The Catholic Weekly 10 May 2020

15 10, May, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au WORLD BISHOPS THROUGHOUT the US reconsecrated the country to Mary as the nation continues to struggle in the midst of the coronavirus pan- demic. Bishops in Canada also used 1May to rededicate their country to the Blessed Moth- er. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, led a “Renewal of the Consecration of the United States of America to the Bless- ed Virgin Mary” on 1 May . The sparse, 37-minute ceremony at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los An- geles was livestreamed on Facebook, YouTube and the websites of the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the US Bish- ops’ website. Alternating between Eng- lish and Spanish, Archbishop Gomez said: “In this difficult time we turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of the church. She intercedes with her Son for all who are affect- ed in this way by the pandem- ic. ... We implore her maternal care for her children.” Archbishop Gomez noted Mary’s history in the US. “The first missionaries came to this country under the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Lat- er, the bishops consecrated ¾ ¾ Mark Pattison A statue of Mary and Jesus is seen at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception inWashington during the coronavirus pandemic. PHOTO: CNS/TYLER ORSBURN her as patroness of the United States of America,” he said. “The Virgin Mary has accom- panied this great nation since our beginnings,” he added. “Now in this difficult hour, we renew our consecration to her.” The US has been hit hard- er than any other nation in deaths connected to COV- ID-19, with 62,547 known coronavirus fatalities as of 30 April, with about 2,000 more people dying each day. Although federal and state health officials have been advocating strict measures to “flatten the curve” of in- fections and fatalities, none have said that deaths have yet reached their peak. Some Americans have loudly grumbled about the slow pace of “reopening” states to travel and commerce, while health officials fear a second wave of infections. “Mary was the first person to consecrate herself to Jesus, the first to offer her whole heart to do his will, to set his beautiful plan of redemption,” Archbishop Gomez said. “We ask God to give us that same faith, that same courage ... the strength to follow Jesus, to seek his holiness and his kingdom.” The ceremony featured Marian hymns including Regi- na Coeli , Hail, Holy Queen and a contemporary English-Latin setting of the Magnificat . It also featured the recitation of two decades of the rosary. At its conclusion, Arch- bishop Gomez said, “Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, is encouraging us to rediscover the beauty of praying the ro- sary at home in the month of May. We are still in quarantine in our homes.” He noted that “one of the many saints in Los Angeles was the venerable (Father) Patrick Peyton, who coined the “family rosary” and the phrase “The family that prays together stays to- gether.” “Maybe we can dedi- cate ourselves,” Archbishop Gomez said, “to find time to come together as a family to pray the rosary in our homes.” A similar liturgy of conse- cration took place at the Ba- silica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Concep- tion in Washington on 1 May, led by Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, who prayed: “In this time of pan- demic, we come to you, our sign of sure hope and com- fort. Today we renew the act of consecration and entrust- ment carried out by those who have gone before us.” Because of local and federal social distancing and self-iso- lation mandates in an effort to halt the spread of COVID-19, the rededication liturgy at the basilica was not open to the public, but livestreamed on social media platforms. This consecration reaffirms the bishops’ previous conse- crations of the US to Mary. In 1792, the first bishop of the US, Bishop John Carroll, consecrated the nation to Mary under the title Immacu- late Conception, and in 1846, the bishops unanimously chose Mary under that title as the patroness of the nation. In 1959, Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle of Washington again consecrated the United States to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was the year when construction of the Nation- al Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington was completed. A TOP Polish historian has questioned claims by Ger- man researchers that newly opened Vatican archives con- tain information damning the role played by Pope Pius