Real Catholic Blog

Pope Benedict XVI elevated two Americans to Cardinal this week, including Archbishop Raymond Burke. This is good news. Archbishop Burke has been at the forefront of defending the faith from those within the Church who would water it down to the point of meaninglessness. In 2004, as Archbishop of St. Louis, he warned Catholic politicians, such as Senator John Kerry, who defend abortion, to refrain from receiving Holy Eucharist. While angering many, including a host of his brother bishops, he spoke the truth and defended Church teaching. In recent years, he has headed the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, which is the Vatican equivilant of the Supreme Court (see Greg Burke’s LiveShots blog at FoxNews.com). Upon his elevation, he said in part:

I am deeply humbled and honored by the announcement that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI intends to name me to the College of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church at the Consistory which he has convoked for this coming November 20th. Having received the news of the Holy Father’s intention, I express my deepest gratitude to His Holiness for the great confidence which he has placed in me, and I renew my commitment to serve Him, as Shepherd of the universal Church, in total fidelity and with all my being.

Pope Benedict appointed 24 cardinals in all, 20 of whom are under 80 years of age. Only those under 80 can participate in a papal conclave. The other American is Archbishop Donald Wuerl, of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. Extensive comments by both Americans can be found at the Catholic News Agency.

Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano is touting a new source of stem cells that it calls “the future of medicine” (see Catholic Online). The stem cells are taken from amniotic fluid to create a retinal regeneration therapy. The Biocell Center of Busto Arsizio in Milan is leading the research in the field and the Vatican, as per proxy in LR, is encouraging it.

Our faith teaches us that this type of  stem cell research is moral because it does not destroy human embryos. The fact is, despite the demagoguery of those who advance the embryonic stem cell argument, not one significant medical breakthrough has resulted from the millions of dollars and years of research that have gone into it. Meanwhile, hundreds of breakthroughs have occurred in adult stem cell research, such as from chord blood (see Family Foundation Blog).

Another fact: Even though research shows that adult stem cells can be manipulated into mimicking embryonic stem cells, thus eliminating the need for the destruction of embryos, the abortion lobby and allied groups  remain adamantly against defunding embryonic stem cell research. It exposes their real aim of encouraging abortion because if all they were concerned about was the research, then the “mimicking” process would be the “common ground” so-called “pro-choicers” always claim they seek (see telling video at Family Foundation Blog).

In addition to the Biocell Center of Busto Arsizio, Harvard Medical School’s Department of Opthalmology, the IRCCS Foundation and three Italian hospitals are among the institutions that have joined in the research. See Catholic Online via Catholic News Agency for the entire report.

Short biographies of the five saints canonized Sunday (from Catholic News Agency):

Archbishop Zygmunt Szczesny Feliński was the founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary. He was the Archbishop of Warsaw and was committed to evangelization and support for the poor and defended the oppressed during the Russian occupation of Poland. For that, he was sentenced to 20 years in exile in Jaroslaw on the Volga. Pope Benedict said:

His gift of himself to God and man (was) full of confidence and love . . . (and) becomes a shining example for the entire Church.

Rafael Arnaiz Baron came from a wealthy family and was a bit “of a dreamer.” A Cistercian oblate, he died when he was 27 years old, and is considered one of the greatest mystics of the twentieth century. Pope Benedict held him up to the young of today who “are not satisfied with what they have.”

Father Francisco Coll y Guitard, a Dominican, founded the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation Blessed Virgin Mary. Through his preaching, the saint spread his love of the Word of God and the Sacrament of Reconciliation among all people, especially the young.

Father Damian of Molokai was the apostle to the lepers. He left Flanders, Belgium at the age of 23 to go on a mission to modern day Hawaii. Pope Benedict said:

Not without fear and loathing, Father Damian made the choice to go on the island of Molokai in the service of lepers who were there, abandoned by all. So he exposed himself to the disease of which they suffered. With them he felt at home. The servant of the Word became a suffering servant, leper with the lepers, during the last four years of his life.

To follow Christ, Father Damian not only left his homeland, but has also staked his health so he, as the word of Jesus announced in today’s Gospel tells us, received eternal life.

(He) teaches us to choose the good fight not those that lead to division, but those that gather us together in unity.

Sister Jeanne Jugan, St. Mary of the Cross was a French nun who founded the Little Sisters of the Poor. The order thrives today, taking care of the elderly all over the world. The Holy Father said that her ideals are

still valid today, given that many elderly people suffer from multiple poverty and loneliness, sometimes even being abandoned by their families.

Most significantly, Pope Benedict invited the faithful 

to allow themselves to be attracted by the shining example of these saints, to be guided by their teachings so that our entire lives become a hymn of praise to God’s love.

Here’s a profile in courage: Henry I, the Duke of Luxembourg, received the Van Thuan Prize in Rome earlier this month for his fight against euthanasia. Last December, he refused to agree with a bill passed by parliament to legalize the killing of people who are sick. Unfortunately, the victory for life was short lived as the parliament then changed the country’s constitution to limit his power. Unrestrained, it then passed the bill into law making Luxembourg the third country in the European Union to allow euthanasia (see Catholic News Agency).

The Van Thuan Prize is named for the Cardinal Francois-Xavier Van Thuan, a Vietnamese cardinal who was for imprisoned for 13 years because of his faith. A cause for his beatification was opened in 2007.

As I’ve written about previously — and if you’ve even lightly perused this blog, you would know — we’re big fans of Catholics Come Home, an organization dedicated to reinvigorating the spirit of those Catholics who have fallen away from the Faith. I’ve also posted its second video (”Movie”)here and its third (”Testimonials”) here. They are only a minute or two long, and worth viewing — even the most devout will be touched — then passing on, especially to those who need the spiritual help.

Last year, CCH had a big success. Buying commercial time on local television stations in the Diocese of Phoenix, it was responsible for bringing back to the Church 90,000 people. It has done this in other areas as well, and its goal is to undertake a media campaign in every American diocese. Earlier this week, it announced it will buy media time in the Diocese of Sacramento.

Reports the Catholic News Agency:

Hoping to encourage at least 100,000 non-practicing Catholics to return to church, the Diocese of Sacramento is preparing a “come home” advertising campaign for this December and January.

At Mass over the next several weeks, church leaders will outline the program and ask parishioners to help pay for the ads. The ads are produced by the Catholics Come Home project.

“There’s a large number of people who have left the church and are waiting for an invitation to come back,” Msgr. James Murphy, vicar general of the diocese, told the Sacramento Bee. “This is their invitation.”

Currently, eight other dioceses are running the CCH ads. We pray for a remarkable success in those dioceses as well as in Sacramento, and look forward to more great work — and the resulting Church homecomings — in the future from Catholics Come Home.