Catholic Fire

“What happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ. We can argue that the sexual abuse of children takes place right across society and that it is unfair to single out the Catholic Church. We can regurgitate statistics which will tell us that the incidence of such abuse is not significantly higher within the Catholic clergy than in society. But if we come back and repeat to ourselves that what happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ then we have to put all the comforting statistics to one side and begin to think in a different light..." “The Church must not just be transformed into a place where children are safe. It must also be transformed into a privileged place of healing for survivors. It must be transformed into a place where survivors, with all their reticence and with all their repeated anger towards the Church, can genuinely come to feel that the Church is a place where they will encounter healing.” --  Archbisho...

  Servant of God Franciscus Hubertus Schraven  Recently, a Dutch prelate has suggested that a missionary bishop martyred in 1937 could be considered the patron saint of sex abuse victims. Upon closing the diocesan phase of the beatification of the Servant of God Franciscus Hubertus Schraven (1873-1937), Bishop Frans Wiertz of Roermond suggested “that he be considered as the patron saint of victims of sexual abuse,” according to the diocesan website. Franciscus Hubertus Schraven was born in the Netherlands in 1873. At the age of 21, he joined the Congregation of the Mission, in which he was ordained a deacon (1898) and a priest (1899). In that same year, he departed for China, and in 1920 was appointed as Vicar Apostolic of Southwestern Chi-Li in China. He was also consecrated bishop with the titular see of Amyclae. He served as Bishop until 1937, when he died at the hands of Japanese troops in the Second Sino-Japanese War. On  October 9, 1937, the Japanese conque...