'The common good': The last Pope Leo was a champion of the working poor
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In 2013, when Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio became pope he chose the name Francis, a tribute to one of the most popular saints in the history of Christendom.
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St. Francis of Assisi, who lived in the 13th century, was loved because of his deep devotion to the poor. Indeed, Pope Francis showed a great love for the most marginalized of this world, especially the millions of migrants who are the poorest of the world.
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So what does the name Pope Leo XIV possibly indicate for this new papacy?
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Pope Leo XIII, who served from 1878 to 1903, has not been declared a saint, but his influence on the Church and the world was immense. He, too, showed a great concern for working people everywhere who slaved away for a mere pittance and had little time for family or even to worship God. They were in many ways the dross of the Industrial Revolution, who, along with poor pay, were subject to the illnesses and diseases spewed out by factories.
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If his new name is something to go by, we might expect our new Pope to also show great concern for those who labour under the dark cloud of exploitation.
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On May 15, 1891, Leo promulgated the encyclical Rerum Novarum, which translates to 'Of New Things.' For Catholics, and any observer of the plight of labour, the encyclical was considered — and still is — a landmark document on worker rights.
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Last month, Fr. Joe Connelly wrote a beautiful essay on the Catholic website Guardian Angels in praise of Rerum Novarum, a document that was not just relevant to conditions in the late 19th century but to many parts of the world today.
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'During an era marked by the rise of capitalism and the exploitation of labor, Pope Leo XIII boldly defended the rights of workers and the sanctity of the family,' he wrote.
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'Rerum Novarum emphasized the importance of just wages, decent working conditions, and the rights of laborers to organize for their mutual benefit. Rejecting the extremes of unchecked capitalism and socialism, the encyclical called for a balanced approach that respects both the rights of workers and the principles of private property.'
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'Rather than relying solely on the state, the encyclical emphasizes the responsibilities of families, local entities, and voluntary associations in caring for the vulnerable and promoting the common good. This principle remains as relevant today as it was in Pope Leo XIII's time, guiding Catholics in their efforts to foster solidarity and build thriving societies.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Pope meets with child protection advisory board amid survivor calls for zero tolerance on abuse
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Vatican's child protection advisory commission on Thursday for the first time amid questions about his past handling of clergy sex abuse cases and demands from survivors that he enact a true policy of zero tolerance for abuse across the Catholic Church. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is made up of religious and lay experts in fighting abuse as well as survivors, called the hourlong audience a 'significant moment of reflection, dialogue, and renewal of the church's unwavering commitment to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable people.' The group said it updated history's first American pope on its activities, including an initiative to help church communities in poorer parts of the world prevent abuse and care for victims. The Vatican did not provide the text of Leo's remarks or make the audio of the audience available to reporters. Pope Francis created the commission early on in his pontificate to advise the church on best practices and placed a trusted official, Boston's then-archbishop, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, in charge. But as the abuse scandal spread globally during Francis' 12-year pontificate, the commission lost its influence its crowning recommendation — the creation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests — went nowhere. After many years of reform and new members, it has become a place where victims can go to be heard and bishops can get advice on crafting guidelines to fight abuse. O'Malley turned 80 last year and retired as archbishop of Boston, but he remains president of the commission and headed the delegation meeting with Leo in the Apostolic Palace. It has often fallen to O'Malley to speak out on egregious cases that have arrived at the Vatican, including one that remains on Leo's desk: The fate of the ex-Jesuit artist, the Rev. Marko Rupnik, who has been accused by two dozen women of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse over decades. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. After coming under criticism that a fellow Jesuit had apparently received preferential treatment, Francis in 2023 ordered the Vatican to waive the statute of limitations on the case and prosecute him canonically. But as recently as March, the Vatican still hadn't found judges to open the trial. Meanwhile, the victims are still waiting for justice and Rupnik continues to minister, with his supporters defending him and denouncing a 'media lynching' campaign against him. Leo, the Chicago-born former Cardinal Robert Prevost, has been credited by victims of helping to dismantle an abusive Catholic movement in Peru, where he served as bishop for many years. But other survivors have asked him to account for other cases while he was a superior in the Augustinian religious order, bishop in Peru and head of the Vatican's bishops' office. The main U.S. survivor group, SNAP, has also called for Leo to adopt the U.S. policy calling for any priest who has been credibly accused of abuse to be permanently removed from ministry. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Takeaways from AP's reporting on looming extinction of rare version of Christianity in rural Japan
