Pope Francis and President Mauricio Funes Cartagena of El Salvador look at a reliquary containing a blood-stained piece of the vestment of Archbishop Oscar Romero during a private audience in the Apostolic Palace on May 23 at the Vatican.

By Carol Glatz

Pope Francis received a bloodstained relic of slain Archbishop Oscar Romero as a gift from El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes Cartagena.

Funes had told the media before his May 23 trip that the primary aim of his visit with the pope would be to express his gratitude that the archbishop’s canonization process had been “unblocked” and to encourage the sainthood process move forward.

The Vatican said the pope and Funes talked about Archbishop Romero and “the importance of his witness for the whole nation” of El Salvador.

The two leaders also talked about the church’s work in fostering peace and reconciliation; providing education and charity, and in fighting poverty and organized crime, the Vatican said in a written statement.

“The defense of human life, marriage and the family” was also discussed, it said.

Upon meeting the pope outside the papal library, Funes told the pontiff he was “very honored” to be there. “Many thanks for receiving me and thank you very much for this audience,” the president told the Argentine pope.

Pope Francis and Funes then spoke privately for 12 minutes, followed by an exchange of gifts.

Funes presented the pope with a large gold-colored reliquary containing a faded white bloodstained piece of the vestment Archbishop Romero of San Salvador was wearing when he was gunned down March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters that there was “clearly a bloodstain” in the middle of the cloth.

The reliquary was a gift from the sisters of the Congregation of Missionary Carmelites of St. Theresa who run the Divine Providence Hospital where the archbishop had lived and was killed.

The engraving on the reliquary said in Spanish: “Monsignor Oscar Romero, Spiritual Guide of El Salvador.”

The president’s visit came one month after Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator for the archbishop’s sainthood cause, said the process to beatify and eventually canonize the slain Salvadoran archbishop has been unblocked.

The Congregation for Saints’ Causes authorized the opening of his cause in 1993, but many people working for Archbishop Romero’s cause described the congregation’s standard review of the candidate’s writings as being “blocked” from 2000 to 2005.

Pope Benedict XVI told reporters in 2007 that the archbishop was “certainly a great witness of the faith” who “merits beatification, I do not doubt.” However, he said even though work on the sainthood cause was proceeding, problems had been created when some groups unjustly tried to co-opt Archbishop Romero as a political figure.

El Salvador’s ambassador to the Holy See, Manuel Lopez, told The Associated Press before the May 23 meeting that when he greeted Pope Francis along with other diplomats March 22, the Latin American pope told him: “‘I hope that under this pontificate we can beatify him.’”

Msgr. Jesus Delgado Acevedo, who worked with Archbishop Romero and is now vicar general of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, told reporters recently that when he spoke with the future pope in 2007, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio told him that if he were the pope, the beatification and canonization of the slain archbishop would the first thing he would pursue.

Msgr. Delgado said that during another meeting in 2010, then-Cardinal Bergoglio recalled what he said about Archbishop Romero in 2007, but added that the problem was that he would never become pope because he was too old.

Father Lombardi told reporters after the president’s meeting with the pope that Archbishop Romero’s “cause is going forward in the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, according to church rules” and that it is solely up to the congregation “to inform us” about the status of the process.

The next step in the process is a formal papal declaration that Archbishop Romero died a martyr — that he was killed because of his faith. A miracle is not needed for the beatification of a martyr. – CNS

The front cover of the ‘Contemplate the face of Christ’ DVD Sleeve.

The end of the Year of Grace was a time to take stock of what the Holy Spirit was saying to the Church and reflect on what the year had meant, Perth Year of Grace coordinator, Paddy Buckley, said last week.

The year’s conclusion on the Feast of Pentecost last Sunday was an opportunity to look at what its ‘fruits’ had been, to communities and individual believers, Ms Buckley said.

“Pentecost is not so much of familiarity as an openness to the future … an openness to the Spirit as we are led to the future, an openness to the challenges that we may have identified during the Year of Grace,” Ms Buckley told The Record.

“What do you believe the Spirit is calling the Church to be or to do? Have you come to know Jesus more?”

