Cabrini premiers in theaters on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day. It is brought to us from the director (Alejandro Monteverde), producers and writers of “Sound of Freedom,” the 2023 independent movie that grossed over $240 million worldwide.

With strong writing and directing, the film succeeds in depicting Cabrini — played by Italian actress Cristiana Dell’Anna — as a truly great woman in American history, one whose life and spirituality has plenty to say to the Catholic Church in the United States today.

“Cabrini” centers around the very beginning of her mission in New York City at the end of the 19th century, when the condition of Italian immigrants in most American cities was dire. The Italian neighborhood of Five Points in Lower Manhattan, where Cabrini established her first house, was plagued by disease and perhaps the highest murder rate recorded anywhere.

Most Italians lived in utter poverty and were denied basic rights, including access to hospital care. They were often the victims of racism and discrimination, called slurs like “dago” and “Guinea pigs.”

It was here that Cabrini found herself. And thankfully, “Cabrini” does not try to conceal its subject’s weakness.

As a child, Cabrini almost drowned, leaving her with serious lung damage that should have left her bedridden for the rest of her life. In one scene, we see her collapse from exhaustion a few days into her mission. A doctor gives her two, maximum three years to live.

In emphasizing Cabrini’s human shortcomings and weakness, the film presents a saint who didn’t accomplish great things because she was endowed with extraordinary willpower or unusual talents. Rather, we meet a woman who was convinced from the start that her mission, humanly speaking, was impossible. That she was bound to fail. Her success was based on her complete and utter trust in God.

In other words, it was precisely her weakness that made her more suitable for her mission.

As the movie shows, that trust led her to aim for the impossible. “The world is too small for what I intend to do,” she tells Pope Leo XIII (played by legendary Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini) in an early scene. This from a woman who was not supposed to leave her bed for the rest of her life!

Her drowning incident left her with a deep-seated terror of water, but this did not prevent her from crossing the Atlantic by boat some 30 times. In one scene, she quotes St. Paul: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

“Do you want to be king?” an astonished Pope Leo asks her at the end of the movie. “Yes,” she replies, “I want to build an empire of hope.”

“Cabrini” invites us to do something strange, even radical: to rejoice in our weaknesses, our laziness, our lack of courage, our lack of natural talents because they make us more, not less, apt for the mission that God is entrusting us.

The second part of the film follows Cabrini’s struggles in New York City, where the local church and the mayor are opposed to her work. We see the saint overcome impossible odds to establish an orphanage, a house, and then a hospital.

Two other aspects of this saint’s character emerge in this part of the film. First, her absolute trust in divine providence. “Begin the mission and the means will come,” she repeats in several scenes.

The second is the insistence on freedom and love. Her missionary work consisted in presenting children with love, without asking them to change. “The wounds the children bear,” she says in one of the movie’s scenes, “are only healed through love, and through an education of the heart.”

Cabrini is often presented as a “social saint.” But the primary source of her vocation was the immersion in the tangible experience of the love of God.

“Let all your affections, O daughters, be concentrated in this beautiful Heart, and you will always and truly be happy,” she wrote to her sisters during one of her transatlantic voyages.

“But if, on the other hand, some private affection either to you or to creatures binds you, you will always have some annoyance, some hours of tedium and melancholy. … Put on your wings, I pray you.”

Missionary work was a natural consequence, almost a reflex, of this immersion in the love of God.

“We must from time to time dive into God, immerse ourselves in the salutary water of his grace and loving kindness, and then fly, that is, work with much vigor.”

“Cabrini” offers viewers a refreshing opportunity to think about the true meaning of our lives, the love of God, and the mission that he’s entrusted to those who are baptized — one that surpasses our strengths. The key to this mission, Cabrini’s life suggests, is to have a tangible, concrete experience of his love.

Cabrini says it best in the film: “You need to have the courage to be what God wants you to be.”

Blessed Theodora’s Journey Through the Aerial Tollhouses   

For in death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?

(Ps. 6:5)

Now or tomorrow death will come…
and will in itself be imprinted on our destinies forever,
for after death there is no repentance.

St. Theophan the Recluse

Foreword

Reading descriptions of afterlife experiences, testimonies of those who passed into eternity and then by Divine Providence returned for repentance, we often see two phenomena that may at first glance seem to contradict one another. Firstly, the senses of the soul, freed from the shackles of the body, are more acute and strong—especially if the body was sick and infirm before death. Secondly, we know that after death there is no repentance, and the soul of an unrepentant sinner is bound in the state that it had just before death. Actually, the image of these “shackles” after death was given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen (Mt. 22:11-14).

