An Increase In Ordination In Spain

The following article, which can be found here, offers some good news.  There has been an increase in ordination to the priesthood in Spain from 2017 to 2018.  This is good news for the Catholic Church always need new priests. As many already know, Spain is the birthplace of the Neocatechumenal Way.  Spain has 14 Redemptoris Mater seminaries, and the enrollment in those seminaries are 230, which is about 20% of the country's total.  

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MANCHESTER, England (CNS) -- Ordinations to the priesthood in Spain have soared by 24 percent in the last year.

In 2018, a total of 135 men were ordained priests compared to 109 in 2017, according to statistics released March 12 by the Spanish bishops' conference.

The Archdiocese of Madrid recorded the highest number of ordinations, with 14. The Diocese of Valencia recorded 10 ordinations, followed by eight in the Diocese of Toledo, seven each in the dioceses of Seville and Alcala de Henares and six each in the Cartagena and Zaragoza dioceses.

In addition, fewer seminarians dropped out of classes during the last year -- 123 compared with 152 the previous year -- but there has been an overall decrease in the number of men entering seminaries in the same period, down from 1,263 to 1,203.

Father Julio Gomez, a priest who runs four parishes in the Diocese of Palencia, said the rise in ordinations was accidental rather than the result of a deliberate policy.

"I think it's a casual growth, as there is no a national vocational strategy in the church in Spain, which could explain these growing numbers," he said in an email to Catholic News Service.

But he said it was significant that nearly half of the seminarians came from just 15 of the 70 dioceses in the country.

There are seven dioceses and seven seminaries in Spain that "stand out in a clear way from the rest," he said.

They were, he said, Cartagena-Murcia, with 38 seminarians, Cordoba with 39 seminarians, Getafe and Orihuela-Alicante, each with 28 seminarians, Seville with 51 seminarians, Toledo with 67 and Valencia with 63 seminarians.

"It would be very interesting to make a deeper study of the reasons of their success, but I could point some evidence for it: traditional and orthodox bishops, teachings, and formation, popular religiosity, a lot of young priests who create a vocational culture in their dioceses, a good and active youth ministry," Father Gomez said.

"The Basque Country is one of the most secularized regions in Spain, with few vocation numbers over the last 30-40 years," he added. "But in the last 10 years, three new very good bishops have been appointed. They are very active and orthodox, and now they have 33 seminarians."

In 2012, he said, there were 11 seminarians in the Basque Country.

There are also 14 Redemptoris Mater seminaries in Spain training priests of Neocatecumenal Way from around the world. Enrollment in those seminaries stands at 230, about 20 percent of the country's total.

Twenty-four diocesan seminaries had fewer than five seminarians entering the current academic year, the figures showed, with one recording no seminarians and three receiving just one.

The Compassion of God

It was pointed out under the thread of my last post that God has produced certain fruits through the NCW.  These fruits have nothing to do with getting a good education, gaining more knowledge of Sacred Scripture, or even becoming a better person on your own.  

It is easy to love your families and friends.  But who among us can love the enemy?  Who among us can have compassion for those who persecute us?  Who can forgive those who kill?  The following article speaks about compassion.  A couple of things in the article caught my attention: 

1. There are signs that the leadership of our Church now dabbles in this same distortion that there are sins that God should not forgive, and even if He does, the Church will not.  This is heresy,..... 
2. Regarding the parable of the Prodigal Son.....Though the Father’s mercy has been fulfilled, the older son’s compassion has failed. The great challenge of this parable is the fact that it is left open ended and without a resolution. It is left with the older son, the one who – according to the law alone has always been faithful – is left standing outside the house with the Father trying to convince him to enter the banquet feast. The younger son is made righteous by grace and mercy while the older son is revealed as self-righteous. 

 You can find the following article here.

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St. Luke proclaims the Parable of the Prodigal Son on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and it has a fascinating back story. Is there a sin that is beyond the mercy of God?

“Ecclesiastes calls you the All-Powerful; Maccabees calls you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you Liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Book of Kings calls you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; Genesis calls you God; man calls you Father; Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names.” (Bishop Bienvenu in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, 1887) [See Les Mis on TSW]

During Lent a few years back, I wrote “Semper Fi! Forty Days of Lent Giving Up Giving Up.” Among the multiple characters appearing in that post was my friend, Martin. At the time I wrote it, I had been living in a hellish environment in this prison. My dismay at living there grew deeper on the day Martin showed up because I knew he was going to be subjected to cruelty and ridicule, and I knew that I would have to intervene somehow.

