Today humanity’s greatest need is the establishment of a spiritual civilization. But what does this mean — what qualities would a spiritual civilization possess, and how on Earth do we...
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Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The unresolved question of whether life exists on other planets continues to spark curiosity from the public and the interest of scientists — but one Catholic physicist working on missions to search for potential life also recognizes it as an opportunity to see the glory of God.
Jonathan Lunine, a convert to the Catholic faith and the chief scientist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, spoke to roughly 100 Catholic scientists about the subject at an event in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Nov. 15.
The lecture followed a Gold Mass, celebrated for Catholic scientists, at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. A Gold Mass is held on the feast of St. Albertus Magnus — a Dominican friar, medieval scientist, patron saint of scientists, and mentor to St. Thomas Aquinas.
It was sponsored by The Catholic University of America and the local chapter of the Society of Catholic Scientists, which seeks to respond to St. John Paul II’s calling for Catholic scientists to “integrate the worlds of science and religion in their own intellectual and spiritual lives.”
“I’m not a theologian; I’m a scientist,” Lunine told the crowd as they finished eating brunch at the Beacon Hotel, which is a short walk from the cathedral, about a half-mile north of the White House.
Lunine — whose work at NASA has involved the search for the possibility of unintelligent microbial life on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan — said that as a scientist, “this has been a wonderful journey, being able to participate in these missions.”
As a Catholic scientist, he said he sees “the gift of the mind” as a gift that “God has given us to … understand the glory of God’s creation.”
Microbial life on other planets, if it were to be found, he said, would be a “manifestation of the order that is baked into the universal design that God created when he created the universe” and created so that “beauty might shine forth from that very order.”
Lunine said those three moons are the most likely locations to have the conditions to sustain life that we have the ability to reach, particularly due to the prevalence of water. The mission to Europa should conclude between 2030 and 2035, the mission to Titan should conclude in the 2030s, and the mission to Enceladus should conclude in the 2040s, he said.
If microbial life were to be discovered on any of those moons, Lunine told CNA, it would show us that there are “other places beyond the Earth where life began.”
Lunine said more theological questions would be raised if the search for life on other planets develops into a search for intelligent and self-aware life that developed on another planet. This would lead to questions like “Are they saved?” or “Are they fallen?”, he said.
If intelligent life exists on other planets, he said it would be “hard to imagine” that none had fallen from God’s grace, noting that it is easy to fall and “even the angels, some of them have fallen.” He said this would create questions such as “did Christ come to their world in a separate incarnation” to save them, and how would humanity would “be the central pivot point of cosmic history.”
The Catholic Church holds no official position on whether intelligent life exists on other planets, but Pope Francis commented on the subject in 2015, saying: “Honestly I wouldn’t know how to answer,” adding: “Until America was discovered we thought it didn’t exist, and instead it existed.”
The pontiff, however, did affirmatively say that everything in the universe has been created through divine intelligence and “is not the result of chance or chaos.”
The historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer, in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, was ravaged by arson on the night of Sept. 2, 2024. / Credit: Courtesy of Father Sébastien Roussel
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 20, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
A recently released report from a European watchdog group has found nearly 2,500 documented instances of hate crimes against Christians living in Europe. Approximately 1,000 of these attacks took place in France.
According to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) report, which drew on both police and civil society data, 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes and acts of discrimination and intolerance occurred across 35 European countries from 2023 to 2024.
Of these, 232 constituted personal attacks of harassment, threats, and physical assaults against Christians.
Nearly 1,000 of the anti-Christian hate crimes reported in Europe in 2023 took place in France, with 90% of the attacks waged against churches or cemeteries. The report also found there were about 84 personal attacks against individuals.
Apart from physical assaults, the report cited data from the French Religious Heritage Observatory, which recorded eight confirmed cases of arson against churches in France in 2023 and 14 attacks in the first 10 months of 2024. Several reported cases were on account of “Molotov cocktails,” a makeshift handheld firebomb.