The national planning team for the Year of Grace has created an online survey “to identify, nurture and harvest the fruits of the Year of Grace”, which Ms Buckley is hoping Catholics in Perth will fill in.

The survey asks four qualitative questions:

What difference has the Year of Grace made in your life?; What do you believe the Holy Spirit is now calling our Church to be and do?;

What signs of hope and good news do you experience now in our Church and world?; as well, asking participants to share ‘a moment of grace’ they had experienced.

Ms Buckley said it was now time to focus on the Year of Faith which shared the same aims of “encountering Christ afresh in our lives through prayer, reflecting on the scriptures, celebrating liturgies, and repenting of our failures, and listening to the voice of the Spirit”.

Last year, Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Peter Comensoli, told The Record how Australia’s bishops had talked to then-Pope Benedict XVI of their plan to ordain a Year of Grace, only days before the Year of Faith was announced.

The Year of Faith, which began on October 11, 2012 and will continue to November 24, 2013, is also expected to see the release of a papal encyclical on faith, begun by Pope Benedict and completed by his successor Pope Francis.

The Year of Grace survey can be accessed at www.surveymonkey.com/s/yearofgrace.

Pope Francis greets the crowd during a Pentecost prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square on May 18 at the Vatican. PHOTO: CNS/Alessia Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo

By Carol Glatz

The depth of a bishop or priest’s love for Jesus and his willingness to give up everything for God are the litmus test for how well the pastor is fulfilling his ministry, Pope Francis said.

“We are not the face of an organization or an organizational necessity,” he told hundreds of Italian bishops during a solemn ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica May 23.

“We are called to be a sign of the presence and action of the risen Lord, to build the community in brotherly love.”

The pope made his comments in a reflection during a prayer service in which more than 200 heads of Italian dioceses and archdioceses reconfirmed their faith as part of the Year of Faith celebrations. The bishops were in Rome for the 65th general assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference.

“The only question that is truly essential” for a pastor, the pope said, is the question Jesus asked Peter three times: “Do you love me?”

Being a real friend of Jesus who follows him with his life is the “premise and condition for feeding his flock, his lambs, the church,” he said.

“Every ministry is built on this intimacy with the Lord,” the pope said.

Drawing everything from Christ “is the measure of our ecclesial service, which is expressed in the willingness to obey, lower oneself, and total giving of oneself,” he said.

Loving the Lord means giving everything, absolutely everything, even one’s life, for him, and this is “what must distinguish our pastoral ministry,” he said.

“It is the litmus test that tells us how deeply we have embraced the received gift answering Jesus’ call and how much we are linked to the people and community we have been entrusted with.”

Keeping watch over oneself and one’s flock, as St. Paul the Apostle admonished, is necessary to avoid becoming a “lukewarm” pastor, the pope said.

A lack of vigilance makes a pastor “distracted, forgetful and even insufferable; it seduces him with the prospect of a career, the enticement of money and compromises with the spirit of the world.”

It makes the pastor “lazy, turning him into a pencil pusher, a state worker-cleric worried more about himself, about the organization, the system, than the true good of the people of God,” Pope Francis said.

Just like Peter, the bishop or priest runs the risk of denying Jesus even though the pastor “formally presents himself” as a man of God “and speaks in his name,” he said.

Jesus’ continuous inquiry into whether we love him or not, he added, “can leave us distressed and more aware of the weakness of our freedom, threatened as it is by thousands of personal and outside influences that often cause confusion, frustration and even a loss of belief.”

Jesus does not mean to cause these difficulties by asking his disciples about the depth of their love; rather, it is the devil who is taking advantage of people’s weaknesses in order to isolate them “in bitterness, complaints and discouragement,” the pope said.

He said Jesus the Good Shepherd is not trying to humiliate his disciples and never abandons them; he is making known “the tenderness of the father” who consoles and raises people up again, helping them go from being broken down by shame to the wholeness of faith, offering them courage and re-instilling his trust in them in their mission.

