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April 2, 2019 | The Valley Catholic
IN THE CHURCH
Pope to Visit Africa In September, Vatican Announces
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican con-
firmed that Pope Francis will visit the
eastern African nation of Mozambique
and the island nations of Madagascar
and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean
Sept. 4-10.
Accepting invitations on behalf of
the bishops and heads of state in the
three countries, the Vatican said March
27, the pope will visit the capital cities:
Maputo, Mozambique; Antananarivo,
Madagascar; and Port Louis, Mauritius.
A detailed program for the visit will
be published later.
Meanwhile, the Vatican press office
released the logos and themes of his
visit to each country.
The theme “Hope, Peace and Rec-
onciliation” with an image of a dove
featured on the logo for the trip to
Mozambique is meant to symbolize the
peace the country seeks to hold onto
after years of civil war.
For Madagascar logo, the pope is
pictured on a background showing a
dry landscape adorned with the local
baobab tree and the native ravenala
plant. It reflects in part how the na-
This is the logo for Pope Francis’ trip to
Mauritius. (CNS photo/Vatican Press Office)
tion has been a land of missionaries
and witnesses to the Gospel who were
killed for their faith, five of whom are
pictured next to the pope. The theme
is “Sower of peace and hope.”
The theme, “Pilgrim of Peace” for
Mauritius, uses a logo of the nation’s
flag, meant to unite the different ethnic
groups living there, along with a dove
and the pope waving to the people.
In the former Portuguese colony of
Mozambique, 30 percent of the people
are Catholic, 40 percent are of other
Christian denominations and 19 per-
cent are Muslim.
About 25 percent of the 25.6 million
people in Madagascar are Catholic.
In Mauritius, more than 48 percent of
the population of 1.3 million people
are Hindu, 25 percent Catholic and 17
percent Muslim.
University Students Urged to Help Change Hearts, Minds About Abortion
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The na-
tion’s early feminists who fought for
women’s suffrage and other rights
totally rejected abortion, Serrin Fos-
ter, president of Feminists for Life of
America, told the Cardinals for Life
student group at The Catholic Univer-
sity of America.
So the notion today that true femi-
nists support abortion is simply wrong,
said Foster, who has led the Virginia-
based Feminists for Life since 1994 and
is the creator of the “Women Deserve
Better” campaign.
An audience of about 30 students
-- young women and men -- listened to
her speak the evening of March 20 on
“The Feminist Case Against Abortion,”
a landmark address she has delivered
over the last 20 years.
Susan D. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Victoria Wood-
hull, Alice Paul and many others ad-
vocated for women’s right to vote and
for equality in the law so they could be
“self-sustaining and self-reliant” at a
time when women weren’t allowed to
own property, control their own money
or even sit on a jury. They also pushed
for an end to slavery.
But to a woman, they condemned
abortion “in no uncertain terms,”
said Foster. Modern feminists such as
Betty Friedan, she explained, did not
support abortion in their own fight
for women’s equality -- until the male
founders of what became the National
Abortion Rights Action League, known
today as NARAL Pro-Choice America,
persuaded them to include “abortion
rights” in their platform.
The two men were the late Lawrence
Lader, considered the “father of abor-
tion rights,” and the late Dr. Bernard
Nathanson, who later regretted the
tens of thousands of abortions he had
performed -- or oversaw -- and became
a staunch pro-life advocate. He also
converted from Judaism to Catholicism.
Foster said Lader and Nathanson’s
legitimate concern was that many
abortions were being performed in
unsafe conditions and they felt if the
women’s movement backed abortion,
this would lead to safe abortions. They
also thought this would help expose
“the discrimination and injustices”
women endured, she said.
Feminists for Life refuses “to choose
between women and children” and
is “dedicated to eliminating the root
causes that drive women to abortion,”
including pressure to choose between
keeping a job or staying in school and
having their baby, facing financial
problems, and being without paternal
and/or familial support.
College outreach is the organiza-
tion’s flagship program -- focusing
on ways America’s campuses can be
more accommodating to pregnant
students and young parents, with
campus groups and school administra-
tors working together to come up with
solutions.
She gave a host of examples of ef-
forts by student groups at Catholic
and secular universities, like holding
fundraisers to help pregnant students
get the items they need when their baby
is born or pay for day care, starting a
baby-sitting club and supporting ini-
tiatives to help pregnant students and
young parents find housing.
Feminists for Life also encourage
campuses to host a Pregnancy and
Parenting Resource Forum, bringing
service agencies and resources together
to inform pregnant students and young
parents what help is available to them.
She encourages students to help
people “reconsider claims made by
abortion advocates. Deep down, stu-
dents, like most people, want to help
someone else. Making ‘The Feminist
Case Against Abortion’ is a first step.”
Pope Amends Canon Law on Religious Who Abandon Their Community
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has
made it easier for a religious order to
dismiss a member who leaves the com-
munity without permission, stays away
and does not communicate with his or
her superior.
In a document titled “Communis
Vita” (Community Life), the pope
amended the Code of Canon Law to
include an almost automatic dismissal
of religious who are absent without au-
thorization from their community for at
least 12 months.
The change was to go into effect April
10 and is not retroactive, said Archbish-
op Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary
of the Congregation for Institutes of
Consecrated Life and Societies of Apos-
tolic Life. The archbishop’s explanatory
article was published March 26 along
with the text of Pope Francis’ document.
Canon 694 of the Code of Canon Law
currently states that “a member must be
held as ipso facto dismissed from an insti-
tute” if they have “defected notoriously
from the Catholic faith” or have married
or attempted to marry.
Pope Francis added a new clause
adding the dismissal of a member of an
order who is “illegitimately absent” from
the community for 12 uninterrupted
months and is unreachable.
In such cases, the superior and the
council of the order draw up a decla-
ration of the facts and submit it to the
Holy See for institutes of pontifical rite
or to the local bishop for institutes of
diocesan rite.
“Community life is an essential ele-
ment of religious life and ‘religious are
to live in their own religious house and
are not to be absent from it except with
the permission of their superior,’” the
pope wrote, quoting canon 665.
Unfortunately, he said, “experience in
the last few years has demonstrated that
there are situations” where members of
orders leave the community they are as-
signed to, withdrawing from obedience
to their superior and making it impos-
sible for the order to contact him or her.
After six months of such an absence,
the Code of Canon Law instructed and
continues to instruct superiors to do
everything they can to find the person
to help them “return to and persevere in
his or her vocation.”
Archbishop Rodriguez said most
cases of such prolonged absence involve
religious men or women who were given
temporary permission to leave, but they
never returned.
Unless they have requested a dis-
pensation from their vows or have been
dismissed, they legally are still part of
the order, he said. “In such a condition,
not being legitimately separated, they
can find themselves in situations incom-
patible with religious life or can demon-
strate behavior in contrast with it.”
Their life outside the community, he
added, also could have implications of
“an economic nature that could harm
the institute,” which is why the church
needed a process for the order to initiate
the dismissal.