XII during World War II. “This team has the advan- tage of having been to these archives, and we must face the truth calmly if some major new discovery is made,” said Jan Zaryn, one of Poland’s foremost church historians. “But I’ve never personally encountered a situation in which 11 volumes of material, published over two decades, are suddenly countermanded by a single document, found after a few days’ research.” Father Hubert Wolf, a pro- fessor at the University of Munster, Germany, said that, after an early March visit to the Vatican Apostolic Ar- chives, his team had found ¾ ¾ Jonathan Luxmoore Historian queries Pius XII ‘discovery’ Pope Pius XII gives a blessing on the radio in 1943. PHOTO: CNS The VirginMary has accompa- nied this great nation since our beginnings ... Now in this difficult hour, we renew our consecration to her.” Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles proof that the Vatican knew of the Nazi mass killing of Jews but denied it to diplomats. In a 1 May interview, Zaryn said diplomatic sources had long confirmed that the pope, with Allied governments, had learned of the Holocaust by late 1942, adding that St Paul VI had agreed to publish war- time letters and documents from the archives early in or- der to “end the campaigns” against his predecessor. “In his 1942 Christmas message, Pius XII condemned the mass murders; although he did this in his own lan- guage and didn’t mention Germans and Jews by name, the message was censored by the Third Reich, since it was obvious what the pope was referring to,” said Zaryn, a for- mer senator and expert with Poland’s National Remem- brance Institute. “When the Germans en- tered Italy and occupied Rome, it was clear that words of public condemnation would merely heighten dan- gers that the Vatican itself would be seized, compromis- ing the rescue of Jews. This is confirmed by numerous doc- uments,” Zaryn said. The director of the German Historical Institute in Rome, Martin Baumeister, also warned against “sensational reports,” telling Germany’s Catholic news agency, KNA, that any material would have to be “compared, checked and weighed to ensure the new knowledge is useful.” Father Wolf headed a team of seven from the University of Munster’s theology faculty to the Vatican, after its Pius XII archive, containing at least 200,000 boxes with over 2 mil- lion documents, was opened to historians on 2 March after nine years’ preparation. The archive was closed a few days later due to Italy’s coronavirus pandemic, forc- ing the team to return home. However, in an interview originally published online on 22 April, Father Wolf said he had found evidence that Pope Pius read a US diplo- mat’s report in September 1942, detailing the mass kill- ing of Jews in Nazi-occupied Warsaw and Lviv, then in Ger- man-occupied Poland. In brief Knight dies, 75 Sacristan sentenced Diocese bankrupt FRA’ GIACOMO Dalla Torre, who led the Knights of Malta following a tu- multuous period of inter- nal tensions and rocky re- lations with the Vatican, died at the age of 75, the order announced. Dalla Torre, grand knight of the order, died in Rome on 29 April after battling “an incurable disease diag- nosed a few months ago,” the Knights of Malta said in a statement. Remem- bering him as “a man of great spirituality and hu- man warmth,” the order recalled his years of ser- vice to the city’s most vul- nerable, including serving meals to the homeless. AN INDIAN court sen- tenced former sacristan Johny Vattaparamban, 54, to life imprisonment for the 2018 murder of the rector of popular StThom- as Shrine at Malayattoor, in southern Kerala. The court also imposed a fine of A$2050 on Vattapar- amban, convicted of stab- bing Father Xavier Thelak- kat on 1 March 2018, as he descended from the hill- top shrine, about 55 kilo- metres north of Cochin. Father Thelakkat was stabbed after he refused to reinstate the sacristan, whom he had suspended for “misconduct.” MOUNTING CONCERNS over the financial impact of clergy sex abuse set- tlements and the coro- navirus pandemic saw the Archdiocese of New Orleans file for Chapter 11 reorganisation of its fi- nances on 1 May in a US Bankruptcy Court. In an interview with the Clar- ion Herald, Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans said the “difficult decision” to file for finan- cial reorganisation would allow the archdiocese to ensure that sex abuse vic- tims have their claims re- solved in “a fair and timely manner”. The US belongs to Mary US, Canadianbishopsconsecrate theirnations toBlessedVirgin Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre. PHOTO: CNS/ALBERTO PIZZOLI