Religious communities also reported incidents of harassment. Two nuns cited in the report, for example, announced in 2023 that they would be leaving the northwestern city of Nantes on account of “constant hostility and insecurity.” The nuns reportedly experienced “beatings, spitting, and insults.”
The United Kingdom followed close behind France, according to the report, with 702 reported anti-Christian hate crimes, a 15% increase since 2023.
The report also included as anti-Christian acts incidents of Christians being prosecuted for praying silently in the country’s so-called “buffer zones,” such as the case of Adam Smith-Connor, who was convicted for praying in front of an abortion clinic.
The report stated that in Germany, the third most affected country, official government statistics reported 277 “politically motivated hate crimes” against Christians in 2023, a 105% increase from the previous year when there were 103 reported attacks.
OIDAC Europe independently estimated that “at least 2,000 cases of property damage to Christian places of worship in 2023” took place.
OIDAC Europe found that of the 69 documented cases where the motives and background of perpetrators could be accurately accounted for, 21 of them were provoked by a radical Islamist agenda, 14 were of a generally anti-religious nature, 13 were tied to far-left political motives, and 12 were “linked to the war in Ukraine.”
The report also noted that numbers in this respect remained unchanged compared with 2022, “except for cases with an Islamist background, which increased from 11 to 21.”
In addition to overt attacks, the OIDAC report highlighted an increased phenomenon of discrimination in the workplace and public life, leading to a rise in self-censorship among those who practice their faith.
According to a U.K.-based study from June cited in the report, 56% of 1,562 respondents stated they “had experienced hostility and ridicule when discussing their religious beliefs,” an overall 61% rise among those under 35. In addition, 18% of those who participated in the study reported experiencing discrimination, particularly among those in younger age groups.
More than 280 participants in the same survey stated “they felt that they had been disadvantaged because of their religion.”
“I was bullied at my workplace, made to feel less than, despite being very successful at my job in other settings, until I left,” one female respondent in her late 40s stated in the survey, while another respondent, a man in his mid- to late-50s, said: “Any mention of faith in a CV precludes one from an interview. My yearly assessment was lowered because I spoke of Christ.”
The report explained that the majority of discrimination occurs due to the “expression of religious beliefs about societal issues.” However, in the U.K., these instances have extended to private conversations and posts on private social media accounts, according to the report.
A case involving a mother of two children, Kristie Higgs, was cited in the report. Higgs was fired from her job as a pastoral assistant after sharing, in a private Facebook post, “concerns about the promotion of transgenderism in sex education lessons at her son’s primary school.”
“I am not alone to be treated this way — many of the others here to support me today have faced similar consequences,” Higgs stated after her hearing at the Court of Appeals in October.
“This is not just about me,” she added. “It cannot be right that so many Christians are losing their jobs or facing discipline for sharing biblical truth, our Christian beliefs.”
Two instances of government interference in Catholic religious autonomy were cited.
One instance occurred in France, in which a secular civil court “ruled against the Vatican’s internal canonical procedures” in a case regarding a French nun who was dismissed from her order. The Vatican sent a letter to the French embassy in response to the ruling, which it called “a serious violation of the fundamental rights of religious freedom and freedom of association of the Catholic faithful.”
In Belgium, the report also noted, two bishops were convicted and ordered to pay financial compensation after they refused to admit a woman to a diaconate training program, despite human rights law, which protects the rights of religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, to decide on matters such as the ordination of clergy without state-level interference.
“As freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is a cornerstone for free and democratic societies, we hope that states will not compromise on the protection of these fundamental rights, and thus ensure an open and peaceful climate in our societies,” the report stated in its conclusion.
OIDAC’s report includes various recommendations to governments of European countries, human rights institutions, the European Union, members of the media, and other “opinion leaders” as well as to Christian churches and individuals.