“Being a pastor means believing every day in the grace and strength that comes to us from the Lord despite out weakness and to assume deep down the responsibility to walk in front of the flock” and speak in a way both the faithful and those who have not found God yet can recognize, he said.

“We are called to make God’s dream our own, whose home doesn’t know the exclusion of persons or peoples,” he added. – CNS

Alva and Trevor Knuckey with one of the shirts they give students who are making the effort to study. PHOTO: Robert Hiini

Greenmount man, Trevor Knuckey, has announced his intention to establish an Aboriginal drop-in centre in Midland, and is calling on the Church in Perth to help.

For the past three years, at Moorditj Noongar Community College in Midland, Mr Knuckey has been putting his proverbial money where his mouth is, re-forming the defunct breakfast club as well as establishing several different student clubs and incentive reward programs for behaviour and attendance.

A 2011 recipient of the Prime Minister’s National Volunteer Award, Mr Knuckey said his experience at the school convinced him that more could be achieved through involving parents and changing generational attitudes to the importance of education.

Mr Knuckey first encountered the school after becoming St Vincent de Paul Regional President for Swan in 2010; it was a place that gave him hope that substantive change was worth pursuing.

“I was affected strongly by the Aborigines there because, for 20 years with St Vincent de Paul, I’ve been going into so many Aboriginal homes on visitation to help with utility bills and food,” Mr Knuckey said.

“I have seen how hopeless their situation is and I knew what we were doing was not really helping them. We were helping them to exist but not to get up.”

He said he wanted to change that by instilling self-belief in the children at the school.

“A lot of them don’t realise they can work; they think that when they leave school they’ll go on Centrelink payments [like many of their relatives].”

For around six months, Mr Knuckey has been speaking to people throughout Perth with interest and experience in the area, including Aboriginal elders.

At present, students are often removed from classrooms by their parents for extracurricular activities because of the low importance placed on education.

“That’s [one of the reasons] I want to get a drop-in centre going, to try and break the cycle. For that, they have got to trust me, and they don’t trust white people, so it’s hard work but I think we could get some of that going,” Mr Knuckey said.

The centre will provide a site for Aboriginal adults, young Indigenous people who need work, and Indigenous homeless, to access information technology and referrals for other services.

Mr Knuckey also hopes it could be a meeting place for elders and Indigenous volunteers.

Mr Knuckey traces his enthusiasm for helping others back to his pilgrimage to Medjugorje in 1990, where he says he received a personal epiphany.

The greatest immediate need for the establishment of a Medjugorje drop-in centre in Midland is a site and building (Mr Knuckey can be contacted at 9255 1068).

Mr Knuckey’s incentive rewards programs at Moorditj College have been a big hit with students, particularly his partnership with a helicopter operator which, to date, has taken 12 students for scenic fly-overs of Perth.

A nun walks near the Basilica of St. Francis in the early morning in 2011 in Assisi, Italy. Pope Francis will visit the birthplace of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, on Oct. 4 for the saint’s feast day. PHOTO: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

Pope Francis will visit the birthplace of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, on the saint’s feast day, Oct. 4.

The Vatican confirmed the trip May 23.

Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi said he was thrilled about the visit and that it was “a great sign” of the pope’s benevolence and consideration.

“It could be no other way,” he said, than a trip to Assisi “for someone who took the name of Francis.”

He told Vatican Radio that Pope Francis has never been to the small city in central Italy and that the pope “intends to have a very comprehensive visit that lets him walk in the footsteps of St. Francis, along his spiritual path, the path of his conversion.”

Just a few days after his March 13 election, Pope Francis told Italian pilgrims during his Sunday Angelus address that choosing St. Francis as his papal name “reinforces my spiritual tie with this land, where — as you know — my family origins lie.” St. Francis is the patron saint of Italy, and the pope’s maternal and paternal grandparents were born in Italy and later emigrated to Argentina.

Pope Francis has said that he chose his name because St. Francis of Assisi was so devoted to the poor, a virtue he wanted to be reminded of throughout his papacy.

He told journalists March 16 that he was inspired to take the 11th-century saint’s name because he was “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation,” the same created world “with which we don’t have such a good relationship.”