Martin was well into his eighties when he was sent to prison for the first time in his life. He was missing a leg, a fact which confined him to a wheelchair. Because of prison overcrowding, he was living out in the open in an overflow bunk in a large prison dayroom where nearly a hundred bored and lost young men raised hell day and night. One night shortly after Martin arrived, one or two of those dumbasses thought it would be cool to take his wheelchair while he was asleep and put it in the shower with the water running. Martin’s books, letters, and other papers tucked into pockets in the chair were ruined.

But that was the least of his problems that day. When he awoke that Saturday morning, when his chair was nowhere in sight, Martin sat on the edge of his bunk wondering how he would get to the lavatory. A small group of smirking young prisoners skulked like hyenas from a distance to watch the show. This is a game prisoners play with the weak or vulnerable. They place bets to see how long it would take to get someone like Martin to “check in” to protective custody.

I stepped out of my cell that morning, cup of instant coffee in hand, and spotted Martin from a distance sitting on his bunk looking worried. A quick scan of the room told me what happened. So I went in search of his chair, found it in the shower, and brought it to him. I dried it off and took him to the bathroom.

Then I brought Martin some coffee and sat with him for awhile, something that became a daily event for months to come. I learned that Martin is a Marine who served in Korea. He long ago had given up giving up and would never cave in to the antics of thugs.

I called a couple of them over one day and introduced them to Martin. Then I put them in charge of guarding his chair at night, not letting on that I knew they were the ones who took it in the first place. Longing for a sense of purpose even more than they sought to entertain themselves, they stepped up admirably. I came back from work a few times to see one or two of them, having now absconded with MY chair, sitting and talking with Martin. His life got a little better. So did theirs. So did mine. Martin is gone now, having been paroled to a nursing home for veterans. But one hard truth remains engraved upon my brain. Prison is no country for old men – not even old Marines.

I had Martin in mind when I again unwittingly became “The Priest Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” a few weeks ago. I stumbled upon FOX News on the evening of March 8 just in time to hear EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo in an angry rant about the thoroughly disgraced Theodore McCarrick, age 89 and the first Cardinal in a century to face the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state. “I don’t care if he’s 89,” declared Mr. Arroyo. “He ought to be in jail.”

I have long respected Raymond Arroyo, but I was shocked by this and lapsed into a rant of my own. I called my friend, Father George David Byers, and vented. Then I asked him to help me post on Facebook and LinkedIn my diatribe against what I understood to be a lack of compassion for Theodore McCarrick. “Is mercilessness to be the face of the new Catholic Church?” I asked.

Over the next three days, I was roundly beaten up, on LinkedIn especially, by Catholics who agree entirely with Raymond Arroyo on this. I had grossly underestimated the sense of betrayal and anger that American Catholics feel toward McCarrick who has thus far presented no public sign of remorse or repentance. I also underestimated the capacity of some Catholics for compassion. Some of those who argued against me wrote that mercy requires repentance and there hasn’t been any. That is true. For God’s justice to be tempered with God’s mercy requires repentance.

THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON

But compassion is different from mercy. And as Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel points out in the moving quote from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables atop this post, among all the names of God, “Compassion is the most beautiful.” Compassion from us does not require repentance from those who trespass against us. It requires only humility, from us. It is the capacity that I wrote about in “The Last Full Measure: Love Your Enemies,” a post about the most radical and challenging portent of Jesus “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you” (Luke 6 38).

No where in Sacred Scripture do mercy and compassion clash more than in the Gospel from St. Luke for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Like so much of Sacred Scripture, the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) is a story told with multiple levels of meaning. The first and most obvious is the story on its surface.

Tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled. The Pharisees were loosely knit collection of groups within Judaism that came to prominence at the time of the Maccabean revolt against Hellenist invaders around 167 BC. The Pharisees were only some 6,000 during the Earthly time of Jesus. They wanted Israel to be a theocracy, a religiously oriented society governed by a strict observance of the law.

Some of the scribes were numbered among the other grumblers against Jesus who triggered the Parable of the Prodigal Son and insisted on strict observance of the law. They were antagonistic to Jesus, and in the end these pharisees and scribes together plotted with the Chief Priests for his betrayal and arrest.

On its face, the famous parable is a clash between mercy and compassion. The original listeners, the Pharisees and scribes, would have found quite familiar the story of a younger brother triumphing over the goals and objectives of an older brother. The parable has echoes of Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:27-34) and Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37:1-4). In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus cleverly reverses the triumph of the younger brother to portray the younger son as a dismal failure who abandons Judaism to adopt Gentile ways.

