Catholic News

• US bishops' doctrine, pro-life chairmen address use of Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine (USCCB)
  “Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines raised concerns because an abortion-derived cell line was used for testing them, but not in their production,” the prelates said. “The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, however, was developed, tested and is produced with abortion-derived cell lines raising additional moral concerns. . . . If one has the ability to choose a vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines should be chosen over Johnson & Johnson’s.”
• 4th attack against Romanian Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem (AsiaNews)
  The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land condemned the attacks on the Romanian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.
• French Catholic clergy may have abused at least 10,000 people since 1950, say investigators (CNN)
  In 2018, the French bishops established the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church.
• German bishops call for change to Catechism on homosexuality (Catholic World Report)
  The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses homosexuality in no. 2357, in its teaching on the Sixth Commandment.
• Vatican spokesman sees Pope's Iraq trip as the 'most difficult and most important journey of his pontificate' (Vatican News)
  On March 2, the Vatican press office released an updated program for the apostolic journey, as well as statistics on the Church in Iraq.
• US bishops' working group on President Biden recommends document on 'Eucharistic coherence' (CNS)
  In a March 1 memo, Archbishop José H. Gomez , the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president, said that the working group recommended that the body of bishops develop a document on “Eucharistic coherence”—a recommendation t has been “forwarded to the Committee on Doctrine in the hope that it will strengthen an understanding and deepen a common faith in the gift that has been given to us in the Sacrament of the Altar.”
• Polish court acquits activists who put LGBT rainbow on icon (AP)
  The acquitted activists produced and distributed altered images of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa.
• USCCB: Urgent action needed to prevent taxpayer funding for abortion in Covid relief bill (National Committee for a Human Life Amendment)
  “Unfortunately, unlike previous COVID relief bills, this bill appropriates billions of taxpayer dollars that are not subject to longstanding, bi-partisan pro-life protections that are needed to prevent this funding from paying for abortions,” the USCCB notes. “The Senate is expected to vote this week.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow a vote on a pro-life Hyde amendment addition to the bill.
• 'Merciful priests and not torturers': video released for March papal prayer intention (The Pope Video)
  The Pope’s March prayer intention is “that we may experience the Sacrament of Reconciliation with renewed depth, to taste the infinite mercy of God.” In the video, Pope Francis comments, “When I go to confession, it is in order to be healed, to heal my soul. To leave with greater spiritual health. To pass from misery to mercy. The center of Confession is not the sins we declare, but the divine love we receive, of which we are always in need. The center of Confession is Jesus who waits for us, who listens to us and forgives us. . . . And let us pray that God may give his Church merciful priests and not torturers.”
• 'Go forth courageously in your work': Pope encourages Franciscan ministry to poor in Florence (Vatican Press Office)
  “Jesus, by coming into the world and proclaiming the Kingdom of the Father, approached human sufferings with compassion,” Pope Francis said to a delegation from the Franciscan Solidarity Center of Florence. “In this way, Christ revealed God’s heart: He is a Father who wants to protect, defend and promote the dignity of every one of His sons and daughters.”
• Vatican cardinal reflects on the value of penance in a time of pandemic (CNA)
  Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, Major Penitentiary, called for “true Christian penance, which alone is capable of embracing . . . the current pandemic emergency, making grow in the heart of man the joy and freedom of those who know they belong to no power in this world, but only to Christ and His saving power.”
• Pope Francis, in book-length interview, defends historicity of Flood, reflects on God's wrath (Vatican News)
  Don Marco Pozza’s book is entitled Dei vizi e delle virtù [Of Vices and Virtues].
• Baton Rouge bishop weighs in on Johnson & Johnson vaccine (WGMB-TV)
  “My guidance to the faithful of the Diocese of Baton Rouge is to accept as your first choices the vaccines created by Pfizer and Moderna, but if for any reasonable circumstance you are only able to receive the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, you should feel free to do so for your safety and for the common good,” said Bishop Michael Duca.
• Vatican encourages '24 Hours for the Lord' Confession initiative (PCPNE)
  “On Friday evening March 12th and during the entire day of Saturday March 13th, it would be good to have the church open, offering the opportunity for Confessions, preferably in the context of guided Eucharistic Adoration,” according to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, which has overseen the annual international initiative since 2014.
• 279 kidnapped schoolgirls released in Nigeria (Fides)
  Kidnappers—described by government officials as “bandits”—have released 279 girls who had been abducted from a secondary school in Zamfara, in northwest Nigeria. The girls had been taken from their dormitory at the government school on February 25; they were set free on March 2. (Early reports, which said that 317 girls had been kidnapped, were inaccurate.) Pope Francis had made a plea for the students’ release at this Sunday public audience.
• Spain permits International Women's Day marches while restricting worship (CNA)
  Fernando Simón, director of the Health Emergencies and Alerts Coordination Center of the Spanish government, claimed that it is easier to maintain social distance during Women’s Day marches than during Holy Week processions.
• Federal court rules New York's no-fault divorce law did not infringe wife's religious freedom (Religion Clause)
  Lynn King, a Pentecostal Christian, filed suit after her husband divorced her. “There can be no such thing as an indissoluble partnership,” the court said, quoting an earlier ruling. “Staying married against the wishes of the other adult . . . is not a vested right.”
• 'An economic and social time bomb': some Chinese leaders call for end to fertility limits (AsiaNews)
  “Within five years, China will lose 35 million adults of working age,” according to the report. “In 2020 there were 10.03 million newborns: the previous year there were 11.79 million.”
• Peru's bishops denounce euthanasia as issue enters presidential campaign (CNS)
  “We must remember that euthanasia will always be the wrong path, because it goes against the inalienable right to life, causes the direct death of a human being and, as a result, is an intrinsically evil act,” the bishops said in a February 27 statement.
• Vandals strike at historic mother church of Knights of Columbus (National Catholic Register)
  “About one-fifth of the center of each window was punched in and received this severe damage,” Father John Paul Walker, OP, of St. Mary Church in New Haven, Conn., said after four stained glass windows were vandalized.
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