Pope Francis will be following in the footsteps of his predecessors:

– Pope Benedict XVI visited Assisi in 2011 to participate in a pilgrimage with believers and nonbelievers for a day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for justice and peace in the world.

– The retired pope also visited in 2007 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the conversion of St. Francis.

Blessed John Paul II visited Assisi four times as pope:

– In 1982 to mark the 800th anniversary of the saint’s birth.

– In 1986 to bring world religious leaders together for the first interfaith “prayer summit” for peace.

– In 1993 to convene another interreligious meeting to pray and fast for peace in Europe, especially in a war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.

– In 2002 when, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, the pope led a “peace train” of more than 200 religious leaders back to Assisi, where participants condemned all violence in the name of religion. – CNS

More than 600 attendess processed in prayer after a one of the children had crowned a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

By Matthew Monisse

More than 600 people gathered at Bove Farm, south of Busselton on Sunday, May 5, for the annual Busselton May Rosary Celebration.

The event is held in honour of Our Lady at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Shrine located on the property and has been celebrated every year since 1980.

This year, a concelebrated Mass was led by the Vicar General of the Bunbury Diocese, Fr Tony Chiera, along with the new parish priest of Busselton, Fr Nick Lim, as well as other priests and deacons from the Bunbury Diocese.

Fr Tony spoke on the need for Christians to imitate Mary by allowing Jesus to enter deeply into their hearts and minds.

In this way, the Lord can be made present to the people we meet as well as our families and friends. He asked all gathered to open themselves fully to the presence of Christ just as Our Lady did.

After Mass, the statue of Our Lady was crowned and then pilgrims processed behind the statue around the property during which the Rosary was recited.

The liturgical celebrations concluded with benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Afterwards, a delicious array of food and beverages was provided to pilgrims thanks to the Catholic Women’s League.

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican May 22. PHOTO: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

Selfishness only brings sadness and bitterness, while stepping outside of oneself to evangelize is the ultimate “pick me up” and source of joy, Pope Francis said.

“Let’s live the Gospel with humility and courage. Give witness to the newness, hope and joy that the Lord brings to your life,” the pope said May 22 at his weekly general audience.

Speaking to more than 80,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis also called for prayers for those struck by a deadly tornado in Moore, Okla., which left at least 24 people dead, including at least eight children, as it destroyed numerous homes and leveled an elementary school May 20.

“I invite all of you to pray with me for the victims, especially the children, of the disaster in Oklahoma,” he said.

“May the Lord himself console everyone, in particular parents who have lost a child in such a tragic way.”

The pope made the call for prayers after leading his weekly general audience in which he continued a series of talks about the affirmations of faith in the creed. He focused on the role of the Holy Spirit in the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” church.

The Holy Spirit gives the church life and guides her steps, he said.

“Without the presence and constant action of the Holy Spirit, the church could not live and could not fulfill the task the risen Christ entrusted her to go and make disciples of all peoples.”

The church exists to evangelize, which is the mission of all baptized Christians, not just a few, he said.

However, it takes prayer and the Holy Spirit to truly evangelize, he said.

Proclaiming the Gospel “must always start from prayer,” he said, since “only a faithful and intense relationship with God” lets people break out of their shell to share the Good News with others.

“Without prayer, what we do becomes empty and our proclamation lacks soul, it isn’t enlivened by the Spirit,” the pope said.

The Holy Spirit provides courage and unity, helping people proclaim the Gospel out loud and “with frankness” at every time and in all places.

The Holy Spirit brings unity because it brings “a new language” — a language of love that everyone can understand and express in every culture and part of life.

“The language of the Spirit, the Gospel and communion invites us to overcome being closed up, the indifference, divisions and polarization,” he said.

Sometimes today it seems like it’s Babel all over again with divisions, the inability to understand each other, rivalries, jealousies and selfishness, the pope said.

People have to ask themselves: “What am I doing with my life? Do I create unity around me or do I divide, divide and divide with gossip, criticism and jealousies?” he said.