This is how Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria, explains this parable:

“The entrance into the wedding takes place without distinction of persons, for by grace alone we have all been called, good and bad alike; But the life thereafter of those who enter shall not be without examination, for indeed the king makes an exceedingly careful examination of those found to be sullied after entering into the faith. Let us tremble, then, when we understand that if one does not lead a pure life, faith alone benefits him not at all. For not only is he cast out of the wedding feast, but he is sent away into the fire. <…> For there are many who deceive themselves with vain hopes, thinking that they shall attain the Kingdom of Heaven, and they include themselves among the assembly of the dinner guests, thinking great things of themselves. <…> The Lord then says to His servants, the angels of punishment, Bind his hands and feet, that is, the soul’s powers of action. For in this present age is the time to act and to do, but in the age to come all of the soul’s powers of action are bound, and a man cannot then do any good thing to outweigh his sins. Gnashing of teeth is the meaningless repentance that will then take place. Many are called, for God calls many, indeed, all, but few are chosen. Few are saved and found worthy to be chosen by God. It is God’s part to call, but to become one of the chosen or not, is our part.”¹

1. The senses of the soul after death

Obviously, this parable does not speak about the senses of the soul beyond the grave. We know that, according to Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), “after death, the soul is alive, and its senses become more acute, not weakened².”

St. Ambrose of MilanBorn in 340, the son of the Roman prefect of Gaul, St. Ambrose returned to Italy with his mother and his sister, St. Marcellina, after the death of their father. There he studied and became such a gifted orator and lawyer that the governor of northern Italy, charging him to ”govern more like a bishop than a judge,” selected him to be his successor in the capital of Milan.

“>St. Ambrose of Milan teaches:

“Since the soul continues to live after death… the soul is not held back by any obstacle placed by death, but is more active, because it is active in its own sphere without any association with the body, which is more of a burden than a benefit to it.³

The Venerable Abba Dorotheus of PalestineThe Holy Abba Dorotheus was a disciple of Saint John the Prophet in the Palestinian monastery of Abba Seridus in the sixth century.

“>Venerable Dorotheus of Gaza says:

“For as the Fathers tell us, the souls of the dead remember everything that happened here—thoughts, words, desires—and nothing can be forgotten. But, as it says in the Psalm, In that day all their thoughts shall perish (Ps. 145:4). The thoughts he speaks of are those of this world, about houses and possessions, parents and children, and business transactions. All these things are destroyed immediately when the soul passes out of the body… But what it did against virtue or against its evil passions, it remembers, and nothing of this is lost… In fact, the soul loses nothing that it did in this world, but remembers everything at its exit from this body more clearly and distinctly once freed from the earthliness of the body.⁴

Venerable John Cassian the RomanSaint John Cassian the Roman was born around 360, probably in Lesser Scythia (in Dacia Pontica). His pious Christian parents gave him an excellent classical education, and also instructed him in the Holy Scriptures and in the spiritual life.

“>St. John Cassian writes that the rational powers of the soul function even better after death than during life:

“Souls after the separation from this body are not idle, do not remain without consciousness; this is proved by the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16:22-28)… But if you care too to understand the words spoken to the thief, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise (Lk. 23:43), what do they clearly show but that not only does their former intelligence continue with the souls, but also that in their changed condition they partake of some state which corresponds to their actions and deserts? <…> For it was not his flesh but his soul which was to enter Paradise with Christ. <…> By which He clearly shows that the souls of the dead not only do not lose their consciousness, they do not even lose their dispositions—that is, hope and fear, joy and grief… They become yet more alive and more zealously cling to the glorification of God. And truly, if we were to reason on the basis of the testimony of the Sacred Scripture concerning the nature of the soul, in the measure of our understanding, would it not be folly to suspect even in the least that the most precious part of man (that is, the soul), in which, according to the blessed Apostle, the image and likeness of God is contained (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7; Col. 3:10), after putting off this fleshy coarseness in which it finds itself in the present life, should become unconscious—that part which, containing in itself the whole power of reason, makes sensitive by its presence even the dumb and unconscious matter of the flesh? Therefore it follows, and the nature of reason itself demands, that the spirit after casting off this fleshy coarseness by which now it is weakened, should bring its mental powers into better condition, should restore them as purer and more refined, but should not be deprived of them.”⁵

Theophan the Recluse

“>St. Theophan the Recluse wrote to his dying sister, comforting her that death has no power over the soul: “You will not die. Your body will die, but you will go over into a different world, being alive, remembering yourself, and recognizing the whole world that surrounds you.”⁶

The Elder Paisios – The Signalman of GodThe sacred life of Elder Paisios of Mount Athos from a documentary based on one special book with title: ”Elder Paisios, the signalman of God” which has been published in Greece.

