I have been blessed to attend a St. Andrew Dinner on two occasions. These are dinners for young men of high school and college age who are discerning a possible vocation to the priesthood. Both times we had 20 or more young men attend them. Recently I learned that the Poor Clares have a new postulant and some other young women are considering becoming postulants. With 19 men in formation for the priesthood for the diocese and numerous others discerning a possible vocation to the priesthood and religious life, your prayers are bearing much fruit! 

On Sunday, Nov. 19, we will celebrate the World Day of the Poor. It was established by Pope Francis in 2017 to celebrate the end of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. The theme for World Day of the Poor 2023 is a passage from the Book of Tobit: “Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor.”

Pope Francis wrote that “The poor are the true treasures of the Church.” I doubt that many people look at the poor in this way. Yet if we have been awakened to the presence of Christ in his many disguises, he prefers to appear as a poor person. In his day, only the poor, the “humiliati,” would give him a hearing, not the elite, the wealthy or the powerful. While a pastor in Portland, Oregon, we had a team that took food to the nearby homeless encampments every Saturday, and on occasion I joined them. To share a meal and conversation with the people there changed me. You could sense, underneath the guise of a poor man or woman, the living presence of Christ. I invite all of us to find ways to connect with Christ in the poor, especially through Catholic Charities and other service organizations that serve the most vulnerable of our diocese. 

Sharing a meal with the poor naturally turns our minds and hearts to ponder Christ in the Eucharist, who is bread for the world. In this Parish Year of the Eucharistic Revival, we’ve been renewed in our appreciation for the sacrament that is the source and summit of our lives. I’m pleased to inform you that all the parishes will receive my first pastoral letter on the Eucharist, just in time for Advent. I hope that you enjoy it. 

Finally, I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I know that it is hard to witness so much division in our country and a growing collective sense of fear and mistrust. Having lived overseas, I want to remind people that for all of our challenges, we live in a privileged land where our democracy guarantees us certain rights and freedoms that many people in the world do not enjoy. We people of faith are called to serve the common good and to uphold those values and principles that have their roots in Catholic social teaching. We have so much to be grateful for each day, as individuals and as one nation under God. Might you consider, as part of the prayer portion of the meal, asking those who wish to share one reason as to why they are thankful on Thanksgiving Day? You’ll be touched by the responses! 

Yours in Christ, Bishop Patrick M. Neary, C.S.C.

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Russia’s ambassador to the Vatican confirmed Pope Francis helped facilitate recent prisoner exchanges with Ukraine and said the Vatican is ready to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. The Italian news agency Askanews reported the ambassador, Aleksandr Avdeyev, said the exchanges of prisoners occur in accordance with the lists of military prisoners of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; the lists are handed over by Pope Francis. “In this case, we highly appreciate the personal actions of the pontiff, who is carrying out a very important humanitarian mission that allows hundreds of people to return to their families,” Avdeyev said.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican confirms it is opening abuse investigation of French cardinal

The Vatican has decided to open an investigation into French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, the retired archbishop of Bordeaux, who admitted in a public letter that he had abused a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago. “As a result of the elements that have emerged in the last few days and the statement made by the cardinal, in order to complete the examination of what happened, it has been decided to initiate an ‘investigatio praevia,'” or preliminary investigation, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said Nov. 11. Bruni would not say if the decision was made by Pope Francis, although because the case involves a cardinal who is a member of Vatican dicasteries and who, at 78, is still eligible to participate in a conclave, people familiar with the workings of the Vatican assume the pope had to agree.

VATICAN CITY
Clinic opens in St. Peter’s Square for World Day of the Poor

As part of the Vatican celebration of World Day of the Poor, a dozen doctors and nurses and 90 medical students set up shop in St. Peter’s Square. “We know there are people who need medical care and are not getting it, so our aim is to offer exams and blood tests and make referrals to specialists,” said Dr. Giuseppe Marinaro, an emergency room physician from Padua, who was on duty in the square Nov. 10. While the primary goal is to help the poor, especially those living on the streets around the Vatican, the presence in the square of three campers modified as clinics also is “a provocation,” said Archbishop Rino Fisichella of the Dicastery for Evangelization, which coordinates the World Day of the Poor events. “The poor exist and there are more of them than most people think. This is a reminder.”