The watchdog organization’s recommendations include a call for safeguarding freedom of expression, more robust reporting on intolerance and discrimination against Christians, the abandonment of anti-Christian “hate speech” in the public sphere, and for people of faith to engage in public-facing discourse as a means of “dialogue between religion and secular society.”
The book “Hope Never Disappoints” is based on interviews author Hernán Reyes Alcaide (pictured here) conducted with Pope Francis. / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly”/Screenshot
CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The author of a new book based on interviews with Pope Francis discussed the Holy Father’s views on Christian hope, migration, and the Israel-Hamas conflict in an interview with “EWTN News Nightly” on Tuesday.
Published ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year, “Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Toward a Better World” focuses on the pope’s views of contemporary issues ranging from family and new technologies to climate change and peace.
Released on Tuesday in Italy, Spain, and Latin America by Edizioni Piemme Publishers — and at a later date in other languages — the book by journalist Hernán Reyes Alcaide was written for the occasion of the 2025 Jubilee Year, which is scheduled to begin Christmas Eve.
Pope Francis highlighted the issue of migration in the context of other issues, Reyes told EWTN News on Tuesday.
“For Pope Francis, migration is a central issue approached with a fully integrated perspective,” Reyes said. “He emphasizes that it is impossible to think about migration without also considering climate change, the current economic system, and its political consequences.”
“He insists that addressing migration cannot be done in isolation because the interconnection between these factors is absolute,” Reyes continued. “For the pope, migration serves as a lens through which to view the broader realities of what is happening in the world today.”
In an excerpt from the text, previously published by the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Pope Francis emphasizes that it is “absolutely necessary to address the causes that cause migration in the countries of origin.” He also affirms that no country can “face this challenge in isolation.”
In the book, Pope Francis also highlights the importance of promoting “well-managed” migration, which could help resolve “the serious crisis caused by low birth rates,” especially in Europe, as long as the integral development of migrants is guaranteed.
Reyes clarified the pope’s perspective on the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a recently released quote from the book, the Holy Father called for a careful investigation into Gaza, as “according to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
The comment generated swift criticism from Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, who highlighted Israel’s “right of self-defense” in response to the “genocidal massacre” by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which was the most deadly mass massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
A 93-year-old Holocaust survivor also criticized the remark on Monday, saying the Holy Father used the term genocide “too easily.”
But Reyes noted that the pope is advocating for an investigation, not making a set judgment.
“The pope isn’t taking a stance on whether genocide is happening or not,” Reyes said. “Instead, he’s emphasizing the importance of an investigation. He suggests that if there are claims of genocide, a thorough investigation is required to determine whether the conditions for genocide — criteria A, B, C, and D — are met. If these conditions are fulfilled in the current circumstances within that region, it would then require a formal declaration by the international community.”
The call for an investigation takes place amid several accusations against Israel. South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice last December for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention, while a Nov. 14 report by the United Nations Special Committee claimed that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, citing famine in Gaza and civilian casualties.
Critics of the U.N. have cited the group’s Hamas sympathies, noting that a top U.N. humanitarian aid official claimed that Hamas is not a terrorist group. Hamas is known for its long-standing practice of using civilians as human shields. Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza has employed Hamas members, with nine UNRWA employees allegedly participating in the Oct. 7 attack.
In addition to global issues, Pope Francis is also addressing spiritual issues by inviting people to be “pilgrims of hope.” As pilgrims, hope is “the anchor and the sail” that guides us toward a more “fraternal future.”
“The pope says the key word is hope, which he contrasts not only with despair but also with mere optimism,” Reyes said. “Optimism, he explains, can be fleeting — here one moment, gone the next. Hope, especially Christian hope, is different. It’s not just a theological virtue but also a mindset rooted in the certainty that something good is coming. At the same time, this hope requires action; it’s not passive.”
“We are called to work at building hope each day, to make it a reality through our efforts,” Reyes concluded.
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