“>Venerable Paisios the Hagiorite explained that “those who commit wrongdoings in this life are like drunken men. They don’t understand what they are doing; they don’t have a sense of their guilt. But when they die, this ‘drunkenness’ disappears and they become aware of their real condition. The eyes of their souls are opened and they realize their guilt, because the soul, when separated from the body, moves, sees and perceives with an inconceivable speed.”⁷

The fact that after leaving the body the soul feels and thinks more keenly than before is evidenced by the story of afterlife experience, written in the first person by K. Ikskul, a man who died, saw the spiritual realm and the aerial tollhouses with his own eyes, and was resurrected after praying to the Mother of God. K. Ikskul’s book, An Event Unbelievable for Many Yet True, was approved in 1910 by the outstanding spiritual writer and missionary Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) of Vologda as containing nothing inconsistent with the Orthodox teaching about the afterlife.

Specifically, in It K. Ikskul wrote about the feelings of his soul after death: “I… suddenly felt lightness. I opened my eyes, and what I saw at that moment was imprinted in my memory with perfect clarity to the smallest detail…. Afterwards, recalling and thinking over my state of mind at that time, I only noticed that my mental abilities had functioned with amazing energy and speed…”⁸

To be continued…

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter and the papacy.

St. Peter’s original name was Simon. He was a married man with children, and worked as a fisherman when Jesus called him to be an apostle.

Jesus gave Peter a special place among the apostles. He was one of the three who accompanied Christ on special occasions, including the Transfiguration of Christ and the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was the only apostle to whom Christ appeared on the first day after the Resurrection. Peter also spoke on behalf of the disciples often.

Peter was not without sin, however. He fell asleep in the Garden instead of praying, and he denied knowing who Jesus was after Christ was arrested.

Jesus made Peter the head of the community of believers and placed the spiritual guidance of the faithful in his hands: When Jesus asked the apostles: “Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?”

Simon replied: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

And Jesus said: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood have not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you: That you are Peter [Cephas, a rock], and upon this rock [Cephas] I will build my Church [ekklesian], and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven”. (Mt 16:13-20)

After Pentecost, Peter delivered the first public sermon, and won many converts. He performed miracles, preaching in Jerusalem, Judaea, and Syria. He was arrested in Jerusalem under Herod Agrippa I, but escaped execution. From there he went to Rome, where he preached the Gospels.

St. Peter was crucified in Rome, head down, saying that he did not deserve to die as Christ did. His death is estimated between 64 and 68. His remains now rest under the altar at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Bishop Pierre-André Dumas of the Diocese of Anse-à-Veau/Miragoâneis and vice president of the Haitian Bishops’ Conference is reportedly in stable condition after being caught in an explosion in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Sunday evening.

A communiqué sent out by the Conference of Catholics Bishops of Haiti on Monday announced that Dumas “was affected yesterday evening by an explosion which reached the house where he is accommodated during his stay in Port-au-Prince.”

The press release noted that the bishop is “stable” but did not provide additional details on the explosion or the bishop’s condition.

In a sign of solidarity with the bishop and the Church in Haiti, the Bishops Conference of Mexico (CEM), wrote on X: “We join in prayer and solidarity with the Episcopal Conference of Haiti in the face of the suffering of its people and the incident that affected Monsignor Pierre André Dumas.”

“We are aware of the difficult situation of violence and insecurity that Haiti is suffering. We admire the strength and firmness of the pastors of the Haitian Church who, despite the terrorist acts they have suffered, do not give up in their evangelizing mission,” the CEM’s full press release continued.

The bishops of Mexico also expressed that they were united ”in the pain of violence” and would pray “that soon there will be a time of peace, justice, and reconciliation for the people of Haiti. Count on our prayers and our commitment to continue working together as a Church for a future of hope.”

This is the latest incident to hit the Catholic community in the Caribbean island that has been rocked by gang violence, murder, and political instability.

Nearly a month ago, six Haitian religious sisters of the St. Anne Congregation were abducted in Port-au-Prince and released on Jan. 25 after a week in captivity.

In the wake of their release, Dumas said that “this traumatic event has once again put our faith to the test, but it remains unshakable.”

“We cried out to God. He made us strong in our trials and brought our captives back to freedom,” he continued.

Dumas has been vocal in denouncing the widespread violence and “the formalization of banditry in the country,” warning that without concrete action the situation could deteriorate into civil war.

The acting prime minister, Ariel Henry, assumed leadership of the government on July 20, 2021, following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse fewer than three weeks earlier.

Henry was faced with a deadline on Feb. 7 to step down from office. However, in a TV address broadcast on the evening of the ultimatum, the de facto Haitian leader said that elections would be held once security in the beleaguered capital was restored, CNN reported.

In a report released Monday, a judge in Haiti responsible for investigating Moïse’s assassination indicted Moïse’s widow, Martine Moïse, ex-prime minister Claude Joseph, and the former chief of Haiti’s National Police, Léon Charles, among others, the Associated Press reported.