EUROPEAN UNION
Bishops’ commission urges action to mitigate energy crisis

The European Union’s Catholic bishops urged action to protect the bloc’s 450 million citizens against dramatic energy and food price hikes this winter. “The misuse of energy as a tool of geopolitical coercion that we are currently witnessing should prompt the international community to find institutional means for an effective, inclusive and equitable global governance of energy; a real and lasting peace will only be possible on a global ethic of solidarity and cooperation,” said the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union, COMECE. “As winter approaches, we call on all who bear responsibility in public life not to abandon families and persons who are vulnerable or victims of socio-economic discrimination, unable to cope with soaring inflation and pay for heating or electricity.” The statement was published as prices skyrocketed under the impact of war in Ukraine and international sanctions against Russia after its Feb. 24 invasion.

KENYA
Bishops say drought at ‘crisis level’

As Kenya’s drought reaches crisis proportions, Catholic bishops suggested enhanced post-harvest management and food banks to help guarantee food security. “The current drought situation in the country, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions, has now reached a crisis level. The consequent famine is regrettable and unacceptable. This calls for urgent and decisive action from all actors,” said Archbishop Anthony Muheria of Nyeri. He spoke while reading the bishops’ final statement to the media Nov. 10, at the end of their general meeting in the coastal city of Mombasa. Failed rains, climate change, a recent locust infestation, the war in Ukraine and inflation are being blamed for Kenya’s food crisis. A drought — the worst in 40 years, according to the U.N. — is affecting 23 out of the country’s 47 counties.

WASHINGTON, D.C.
Louisiana nonprofit wins $1 million humanitarian award

A nonprofit in Shreveport, Louisiana, is this year’s winner of the Opus Prize, a $1 million award for advancing humanitarian work. Community Renewal International works in both the United States and Africa to renew cities through restoring relationships. The award was announced Nov. 3 at The Catholic University of America in Washington. The Opus Prize is awarded on Catholic university campuses each year. Community Renewal focuses on three primary strategies — Renewal Team, Haven House and Friendship House — to turn neighborhoods into safe havens of friendship and support. It boasts on its website that major crime has dropped an average of 55% in its Friendship House areas.

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By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Wars, famine and calamities of every kind can tempt Christians to a paralyzing fear that the world is about to end; what they must do instead is act, even in a small way, to make the world a better place, Pope Francis said.

httpv://youtu.be/e0pZd4osHcI

Loved by God, “let us love his most discarded children. The Lord is there,” the pope said Nov. 13, celebrating Mass for the World Day of the Poor.

In Italian villages and other places, too, there is a tradition at Christmas to set an extra place at the table “for the Lord who will surely knock on the door in the person of someone who is poor and in need,” the pope said.

“And your heart, does it always have a free place for those people?” he asked those at Mass. “My heart, does it have a vacancy for those people? Or are we so busy with friends, social events and obligations that we never have room for them?”

After Mass and the recitation of the Angelus prayer, the Vatican set a place for 1,300 people to share a festive meal in the Vatican audience hall. Pope Francis joined them for lunch.

And, thanks to a donation from a supermarket chain, the Vatican sent 5,000 boxes of pasta, rice, flour, sugar, salt, coffee, milk and oil to Rome parishes for distribution.

In addition, with the help of volunteer doctors, nurses and technicians, the Vatican set up a free medical clinic in St. Peter’s Square for the week, offering physical exams and blood tests to anyone in need. And, with the price of electricity more than doubling in Italy over the past year, the Vatican also was helping poor families with their utility bills, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Vatican organizer of the world day.

In his homily at the Mass, Pope Francis focused on the day’s Gospel reading, which recounted people asking Jesus about the end of the world, and Jesus telling them not to be terrified by disasters or deceived by false prophets.

Jesus was telling them to avoid “the temptation of interpreting dramatic events in a superstitious or catastrophic way, as if we are now close to the end of the world and it is useless to commit ourselves to doing good,” the pope said.

In the face of trials, he said, the Christian asks him- or herself what the Lord is trying to say through this moment of crisis and “what good, concretely, can I do?”

“Don’t run away,” the pope said. “Ask the question: What is the Lord saying to me and what can I do that is good?”

The World Day of the Poor, he said, reminds Catholics that they must “break through that inner deafness which prevents us from hearing the stifled cry of pain of the frailest.”

“Let us take to heart the clear and unmistakable summons in the Gospel not to be led astray,” he said. “Let us not listen to prophets of doom. Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions.”

