Photo: Paul Haring/CNS Spotlight needed on abuse in women’s orders – Jesuit journal
The abuse occurring within women’s religious orders deserves more attention from the media and must be remedied, said an influential Jesuit journal.
Novices and women religious, especially those who have been assigned to a country where they don’t know the language, can be particularly vulnerable to abuses of power and conscience by superiors, and sexual abuse by their formators, said an article in La Civilta Cattolica.
The article, released to journalists on July 30, was titled ‘Abuse of authority in the church: Problems and challenges of women’s religious life’. It cited different forms of abuse known by the author through his own work and from interviews given by Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
While much attention has been given to the abuse of minors and vulnerable people, and abuse perpetrated by priests, not enough has been said about the kinds of abuse women religious and novices have experienced within their own religious communities, the article said.
Pontifical Academy defends coronavirus document that did not mention God
The Pontifical Academy for Life has defended its latest document on the coronavirus crisis following criticism that it did not mention God.
A spokesman said that the text, ‘Humana Communitas in the Age of the Pandemic: Untimely Meditations on Life’s Rebirth’, was addressed to “the widest possible audience”.
“We are interested in entering into human situations, reading them in the light of Faith, and in a way that speaks to the widest possible audience, to believers and non-believers, to all men and women ‘of good will’,” wrote Fabrizio Mastrofini, who serves in the press office of the pontifical academy, which is led by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.
The spokesman’s comments came in response to a July 28 article in the La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, an Italian Catholic website founded in 2012.
The article, written by the philosopher Stefano Fontana, said that the document did not contain a single “explicit or implicit reference to God”.
He wrote: “Just like the preceding document, this one too says nothing: above all it says nothing about life, which is the specific competence of the pontifical academy, and it also says nothing Catholic, that is to say anything inspired by the teaching of Our Lord.”
Pope Francis tells young people to let Mary inspire and guide them
“Let Mary inspire and guide young people today,” Pope Francis told participants at the annual International Youth Festival at the Marian shrine in Medjugorje.
Mary will always be “the great model of the church” because she is ready to follow Christ with vitality and docility, he said in a message to those attending the festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He said, “her ‘yes’ means getting involved and taking a risk, without any guarantee besides the certainty of being the bearer of a promise”, and that her example continues to show the beauty of freely entrusting oneself completely to the hands of God. “May her example captivate and guide you!” he said.
An estimated 40,000 to 45,000 people attended the festival last year, including senior Vatican representatives for the first time. Organisers were unsure how many people to expect in 2020 because of the travel restrictions and safety measures in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before the pandemic, the shrine annually attracted up to three million people.