People should reflect on whether they bring, through their words and deeds, “the reconciliation and love” of the Gospel to every aspect of their lives.

“Bringing the Gospel is us, first of all, proclaiming and living reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, unity and love that the Holy Spirit gives.”

The pope asked people to never close themselves off to the action of the Holy Spirit and to receive his gifts of courage and strength to share the Gospel.

It’s something every Christian should do “because evangelizing, proclaiming Jesus gives us joy while egoism gives us bitterness, sadness; it drags us down and evangelizing picks us up,” he said.

He asked that people have faith the Holy Spirit is “acting within us, he is in us” giving people the apostolic zeal, peace and joy that are needed to bring God’s unity and communion to the world.

At the end of the audience, Pope Francis asked people to pray for the Catholics in China so that they may have grace to proclaim Christ with humility and joy, and be faithful to the church and the pope.

The pope recalled the church’s May 24 celebration of feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians, which Pope Benedict XVI established as a world day of prayer for the church in China.

Mentioning Chinese Catholics’ devotion to Mary at the Sheshan Marian shrine in Shanghai, Pope Francis asked the Our Lady to help Catholics in China “continue to believe, hope and love, amidst their daily efforts, so that they may never be afraid of telling the world about Christ and talking to Christ about the world.” – CNS

The text of the pope’s audience remarks in English is available online at www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130522_udienza-generale_en.html.

Pilgrims display a banner with an image of Christ as they travel in a boat in 2012 while accompanying the statue of Our Lady of Conception (not seen) along the Caraparu River in Santa Izabel do Para, Brazil. PHOTO: CNS/Paulo Santos, Reuters

By Lise Alves

On a Saturday night in a small community on the outskirts of Sao Jose dos Campos, parishioners flock around the entrance of a church in the Parish of St. Lucia, waiting for Father Vitor Mendes to arrive. Father Mendes is one of the two priests who take care of parishioners in the parish’s five churches.

“The other father and I usually each conduct a Saturday night Mass and three Masses on Sunday,” he said.

Although it is a heavy schedule, Father Mendes was not complaining. He said there are other places in Brazil where priests have to scramble and travel hours and even days to tend to their flock.

Recent Brazilian church data reiterates the priest’s feelings, showing that although there has been an increase in the number of priests, they are not spread evenly throughout the country. As a result, ministry differs in different parts of the country, which is larger than the 48 contiguous U.S. states and varies geographically and socially.

“There are regions, such as the Southeast and South, where there are a lot of priests and other regions, like the North, where there is one priest to serve an enormous area,” Father Jose Carlos Pereira, who has analyzed some data, told Catholic News Service.

For instance, Father Geraldo Ferreira Bendahan of Our Lady of Grace Parish, just outside the city of Manaus in Brazil’s Amazon region, is in charge of 12 churches, with no other priest to help him. He often has to travel hours by boat or car on dirt roads to celebrate weddings, baptisms and Masses.

“Here in the north of Brazil, parishes have a much greater area than in other parts of Brazil, because parishioners are more spread out. The low demographics in many areas result in parishes that extend for many kilometers,” said Father Joao Sucarrats, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Manaus.

He said parishioners in remote locations only see a priest two to four times a year.

“The presence of laypeople within the church organization in these parishes is very strong,” said Father Sucarrats. “They conduct celebrations during the weeks the priest is unable to attend their church.”

The chancellor said attempts to bring in priests from other parts of the country are not always successful.

“Priests from other regions have to embrace different cultures found in this region and try to get their message across in many different ways. Sometimes this is difficult for some religious to understand,” he said.

Father Sucarrats said the more active participation of laypeople within the day-to-day workings of the parish causes tension between the new priest and his parishioners. He said it takes two-three years for priests to adapt to the Amazon’s way of life, and that many who come enthusiastically return home before their first year is up.

Tension between religious and laypeople is also felt in Brazil’s basic ecclesial communities, which combine scriptural reading with everyday issues.

Celia Aparecida Leme, one of the coordinators of base communities in the Sao Paulo Archdiocese, said these grass-roots groups are usually involved in issues such as housing, violence and health and, like other church groups that deal with social issues, sometimes face opposition from priests and bishops.