The most stinging of his offenses to the ears of the Pharisee, was that fact that he was reduced to feeding the pigs for a Gentile farmer. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, pigs take on another symbolism far beyond the ancient Mosaic law that holds them as unclean. In Luke (8:26-39) Jesus restores a demented and possessed Gentile to the human community. By casting the evil spirits out of the man and into a herd of pigs that then drive themselves into the sea, Jesus reveals himself as having authority not only over Judaism but also over pagan religion, demonic forces, and Roman rule which is symbolized by the pigs. In the Parable at hand, the younger son becomes a servant to the pigs, the lowest one could ever descend from the Law of Moses.

In the end of the Parable, the younger son comes to his senses and attempts a return to his Father who welcomes him with full restoration of the sonship he abandoned. The Parable directly confronts a position of the Pharisees: that there are sins that are beyond the capacity of even God to forgive.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

There are signs that the leadership of our Church now dabbles in this same distortion that there are sins that God should not forgive, and even if He does, the Church will not. This is heresy, and it is a heresy that I described in “Five Years of Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy.” The heresy may not be what you may think it is.

It is expressed in striking clarity in the second part of the Parable in the reaction of the Prodigal Son’s older brother. The triumph of the younger son over older brothers seen in the Hebrew Scriptures in the stories of Esau and Jacob, and Joseph and his brothers, here becomes not the triumph of the younger but the failure of the older. Once the Father’s mercy had been fulfilled in the Parable, the older son refused to acknowledge his return as his brother. “This son of yours” (Luke 15:30) is a striking refusal of the older son to say, “This brother of mine.”

Though the Father’s mercy has been fulfilled, the older son’s compassion has failed. The great challenge of this parable is the fact that it is left open ended and without a resolution. It is left with the older son, the one who – according to the law alone has always been faithful – is left standing outside the house with the Father trying to convince him to enter the banquet feast. The younger son is made righteous by grace and mercy while the older son is revealed as self-righteous.

At another level, this Parable narrates to its original listeners – the Pharisees and scribes – the account of Israel’s history that they fear most. It is an allegory about what happened after the reign of King Solomon – the one whom called God “Compassion.” Israel divided into Northern and Southern kingdoms, living as two brothers with one in exile. Then, in the Eighth Century BC the Assyrians carried the Northern Tribes of Israel into “a far country” – just like the younger son in the parable – where they abandoned God and worshipped idols. It was a sin that the Prophets called “harlotry” (Jeremiah 3:6 and Hosea 4:15).

The McCarrick story has made this ever more complicated. Please do not confuse my compassion as excusing him. As Cardinal McCarrick, he was one of the chief proponents of the Dallas Charter that cast priests into the desert as scapegoats, in many cases – and I am one of them – guilty only for being accused. It is not easy to hold onto any sense of compassion for him, but there are a lot of things that my conscience says I must do that are not easy.

I cannot speak to the Church’s application of mercy. There does not appear to be any just as there does not appear to be much in the way of McCarrick’s public repentance as an acknowledgment of his need for mercy. I can only speak to compassion – my own and that of others. I fear that it is becoming an endangered species in our Church as we circle the wagons to declare who is inside and outside the house.

Let’s face this other scandal head-on. Stop wishing old men into prison. Some of us confuse righteous with self-righteous. If mercy fails, we are doomed in the hereafter. But if compassion fails, we are doomed in the here and now.  

Grateful for the NCW

I, for one, am very grateful for this charism, the NCW.  How can one be so ungrateful especially after seeing the fruits from first hand experience?  Many thanks to RMS priests such as Father Alberto, Father Nino, Father Santiago, Father Edivaldo, Father Krysztof and other priests and deacons who encouraged people like us to join the Way.  How grateful they would be to see us continuing our walk and bearing fruits.  Some of the fruits of the Way include:

1.  Families who are open to life. 
2.  Mission families who are willing to leave everything behind to evangelize. 
3.  Celibacy among single people.
4.  Itinerants who are willing to evangelize in other countries.  
5.  Community members who forgive others and ask forgiveness from those whom they have wronged. 
6.  The faith being transmitted in the family from parents to children.
7.  The calling of members into the priesthood or the monastery.
8.  Marriages were saved.

Of course, we are no better than our brothers who are not walking in the Way.  We all face the same problems and struggles.  From time to time, even we fall into sin.  But the most important thing is that Christ is there to help us get up so that we can continue our walk. After all, salvation is a process, a journey toward holiness.  I, for one, am very grateful that God was able to help me and my family through this charism.  I am most especially grateful to the RMS priest who encouraged us to attend the first catechesis. The happiness of a priest would be to bring his sheep to God for that is his role.     