IKITSUKI, Japan (AP) — On the rural islands of Nagasaki a handful of believers practice a version of Christianity that has direct links to a time of samurai, shoguns and martyred missionaries and believers. After emerging from hiding in 1865, following centuries of violent persecution by Japan's insular warlord rulers, many of the formerly underground Christians converted to mainstream Catholicism. Some Hidden Christians, however, continued to follow not the religion that 16th century foreign missionaries originally taught them, but the idiosyncratic, difficult to detect version they'd nurtured during centuries of clandestine cat-and-mouse with a brutal regime. On Ikitsuki and other remote sections of Nagasaki prefecture, Hidden Christians still pray to what they call the Closet God — scroll paintings of Mary and Jesus, disguised as a Buddhist Bodhisattva and hidden in special closets. They still chant in a Latin that hasn't been widely used in centuries. Now, though, the Hidden Christians are disappearing. Almost all are elderly, and as the young move to cities or turn their backs on the faith, those remaining are desperate to preserve evidence of this unique offshoot of Christianity — and convey to the world what its loss will mean. 'At this point, I'm afraid we are going to be the last ones,' said Masatsugu Tanimoto, 68, one of the few who can recite the Latin chants his ancestors learned 400 years ago. Here are some key takeaways from The Associated Press' extensive reporting on a dwindling group of faithful who still worship today as their ancestors did when forced underground in the 17th century. They rejected Catholicism even after the persecution ended Christianity spread rapidly in 16th century Japan when Jesuit priests converted warlords and peasants alike, most especially on the southern main island of Kyushu, where the foreigners established trading ports in Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands, by some estimates, embraced the religion. That changed after the shoguns began to see the religion as a threat. The crackdown that followed in the early 17th century was fierce. Many continued to practice in hiding, and when Japan opened up and allowed Christianity, they emerged and became Catholics. But others chose to stay Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians), continuing to worship as their ancestors did underground. Hidden Christianity developed when a lapse in secrecy could be deadly Catholics have churches, priests and centuries of hard-fought dogma. But Hidden Christians were forced to hide all visible signs of their religion after the 1614 ban on Christianity and the expulsion of foreign missionaries. Households took turns keeping precious ritual objects hidden safely and hosting the secret services that celebrated both faith and persistence. This still happens today, and one of the most remarkable things about the religion is the ease with which an observer can feel unmoored from time, transported by rituals unchanged since the 16th century. Different communities worship different icons and have different ways of performing the rituals. In Sotome, for instance, people prayed to a statue of what they called Maria Kannon, a genderless Bodhisattva of mercy, as a substitute for Mary. They take pride in clinging to the old ways Many Hidden Christians rejected Catholicism after the persecution ended because Catholic priests refused to recognize them as real Christians unless they agreed to be rebaptized and abandon the Buddhist altars that their ancestors used. Tanimoto believes his ancestors continued the Hidden Christian traditions because becoming Catholic meant rejecting the Buddhism and Shintoism that had become such a strong part of their daily lives underground. 'We are not doing this to worship Jesus or Mary,' he said. 'Our responsibility is to faithfully carry on the way our ancestors had practiced.' An important part of Hidden Christians' ceremonies is the recitation of Latin chants, called Orasho. The Orasho comes from the original Latin or Portuguese prayers brought to Japan by 16th century missionaries. Tanimoto recently showed AP a weathered copy of a prayer his grandfather wrote with a brush and ink, just like the ones his ancestors had diligently copied from older generations. Today, because funerals are no longer held at homes and younger people are leaving the island for work and school, Orasho is only performed two or three times a year. Hidden Christianity is dying, and the faithful know it There were an estimated 30,000 in Nagasaki, including about 10,000 in Ikitsuki, in the 1940s, according to government figures, but nobody has been baptized since 1994. Hidden Christianity is linked to the communal ties that formed when Japan was a largely agricultural society. Those ties crumbled as the country rapidly modernized after WWII, with recent developments revolutionizing people's lives, even in rural Japan. Hidden Christianity has a structural weakness, experts say, because there are no professional religious leaders tasked with teaching doctrine and adapting the religion to environmental changes. Researchers are collecting artifacts and archiving video interviews with Hidden Christians in an attempt to preserve a record of the endangered religion. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Masashi Funabara, 63, a retired town hall official, said most of the nearby groups have disbanded over the last two decades. His group, which now has only two families, is the only one left, down from nine in his district. They used to perform prayers almost every month; now they meet only a few times a year. 'The amount of time we are responsible for these holy icons is only about 20 to 30 years, compared to the long history when our ancestors kept their faith in fear of persecution. When I imagined their suffering, I felt that I should not easily give up,' Funabara said. Just as his father did when memorizing the Orasho, Funabara has written down passages in notebooks. He hopes the notes will help convince his son, who works for the local government, to one day be his successor. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Catholic students find refuge at Princeton University's worship space and cheer new pope
PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — While other students might be in class or socializing at lunch, a group of young Catholics attends Mass every weekday at noon at the Princeton University Chapel. They sing Gregorian chants in Latin, pray and receive Communion at a side chapel — inside the huge, nondenominational Princeton Chapel — that young, devoted Catholics see as a sacred refuge in a mostly liberal and secular Ivy League environment. 'I feel that people's faith is so strong here,' student Logan Nelson said of the dedicated Catholic space where he attends daily Mass. 'It feels like a home — even more so than my own house.' A tight-knit Catholic campus ministry at a historic chapel The Gothic university chapel was built in 1928. At the time, Princeton says, its capacity to seat more than 2,000 people was second in size only to King's College Chapel at Cambridge University. Today, the chapel hosts interfaith services, concerts and weddings throughout the academic year and is known by the university as 'the bridge between town and gown.' On May 8, Catholic students were worshipping as usual at daily Mass in the side chapel when the service was interrupted by news alerts on their phones. In the Vatican, white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel, indicating that a new leader of their faith had been elected. The Rev. Zachary Swantek, Princeton's Catholic chaplain, told the group to gather at the Catholic Ministry office. Together, they watched on TV as the election of the first U.S.-born pope was announced. 'It was electric,' Nelson said, adding there was 'uproar' in the room when Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost became the 267th pontiff. 'It was so cool to see an American pope.' Like other members of the Catholic ministry, he is hopeful that Pope Leo XIV will help bring a revival for Catholicism in America. 'I feel that there's a resurgence of Catholicism today,' said Nelson, who was religiously unaffiliated until last year when he converted to Catholicism. 'You see people who are passionate about their faith. There's a new wave coming, and we're going to have more converts like me, who are coming from the 'nones.'' Across much of the world, the number of people who are nonbelievers or unaffiliated with any organized religion has dramatically increased over the years. The people known as 'nones' — atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular — comprise 30% or more of the adult population in the U.S., according to a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Princeton's Office of Religious Life says it supports members of the school community 'of any religious identity or of none.' Being a devoted Catholic on a mostly secular campus can be challenging; Swantek says he's never felt 'more needed as a priest.' He is proud of the tight-knit, welcoming Catholic community that he leads, and how they've helped recent converts come into the faith. A U.S.-born pope becomes a sign of hope for American Catholics News of the first U.S.-born pope was welcomed by Catholics across the ideological spectrum in Pope Leo XIV 's homeland. 'Something that did bring me a lot of hope is Pope Leo has a missionary background,' said Ace Acuna, a Princeton alumni. He recently attended a Mass at the chapel before beginning a nearly five-week Catholic pilgrimage from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. 'In a world where in some places it might look like faith is on the decline, a church that's willing to go out to the margins and evangelize and be on mission, that's going to be so important,' Acuna said. When he was an undergrad at Princeton, Acuna said the chapel became crucial to his college life. On his way to class every morning, he'd pass by the chapel for a silent prayer. He'd return for the noon Mass and again at the end of the day for one last prayer. 'Princeton is a very busy place and there's a lot of noise both externally but also internally because we're so busy and we're always worried about the next thing,' he said. 'Sometimes you just want silence, and you just want a place where you can lay down your burdens.' At the close of one recent Mass, David Kim and his girlfriend Savannah Nichols continued to pray near the altar, holding hands, kneeling or prostrating on the floor in a sign of reverence. Kim, a recent graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary, converted to Catholicism last year and has been serving as an altar server at the Princeton University chapel. He called the chapel's side altar 'an island of Christian life in an unbelieving world.' Princeton University has always had a vibrant religious community and a religiously diverse one, said Eric Gregory, a professor of religion there. 'In a way it's either so secular or even post-secular that it's not threatened by the Christian presence on campus,' he said. 'Religious students in our campus are not cloistered from campus. They're also in sports teams, clubs and the newspaper. They're integrated.' Catholics students in Leo's home state cheer his election Catholics at the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were elated by his election — and reinvigorated in practicing their faith. 'Being able to live out my faith in this extremely secular campus is such a blessing to me,' said student Daniel Vanisko, a lifelong Catholic, later adding in an email that the pope's election 'really helps me to draw closer to my faith, seeing that someone that grew up in the same state as me, is the successor of Peter in the Church.' Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Cavan Morber, a rising junior, said attending UIUC 'gives me chance to be challenged in my beliefs, think critically about what I believe, and share my faith with others.' Asked in an email exchange about the pope's election, Morber replied: 'What a time to be alive!' 'I am hopeful for how he will be able to unite the Church in a time of a lot of division among Catholics and everyone around the world,' Morber added. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