“In the center of all our discussions is the word of God. Our social activism is a consequence of the study and reflection of the Scriptures,” she emphasized.

“It is the people of these communities who, through group discussions, find solutions to specific problems and promote change in their neighborhoods,” she said.

Although the Brazil Census Bureau has shown a reduction of Catholics in Brazil, from 91.8 percent of the population in 1970 to 64 percent in 2010, in the latest survey, Catholics still represent the largest religious group in the country, approximately 123 million.

Father Pereira said people answering earlier censuses were “embarrassed to admit that, although they were Catholics, (they) also worshipped the Afro-American religions such as Candomble or went to Macumba rituals.”

Before such Afro-Brazilian religions became more accepted, people “told surveyors they were Catholic so as not to admit they practiced religions that, at the time, were marginalized by society.” Now, as those religions have become more accepted, said Father Pereira, the number of “Catholics” has declined.

If, on the one hand, the data shows a quantitative decline of Catholics in Brazil, there has been a qualitative increase in those who have remained, said Cecilia Mariz, sociology professor at Rio de Janeiro State University. “Although the data shows that there was a real decline in those claiming to be Catholic, those who remained seem to be more practicing, more involved, more committed,” she said.

One of the reasons for this resurgence is the embracing of other, less traditional forms of liturgy, such as that of Father Marcelo Rossi, who sings, dances, appears in movies and fills soccer stadiums for his Masses. In northeastern Brazil, Father Glenio Guimaraes ministers inside churches and on his surfboard.

But not all agree that mega-events are a positive way to attract followers. Leme said one challenge for Brazil’s church is to create a model more focused on small community groups and their accomplishments and less focused on mega-people celebrations.

“It is in small local communities that one can promote change, not with thousands of people together,” she said.

Capuchin Brother Carlos Rockenbach, former executive secretary of the Department of Mission and Spirituality at the Latin American bishops’ council, or CELAM, and currently a parish priest in Marau, said recent changes in Brazil’s Catholic Church began after the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007. The document produced at the conference, dubbed the Aparecida document, summons bishops to a more missionary stance.

“The Brazilian church is now attracting some of those who had no religion as well as bringing back lapsed (nonpracticing) Catholics,” said the brother. He said the church is bringing back the teaching of Jesus Christ and a church more integrated with today’s world. – CNS

Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his general audience on May 22 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. PHOTO: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

Christians are called to welcome and cooperate with the good accomplished by members of other religions or no religion at all, promoting a culture of dialogue and peace, Pope Francis said.

“We are all children of God — all of us. And God loves us — all of us,” the pope said in his homily May 22 during an early morning Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai, the Maronite patriarch, concelebrated the Mass, which was attended by Vatican employees.

Pope Francis’ homily focused on the day’s Gospel story from Mark 9:38-40, which recounts the disciples complaining to Jesus about outsiders casting out demons in Jesus’ name and Jesus telling the disciples, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

The pope said that by saying, “If he’s not one of us, he cannot do good; if he’s not in our party, he can’t do good,” the disciples were “a bit intolerant, closed in the idea of possessing the truth, in the conviction that ‘all those who do not have the truth cannot do good.’”

However, the pope said, “the possibility of doing good is something we all have” as individuals created in the image and likeness of God.

All people are called to do good and not evil, the pope said. Some would object, “‘but, Father, he isn’t Catholic so he can’t do good.’ Yes, he can. He must.”

The idea that others cannot really be good and do good in the world creates “a wall that leads to war and to something that historically some people have thought: that we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that one can kill in God’s name is blasphemy.”

“The Lord has redeemed us all with the blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone,” he said. Some may ask, “‘Father, even the atheists?’ Them, too. Everyone.”

The commandment to do good and avoid evil is something that binds all human beings, he said, and it is “a beautiful path to peace.”

Noticing the good others do, affirming them and working with them promotes an encounter that is good for individuals and societies, he said. “Little by little we build that culture of encounter that we need so much.”