“Let us not follow the false ‘messiahs’ who, in the name of profit, proclaim recipes useful only for increasing the wealth of a few, while condemning the poor to the margins of society,” the pope said. “Instead, let us bear witness.”

“Let us light candles of hope in the midst of darkness,” he said. “Amid dramatic situations, let us seize opportunities to bear witness to the Gospel of joy and to build a more fraternal world.”

In the Gospel, Jesus assures believers that even in the midst of trials and persecution “not a hair on your head will be destroyed.”

That means each Christian should know “God is my father and is at my side, he knows me and loves me, watches over me and does not sleep,” the pope said.

In response Christians must show the same love and care for “our brothers and sisters in need,” those who “this throwaway culture wants to discard,” including the poor, the old and unborn, he said.

“Let us commit ourselves courageously to justice, the rule of law and peace, and stand at the side of the weakest,” Pope Francis said. “Let us not step back to protect ourselves from history but strive to give this moment of history a different face.”

“Let us not be content, like the people in the Gospel, to admire the beautiful stones of the temple, while failing to recognize God’s true temple, our fellow men and women, especially the poor, in whose face, in whose history, in whose wounds, we encounter Jesus,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — War produces tremendous poverty, and its violence strikes those who are defenseless and vulnerable, Pope Francis said.

“In these situations, reason is darkened, and those who feel its effects are the countless ordinary people who end up being added to the already great numbers of those in need,” the pope said in a message for the World Day of the Poor.

The war in Ukraine is now one of several regional wars that “for years have taken a heavy toll of death and destruction,” the pope said in the message dated June 13, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of the poor. The Vatican released the pope’s message June 14.

“Yet here the situation is even more complex due to the direct intervention of a ‘superpower’ aimed at imposing its own will in violation of the principle of the self-determination of peoples. Tragic scenarios are being reenacted and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace,” he wrote.

The World Day of the Poor — marked each year on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time — will be celebrated Nov. 13 this year with the theme: “For your sakes Christ became poor.”

“What great poverty is produced by the senselessness of war!” the pope said in his message.

“Violence strikes those who are defenseless and vulnerable,” he wrote.

The impact can be seen in the “deportation of thousands of persons, above all young boys and girls, in order to sever their roots and impose on them another identity,” he wrote, and with the millions of women, children and elderly people “being forced to brave the danger of bombs just to find safety” elsewhere. “How many others remain in the war zones, living each day with fear and the lack of food, water, medical care and above all human affections?”

The pope’s message focused on the Christian responsibility to “respond adequately” and with joy to the needs of the poor so that “none of our brothers or sisters will lack the necessities of life.”

“Solidarity is sharing the little we have with those who have nothing, so that no one will go without,” he wrote.

One obstacle, however, is “a kind of laxity,” he said, which includes an attitude of outright indifference to the poor.

“It also happens that some Christians, out of excessive attachment to money, remain mired in a poor use of their goods and wealth. These situations reveal a weak faith and feeble, myopic hope,” he wrote.

The problem is not money itself, he wrote, but making money the “absolute and chief purpose in life.”

“Nothing worse could happen to a Christian and to a community than to be dazzled by the idol of wealth, which ends up chaining us to an ephemeral and bankrupt vision of life,” he wrote.

The Christian approach to the poor is not a kind of “welfare mentality” or a patronizing activism, but it involves a “sincere and generous concern that makes us approach a poor person as a brother or sister, who lends a hand to help me shake off the lethargy into which I have fallen,” the pope wrote.

Jesus shows “there is a poverty that humiliates and kills, and another poverty, Christ’s own poverty, that sets us free and brings us peace,” he wrote.

When profit is the bottom line, he said, others are seen “simply as objects to be exploited,” and “new forms of slavery emerge and entrap persons who lack alternatives and are forced to accept this toxic injustice simply to eke out a living.”

“The poverty that sets us free, on the other hand, is one that results from a responsible decision to cast off all dead weight and concentrate on what is essential” and value “the treasure that no one can steal from us: true and gratuitous love.”

“We are not in this world merely to survive, but to live a dignified and happy life,” he wrote, and if “we want life to triumph over death and dignity to be redeemed from injustice, we need to follow Christ’s path of poverty, sharing our lives out of love” beginning with love for those most in need.