The NCW is not for everyone, but God allowed so many different charisms in the Catholic Church to meet the unique needs of His people.  I, for one, am grateful for this charism.        

The Mount of Olives to the NCW

The following article was given to me, and I had to translate it into English on my computer.  The English translation from my computer may not be perfect, but it's the best I can do.  You can find the article here.  Now, based on the title, most are probably thinking that the NCW now owns the Mount of Olives.  Our Statutes stated that the NCW cannot own any assets such as property.  So, for clarification, the Mount of Olives belongs to a foundation, which has given exclusive rights to the NCW for its use.  
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The Mount of Olives to the Neocatechumenals

The Mount of Olives was sold. The half hectare of land that is located in Jerusalem at 800 meters high and with spectacular views of the city is now owned. Il Sole 24 Ore informs us that the Monte Tabor Foundation in liquidation, the entity that in the past controlled the San Raffaele hospital in Milan until the 2011 crisis and the subsequent sale in 2012 to the Rotelli healthcare business group was to sell. .

After a long procedure of sale and various negotiations opened and closed over two or three years, at the end the plot overlooking the eastern side of the Old City and overlooking the valley of Giosafat - where according to the Bible (Joel 3,2) the Universal Judgment should be held, when it is - the Fundacion Domus Jerusalen, based in Panama, an entity headed by the neo-catechumenals, the much-branched Catholic organization, especially in the Spanish-speaking world, but also in Italy. Final price: 5.1 million euros.

The Mount of Olives is composed of three hills: the ground just given from Monte Tabor to the Fundacion is in the central part, called Monte Santo, or Djebel el Tur, in the upper zone of the ridge just above the Garden of Gethsemane and near - but not neighboring - to the great Jewish cemetery.

To acquire the land many years ago it was Don Luigi Verzè, founder of the San Raffaele, who died at the end of 2011, the horrible year for his creature, with the outbreak of the economic crisis of the health complex and the start of a series of events including suicide in his office of Mario Cal, his right hand man.

From there came the liquidation and the descent into the field of the Neocatechumenals, who participated in the auction and won it:

What will be the destination of the land, now in the hands of the Neo Catecumenal Way, a world movement founded by Kiko Arguello, and which last August 2018 saw tens of thousands of adherents meet at the Circus Maximus with the presence of Pope Francis?

The place is not only at the center of the Christian tradition: since 1967 it is part of the muncipality of Jerusalem but before the war of the Six Days it was Jordanian territory, therefore anyway a politically sensitive area. And it is also from the religious point of view: on the slopes of the Mount, up to the ground, it insists the largest Jewish cemetery in the world.

News From RMS in Galilee

GALILEE – On Friday, February 15, 2019, in the Church of the Twelve Apostles and seventy-two Disciples of the Domus Galilaeae, on the Mount of the Beatitudes, the Patriarchal Vicar for Israel Fr. Hanna Kildani presided over the ceremony of the Admissio ad Ordines of five seminarians of the Missionary Seminary Redemptoris Mater of Galilee: Giovanni Bovi, David Sotgiu, Kacper Jurczyk, Michel El Khouri, Pedro Figueroa.

Some relatives of the candidates were present at the event, the Neo-catechumenal communities in which the candidates complete their permanent Christian formation, as also the team of the leaders of the Neo-catechumenal Way in Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, seminarians, formators, and brothers in mission.

The celebration was introduced briefly by Fr. Rino Rossi, director of the Domus Galilaeae, who, returning from meeting with the Pope in Panama in recent days, and the subsequent vocational call made by the founder of the Neo-catechumenal Way Kiko Argüello, he wished to express his gratitude to the Lord for the generosity shown by many brothers to offer their lives for the priesthood and evangelization. “Today, said Fr Rino, we have the confirmation of this gift desired by the Holy Spirit, because five young men of this seminary ask to be admitted to orders and thirteen seminarians have been ordained presbyters and, soon, another will be in June.”

The Rector of the Seminary, Fr. Francesco Voltaggio, presented to the Vicar the five candidates and the various realities present in the gathering, underlining the important role that families and communities have had in the formation of the five young men.