Someone can object, “‘But I don’t believe, Father, I’m an atheist.’ But do good and we’ll meet there,” he said.

Noting that May 22 was the feast of St. Rita of Cascia, sometimes called the saint of impossible causes, the pope asked the small congregation to pray for “this grace that everyone, all persons would do good and that we would encounter each other in this work.”

“May St. Rita grant us this grace, which seems impossible,” he said. – CNS

A guide leads a U.S. visitor through the bamboo forest at the foot of the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Sheshan near Shanghai. PHOTO: CNS/Nancy Wiechec

By N.J. Viehland

A Chinese priest who recently arrived in the Philippines said that, this year, he did not make his usual May trek up Sheshan hill outside Shanghai, where thousands of pilgrims offer special prayers to Mary, Help of Christians.

Speaking to Catholic News Service on the condition of anonymity, the priest said that, until he left China, Shanghai priests — who currently have no bishop — were still discussing how to proceed with the month’s largest pilgrimage, May 24. Shanghai Bishop Jin Luxian died April 27; his Vatican-approved successor, Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, is under house arrest.

Bishop Ma has been detained since his ordination as bishop last July when he publicly quit the government-run Catholic Patriotic Association, which directs the church in China, spurning ties with the Vatican.

“I admire Bishop Jin, because he is very wise and knows how to deal with the government and with Rome,” the young Chinese priest said. “I also admire the bravery of Bishop Ma.”

In Manila May 18, the Chinese priest said, “Shanghai clergy meet every now and then and discuss whether to let a bishop of the patriotic association come and say Mass. But they do not want them to preside at the Masses. They say, ‘We (Shanghai priests) will say the Masses.’”

The Chinese priest said he believes Bishop Jin’s death and troubles with Bishop Ma may be making the government more nervous about the Sheshan pilgrimages, which attract tens of thousands of pilgrims each May. The pilgrimages culminate May 24, designated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 as the World Day of Prayer for the Church in China.

“I have a classmate … a priest now in another province who tried to bring two busloads of people on a pilgrimage to Sheshan April 30, but they were refused at the gate at the foot of the mountain,” the priest said.

Some religious told him they got announcements from the Shanghai government saying they should prevent people in their provinces from going to the Sheshan shrine. Others reported being required to apply for a special pass, similar to one required for interprovince travel in 2008 during the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

However, the priest said he expects there will still be “many pilgrims,” especially May 24.

“When the church is suffering, we know God is with us,” he said.

He links the story of the devotion to Our Lady of Sheshan and the pilgrimage to the story of the struggle of Shanghai church and the rest of China’s 10 million Catholics.

The shrine and 2-ton bronze statue of Mary raising the child Jesus above her head is located in Song Jiang district on the outskirts of Shanghai, where a 19th-century Jesuit retreat center was built in the middle of a bamboo forest. In the 1870s Jesuit priests reportedly prayed to Our Lady of Sheshan for protection, and the diocese was spared from attacks during the Taiping Rebellion.

Jesuit priests led the construction of a new church there in that era. It drew large groups of pilgrims from around China and Asia each May. In 1894 Catholics built a church midway up the mountain and dedicated it to Mary as Mediatrix. Three chapels built soon after were dedicated to Mary, St. Joseph, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Stations of the Cross were built along the path to the mountaintop.

The current structure was completed in 1935. In 1942, Pope Pius XII named the Sheshan Cathedral a minor basilica.

During the 1949 Communist Revolution, the church’s stained glass windows were heavily damaged, and carvings, and art work and the statue on the bell tower were destroyed.

In the 1950s, Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-mei of Shanghai was arrested and imprisoned for more than 30 years, and the Chinese government put the basilica under the control of Catholic Patriotic Association. When the revolution ended, damage to the church was repaired, and the statue was replaced in 2000.

The Chinese priest said prayers for the church in China are needed because, in addition to churches and structures being destroyed in rebellions and revolution, relationships were affected. In a 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics, Pope Benedict urged reconciliation among those who functioned underground and those who decided to work with the Chinese government. – CNS