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Last Updated: 18 February 2015

CWN - The international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has pledged $2.8 in emergency aid Christians in Syria.

In announcing the pledge, ACN noted that the embattled Christians in Syria have received only limited benefits from secular relief agencies. Christians are reluctant to register with these agencies, and thus formally identify themselves as Christians, because they fear becoming the targets of Muslim groups. The Islamic State has brutally executed Christians, while other Syrian rebel groups have charged that Christians support the ruling regime.

Father Andrzej Halemba, who directs ACN’s in the Middle East, said: “Aleppo’s Christians are afraid that what happened in Mosul will also happen to them. This is a new and, unfortunately, justified fear of religious cleansing. The Islamic State openly shows its murderous intentions against anyone who does not bend to its brand of extremism.”

The ACN aid will fund projects in Aleppo, Homs, Damascus, and other towns where the Christian community has suffered because of the civil war that broke out in 2011. Official estimates suggest that over 12 million people have been adversely affected by the fighting, with 7.8 million now displaced from their homes and hundreds of thousands living as refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan. Many families have no source of income, and since half of the country’s schools have been destroyed or damaged, at least 3 million children are unable to continue their education.

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Last Updated: 18 February 2015

CWN - During his morning Mass on February 17, Pope Francis prayed for the Coptic Christians who were beheaded in Libya.

“We offer this Mass for our 21 Coptic brothers, slaughtered for the sole motive of being Christians,” he said.

The Pontiff prayed “that the Lord will welcome them as martyrs” and also prayed for their families and “my brother Tawadros,” the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Quoting Psalm 31, he added, “Be my rock of refuge, a stronghold to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me.”

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Last Updated: 17 February 2015

On Monday, February 16th, we begin the holy season of the Great Fast. Once again, our Church invites us to embark upon this annual journey – a period of grace when we identify more closely with our Lord Jesus Christ in his suffering, death, and resurrection.

During this time, we are encouraged to be faithful to our traditional Lenten practices. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are practical means for our spiritual move in the direction of our Savior. But we do not stop with just these. Micah the Prophet sets for us a good checklist: “Act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Without this right relationship with God and with others – no amount of fasting and prayer will help us to draw closer to the Lord.

The Great Fast makes sense when it is seen precisely as preparation for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery – the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus – which spells out the Gospel (Good News) in terms of our being reconciled and made one with God, and consequently our being at peace with self, with God, and with others.

That reconciliatory peace our Lord proclaimed to his followers on the day of his resurrection: “Peace be with you . . . Receive the Holy Spirit; for those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained” (Jn. 20:21, 22-23).

To believe the Gospel is to believe that Jesus’ forgiveness is to be experienced in the Mystery of Reconciliation (Penance). That’s Good News! That’s the Gospel! Therefore, the Mystery of Reconciliation serves to couple the call to repent by acknowledging sin in our lives and the call to believe the Gospel by seeking and accepting God’s loving forgiveness.

God does not want us to get discouraged or overwhelmed by our sins. When St. Paul the Apostle looked into his own life, he exclaimed “I do not understand what I do; for I do not do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate” (Rom. 7:15).

How typical! Don’t we all experience this? We have such good intentions and poor performance. We start well, but somewhere along the line our will power runs out. We slide down the slippery slope and often end up pretty much where we started. We could get discouraged. To help us when we are tempted to give up, St. Paul continues:

“I know that no good lives in me, that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. I don’t do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do . . . What a miserable man I am! Who will rescue me?” (Rom. 7:18-19, 24).

And St. Paul gives the answer: “Thanks be to God, our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Rom. 7:25).

God does not abandon us to our sins. Throughout the entire Holy Bible, from the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament to the sending of his Beloved Son in the New Testament, we get a picture of a loving, heavenly Father seeking and calling his children to come home.   With warnings, invitations, promises, and the offering of his Only-Begotten Son, has the call of God gone throughout the world. He has spoken to us in words and gracious deeds and by the Holy Spirit in our own consciences. All the promises that God has made to us have been confirmed and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The call of the Great Fast is a call to return home, so vividly seen in the story of the prodigal son. It is a call to fear the Lord, to love him, to serve him, to glorify him, to rejoice in him. So much has been done for us, especially that great sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross for the sake of our salvation, of bringing us home. God has endless blessings to bestow upon us if we open our hearts to him. And this is the time to do it!

Beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, please be assured of our daily prayers for all of you. Let us remember also at this time our sisters and brothers in Ukraine as they undergo tremendous hardships in their continued struggle for peace, dignity, unity, and territorial integrity. May our good Lord look favorably upon them and fulfill all their requests.

“The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you!” (2 Thess. 3:18).

+Stefan Soroka

Archbishop of Philadelphia for Ukrainians

Metropolitan of Ukrainian Catholics in the United States

+Richard Seminack

Eparch of St. Nicholas in Chicago

+Paul Chomnycky, OSBM

Eparch of Stamford

+ Bohdan Danylo

Eparch of St. Josaphat in Parma

+John Bura (author)

Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia

 Great Fast, 2015

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Last Updated: 17 February 2015

CWN - The apostolic vicar of Tripoli, Libya, has promised to remain with the faithful there, at a time when most foreigners are rushing to leave the embattled country.

Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli told Vatican Radio that Islamic militants have entered Tripoli, and prospects for the country’s small Christian minority are bleak. But speaking for those Christians, he said: “We are ready to bear witness to whom we are and to what we do according to the words of Christ.”

Bishop Martinelli charged that the Western world had neglected to build real relationships with the people of Libya, seeking instead to protect special interests—notably in oil. The lack of dialogue with the Western world has contributed to the country’s current plight, he said: “the void, the selfishness and the economic interests that have led to the deep and tragic fractures within the Libyan nation.”

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Last Updated: 17 February 2015

CWN - Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak of Alexandria has described the 21 Copts slaughtered by the Islamic State as “martyrs who gave their lives for the faith.”

The Coptic prelate's words echo a public statement by Pope Francis. “Their only words were: ‘Jesus, help me!’ the Pontiff said. “They were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians.”

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Last Updated: 17 February 2015

CWN - Metropolitan Onufra of Kiev, the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church aligned with the Moscow patriarchate, has called for fasting and prayer as a cease-fire begins in Ukraine on February 15.

Metropolitan Onufra decried the violence that has shaken Ukraine, and appealed for “all those who call themselves Christians to immediately stop killing each other.” He said that pre-Lenten festivities should be replaced by prayers for peace.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church- Moscow patriarchate has avoided taking a partisan stand during the months of conflict in Ukraine, while the Russian Orthodox Church has supported Moscow and blamed the crisis on the Byzantine-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church.