1. Outrage after Vietnamese officials disrupted Mass celebrated by Hanoi Archbishop

Outraged parishioners watched in horror as officials stormed a church in Hoa Binh Province and disrupted Mass. The worshippers were pretty taken aback by the incident on Sunday Feb 20 when Vietnamese officials wearing their helmets disrupted the 10 AM Mass celebrated by Hanoi Archbishop. The incident, reported by Hanoi Archdiocese, accompanying with a short video, has prompted concerns. “It was pretty confronting and really troubling to see the liturgy being stopped by several officials,” wrote a Facebooker.

Local officials in plain clothes interrupted the Sunday morning service at Vu Ban parish. Led by the head of the local Communist Party chapter, they jumped to the altar, yelling at the Archbishop Joseph Vũ Văn Thiên of Hanoi and other priests to request that the Mass to be stopped immediately, and the congregation to be dispersed. Archbishop Joseph was concelebrating the seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time with some other diocesan priests at Vu Ban parish to mark the “Missionary Day of the Archdiocese.”

Built decades ago, the church is the largest one in Vu Ban town and can house hundreds of people.

The concelebrants and parishioners tried their best to protect Archbishop Joseph Thiên and removed the communist harassers out of the church. Though order was restored, and the Mass resumed after that, the surprise ambush left the congregation dumbfounded and shaken.

Moreover, the incident happened when the dust of the horrific murder of Fr. Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh, a Dominican missionary in Kon Tum province has not even settled. It has stunned both Catholics and believers of other religions in Vietnam for its audacity and blatancy in terms of violation of religious and human rights.

“When have we seen this behaviour before in history? This is the first time I have ever seen local government officials approaching the altar to disrupt the Holy Mass without waiting for it to end before harassing the priests as they used to do in the past. This is such uncultured, lawless action. It is a blatant blasphemy or sacrilege,” said Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Khai. He had been the former spokeperson of Vietnamese Redemptorists before travelling to Rome for further study.

2. Mass to Commemorate and Celebrate the Life of Dominican Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh in Orange County, California

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Bishop Thomas Nguyen Thai Thanh of Orange Diocese and diocesan priests will concelebrate a memorial mass on Friday, February 25, 5pm, at Christ Cathedral, 13280 Chapman Ave, Garden Grove to Commemorate and Celebrate the Life of Dominican Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh, who was murdered on January 29 in Kontum, Vietnam.

The solemn Mass will be followed by a Candlelight vigil to raise the awareness of the continual persecution against Catholic in Vietnam.

You are invited to come together to renew our trust in Christ who, by dying on the cross, has freed us from eternal death and, by rising, has opened for us the gates of heaven. Let us pray for our beloved Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh that he may share in Christ's victory and let us pray that the Lord may grant the gift of loving consolation to those who are mourning the heroic missionary.

Vietnamese government officials have said that the man who brutally murdered Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh on January 29 was “mentally unstable.” But most Vietnamese Catholics fear that the killing may have been intended as a warning, to deter Catholic missionaries from working in the country’s Central Highlands region.

The murder has received little coverage in the government-controlled media, and the Church has been under heavy political pressure in Vietnam. According to local Catholic sources, Nguyen Van Kien, the man who was detained at the scene and charged with the killing, had warned his mother that if she went to Mass, “someone will have to die,” that is the murder had been plotted and prepared.

The conscience of the faithful is asking and demanding that voices be raised, that the truth be told so that people understand the seriousness of the matter and that justice be done in this case.

Please come together to pray for Father Thanh and to renew our appeal for freedom and human rights for Vietnam.

3. Did the Apostles establish Lent?

Historians disagree about the claim that the Apostles' established Lent, pointing to a variety of observances in early Christianity.

While it may seem as though Lent has been around since the earliest days of Christianity, historians continue to debate whether the Apostles themselves established the season of Lent.

For example, an early 20th-century book, A Pulpit Commentary on Catholic Teaching, argues that the Apostles established Lent.

Many of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church say that the Apostles decreed that the great solemnity of Easter should be preceded by a universal fast and that in remembrance of Christ’s forty days fast in the desert, they instituted Lent.

However, at the same time, the authors of the book grant that there was no uniform way of observing Lent in the early Church.

To begin with there was no uniform way of observing it. But the faithful for forty days gave themselves to fasting and prayer in imitation of their Master. In the beginning the Christians adopted the same customs of fasting as were prescribed in the Old Law by which one meal only was allowed on fasting days and that after sunset.

This observation is further confirmed by Nicholas V. Russo in an article written for Baylor University.

Closer examination of the ancient sources, however, reveals a more gradual historical development. While fasting before Easter seems to have been ancient and widespread, the length of that fast varied significantly from place to place and across generations. In the latter half of the second century, for instance, Irenaeus of Lyons (in Gaul) and Tertullian (in North Africa) tell us that the preparatory fast lasted one or two days, or forty hours—commemorating what was believed to be the exact duration of Christ’s time in the tomb.

It wasn’t until the “Council of Nicea in 325 did the length of Lent become fixed at forty days.”

Part of the reason behind a varied observance of Lent in the first three centuries of the Church is that Christians were often simply trying to survive and not get killed. Widespread persecution in the Roman Empire did not allow for universal liturgical seasons.

While the Apostles may not have established Lent as we know it, they likely did observe a period of intense preparation before Easter, following Jesus’ example of fasting and prayer.

4. Exorcist Diary #178: Demons of Lust

Father Stephen Joseph Rossetti is an American Catholic priest, author, educator, licensed psychologist and expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests. He is a professor at The Catholic University of America, teaching in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. For the last 13 years, he has also been an exorcist of Syracuse diocese.

Here is his latest article: Exorcist Diary #178: Demons of Lust

“A” had a troubled, sexually traumatic upbringing. The child of a prostitute, she was sexually abused as a child. She became a stripper at a local club. She was raped many times. An attempt was made to sex-traffic her, but she managed to escape.

Despite her life in the dark world of sexual perversion, there was, in her, a great potentiality for goodness, even heroism. She had an inner strength which enabled her to keep bounding back, despite being repeatedly threatened, beaten, and raped.

Through the good offices of a deacon, she ended up in our exorcism sessions. She was fully possessed. She exhibited all the major signs, including many instances of occult knowledge, violent reactions to the sacred, and speaking/writing in a foreign tongue unknown to her.

When the exorcisms sessions began, she manifested quickly and exhibited gross lewd and suggestive behaviors. Commanding her in Jesus' name to stop did no good. We had to wrap her in a blanket lest she begin to dance and strip.

At night, the possessing demons repeatedly sent lewd pictures of her past at the strip club. Text messages were sexually taunting and made gross attempts at seduction. In each case, I responded with a prayer and a picture of the Blessed Virgin. I finally turned my phone off at night so that the beeping of incoming texts wouldn't keep me awake.

More subtly, before, during, and after sessions, demons of lust would sexually assault the team and me. In the exorcisms, we were careful who was present in the room. Others, who were apparently not in a state of grace, attempted to befriend her and they went morally “off the rails.”

The antidote to such gross impurity was, of course, the Blessed Virgin. She was repeatedly invoked. We had “A” consecrate herself to her. In each session, “A” prayed aloud to the Virgin for the virtue of chastity and purity. The deacon poured gallons of holy water over her head. This spiritual cleansing evoked screams from the demons: “Stop. Stop. You're killing me!”

Perhaps this is what our most unchaste world needs today as well: consecration to the BVM, fervent prayer for the virtue of chastity, and a spiritual cleansing through the sacraments and sacramentals of the Church.