Fr. Hanna Kildani, during the homily, addressed touching words to the five seminarians and to all the faithful, saying that each one, even before creation, was thought of and loved by the Lord. To adhere to the project that God has thought for everyone, Fr. Hanna emphasized that we need a formative journey during which it becomes possible to accept God’s call, as did the Virgin Mary announcing her “yes” to the will of the Father ( Lk 1: 26-38). It is also necessary to have the courage of Peter who, despite his weakness, said he was ready to give his life for the Lord (Jn 13:37) and not fear as the rich young man had before the invitation to follow him ( Mt 19:16-22). It is also necessary to fight to defend one’s call as Jeremiah (Jer. 20) and to be available as Isaiah (Is 5:6-8) and not fear to employ the talents that God has given, without hiding them (Mt 25:14-30).

Citing the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy (2Tim 2:13), the Patriarchal Vicar affirmed that God is faithful and does not deny Himself to those who invoke Him; he wished to encourage those present to offer their lives to God, sure of His help.

He also expressed his gratitude to the Lord for the help and support that the Neo-Catechumenal communities of the five seminarians gave to their formation, thus contributing to the life of the Church.

At the end of the celebration there was a big fiesta with music and a rich banquet, prepared by the brothers of the communities: the event ended in an atmosphere of great joy and sharing.

Pope Francis' 21 Points

Pope Francis offered a 21-point plan to combat sexual abuse by members of the clergy during a Church summit at the Vatican.  You can find his 21-point plan here.  My opinions are in black:

1.  To prepare a practical handbook indicating the steps to be taken by authorities at key moments when a case emerges.

2.  To equip oneself with listening structures that include trained and expert people who can initially discern the cases of the alleged victims.

3.  Establish the criteria for the direct involvement of the Bishop or of the Religious Superior.

4.  Implement shared procedures for the examination of the charges, the protection of the victims and the right of defence of the accused.  

5.  Inform the civil authorities and the higher ecclesiastical authorities in compliance with civil and canonical norms.

6.  Make a periodic review of protocols and norms to safeguard a protected environment for minors in all pastoral structures: protocols and norms based on the integrated principles of justice and charity so that the action of the Church in this matter is in conformity with her mission.

This is already being done.  The Church has already implemented protocols and norms to safeguard minors.  

7.  Establish specific protocols for handling accusations against Bishops.

8.  Accompany, protect and treat victims, offering them all the necessary support for a complete recovery.

9.  Increase awareness of the causes and consequences of sexual abuse through ongoing formation initiatives of Bishops, Religious Superiors, clerics and pastoral workers.

10. Prepare pathways of pastoral care for communities injured by abuses and penitential and recovery routes for the perpetrators.

11. To consolidate the collaboration with all people of good will and with the operators of mass media in order to recognize and discern real cases from false ones and accusations of slander, avoiding rancour and insinuations, rumours and defamation (cf. Pope Francis’ address to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2018).

Exactly.  I am in agreement with this.  

12. To raise the minimum age for marriage to sixteen years.

Personally, I believe it should be 18, but I'm not the authority.

13. Establish provisions that regulate and facilitate the participation of lay experts in investigations and in the different degrees of judgment of canonical processes concerning sexual and / or power abuse.

14. The right to defence: the principle of natural and canon law of presumption of innocence must also be safeguarded until the guilt of the accused is proven. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the lists of the accused being published, even by the dioceses, before the preliminary investigation and the definitive condemnation.

Thank you, Pope Francis.  "Innocence until proven guilty" should always be safeguarded for it is an important democratic principle.  Without it, one can easily go into a witch hunt.

15.  Observe the traditional principle of proportionality of punishment with respect to the crime committed. To decide that priests and bishops guilty of sexual abuse of minors leave the public ministry.

16. Introduce rules concerning seminarians and candidates for the priesthood or religious life. Be sure that there are programs of initial and ongoing formation to help them develop their human, spiritual and psychosexual maturity, as well as their interpersonal relationships and their behaviour.

17. Be sure to have psychological evaluations by qualified and accredited experts for candidates for the priesthood and consecrated life.

18. Establish norms governing the transfer of a seminarian or religious aspirant from one seminary to another; as well as a priest or religious from one diocese or congregation to another.

19. Formulate mandatory codes of conduct for all clerics, religious, service personnel and volunteers to outline appropriate boundaries in personal relationships. Be specific about the necessary requirements for staff and volunteers and check their criminal record.

20. Explain all information and data on the dangers of abuse and its effects, how to recognize signs of abuse and how to report suspected sexual abuse. All this must take place in collaboration with parents, teachers, professionals and civil authorities.

21. Where it has not yet been in place, establish a group easily accessible for victims who want to report any crimes. Such an organization should have a certain autonomy with respect to the local ecclesiastical authority and include expert persons (clerics and laity) who know how to express the Church's attention to those who have been offended by improper attitudes on the part of clerics.