“This is the way to create equality, to free the poor from their misery and the rich from their vanity, and both from despair,” he wrote.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who headed the former Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, which initially organized the world day, spoke at a news conference presenting the pope’s message.

He told reporters that he hoped the ongoing easing of restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 would mean the Vatican could once again set up temporary medical tents near St. Peter’s Square to provide free tests and care for those in need as they did before the pandemic.

Pope Francis is scheduled to mark the day with a special Mass Nov. 13, he said, and there will be initiatives throughout the week aimed at reaching out “to the many forms of poverty in his Diocese of Rome.”

The full text of the pope’s message in English: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/poveri/documents/20220613-messaggio-vi-giornatamondiale-poveri-2022.html.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) — War produces tremendous poverty, and its violence strikes those who are defenseless and vulnerable, Pope Francis said.

“In these situations, reason is darkened, and those who feel its effects are the countless ordinary people who end up being added to the already great numbers of those in need,” the pope said in a message for the World Day of the Poor.

The war in Ukraine is now one of several regional wars that “for years have taken a heavy toll of death and destruction,” the pope said in the message dated June 13, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of the poor. The Vatican released the pope’s message June 14.

“Yet here the situation is even more complex due to the direct intervention of a ‘superpower’ aimed at imposing its own will in violation of the principle of the self-determination of peoples. Tragic scenarios are being reenacted and once more reciprocal extortionate demands made by a few potentates are stifling the voice of a humanity that cries out for peace,” he wrote.

The World Day of the Poor — marked each year on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time — will be celebrated Nov. 13 this year with the theme: “For your sakes Christ became poor.”

“What great poverty is produced by the senselessness of war!” the pope said in his message.

“Violence strikes those who are defenseless and vulnerable,” he wrote.

The impact can be seen in the “deportation of thousands of persons, above all young boys and girls, in order to sever their roots and impose on them another identity,” he wrote, and with the millions of women, children and elderly people “being forced to brave the danger of bombs just to find safety” elsewhere. “How many others remain in the war zones, living each day with fear and the lack of food, water, medical care and above all human affections?”

The pope’s message focused on the Christian responsibility to “respond adequately” and with joy to the needs of the poor so that “none of our brothers or sisters will lack the necessities of life.”

“Solidarity is sharing the little we have with those who have nothing, so that no one will go without,” he wrote.

One obstacle, however, is “a kind of laxity,” he said, which includes an attitude of outright indifference to the poor.

“It also happens that some Christians, out of excessive attachment to money, remain mired in a poor use of their goods and wealth. These situations reveal a weak faith and feeble, myopic hope,” he wrote.

The problem is not money itself, he wrote, but making money the “absolute and chief purpose in life.”

“Nothing worse could happen to a Christian and to a community than to be dazzled by the idol of wealth, which ends up chaining us to an ephemeral and bankrupt vision of life,” he wrote.

The Christian approach to the poor is not a kind of “welfare mentality” or a patronizing activism, but it involves a “sincere and generous concern that makes us approach a poor person as a brother or sister, who lends a hand to help me shake off the lethargy into which I have fallen,” the pope wrote.

Jesus shows “there is a poverty that humiliates and kills, and another poverty, Christ’s own poverty, that sets us free and brings us peace,” he wrote.

When profit is the bottom line, he said, others are seen “simply as objects to be exploited,” and “new forms of slavery emerge and entrap persons who lack alternatives and are forced to accept this toxic injustice simply to eke out a living.”

“The poverty that sets us free, on the other hand, is one that results from a responsible decision to cast off all dead weight and concentrate on what is essential” and value “the treasure that no one can steal from us: true and gratuitous love.”

“We are not in this world merely to survive, but to live a dignified and happy life,” he wrote, and if “we want life to triumph over death and dignity to be redeemed from injustice, we need to follow Christ’s path of poverty, sharing our lives out of love” beginning with love for those most in need.

“This is the way to create equality, to free the poor from their misery and the rich from their vanity, and both from despair,” he wrote.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who headed the former Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, which initially organized the world day, spoke at a news conference presenting the pope’s message.

He told reporters that he hoped the ongoing easing of restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 would mean the Vatican could once again set up temporary medical tents near St. Peter’s Square to provide free tests and care for those in need as they did before the pandemic.

Pope Francis is scheduled to mark the day with a special Mass Nov. 13, he said, and there will be initiatives throughout the week aimed at reaching out “to the many forms of poverty in his Diocese of Rome.”

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