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(Vatican Radio)  Instead of rampant business expansion which tramples on the world’s poor, Pope Francis has often criticized conventional economics for fostering unfairness and inequality.

In a recent address to The Global Foundation, the Holy Father called for a ‘more fraternal and cooperative globalization'.

To find out more about the idea of cooperative globalization, Devin Watkins spoke to Fr. Séamus Finn, OMI, who is Ethical Advisor for the OIP Investment Trust, which provides faith-consistent investing advice for the financial resources of Catholic organizations.

Listen to the full interview:

"Cooperative globalization," Fr. Finn said, "is maybe a new term that is probably challenging, because globalization seemed to suggest that we had a sense we were all inhabiting the same planet and that we needed to be responsable... and to cooperate on issues like trade, finance, education."

But the Pope's term adds the adjective 'cooperative' to globalization, indicating that the two are not synonymous. 

Fr. Finn said, "It's a reminder that, as much as [...] countries want to find a solution for their country and their area, they also have to pay attention to the fact that we need a solution that deals with the reality of a globally-integrated financial system and to populations all over the world that are migrating."

He said the term 'cooperative globalization' means "that we need to take a second look, trying to understand the concepts of human dignity and human rights and our responsibility to one another, and to find solutions that are constructive going forward."

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(Vatican Radio) A Polish missionary has been murdered during an attack on a childcare center in Cochabamba, central Bolivia

The young lay missionary, Helena Kmiec, was reportedly stabbed on Tuesday, and died of her wounds.

The Salvator Missionary Volunteering group, with whom Helena worked, had organized her assignment to Bolivia.

According to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bolivian police have detained a number of suspects.

Fr. Adam Ziolkowski, director of the Volunteering group told Vatican Radio’s Rafal Laczny that the attack took place early Tuesday morning at the center run by Polish nuns.

Listen:

Ziolkowski said it appears robbers broke into the center during the night and found Helena awake, “she tried to defend herself and she was stabbed repeatedly” on her hands, arms and chest.

He said her screams woke up another volunteer and the attacker ran away; she was immediately assisted but unfortunately died from her wounds.

Ziolkowski said Police believe Helena was a victim of a robbery gone wrong: “she was in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

He describes the young volunteer as a warm and happy person who was very active in carrying forward Catholic initiatives; she was a volunteer at last year’s World Youth Day as well as being an active member of Catholic Academy communities and of the Salvator Missionary Center.

“She was a kind person and very helpful; she never missed a chance to do something good for others” he said.

He also describes her as having a great missionary zeal and great internal strength: “everyone who knew her was happy to spend time with her”.

Ziolkowski confirmed that Helena and another volunteer had arrived in Cochabamba about two weeks ago, and was working at the childcare center, run by the Polish order of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God. She had planned to stay for six months.

Commenting on the fact that it is a sad time for the Salvator Missionary Center, Ziolkowksi says Helena’s death is a loss for many people “as everyone knew her and loved her – we miss her very much”.
 

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Juarez, Mexico, Jan 26, 2017 / 02:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Juarez, located in the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico, was considered from 2008 to 2010 to be one of the the most dangerous cities in the world, due to drug trafficking violence and the constant struggles for power and territory between the cartels.

However, the city of 1.3 million inhabitants dropped off this list thanks to a significant decrease in the number of homicides: from 3,766 in 2010 to 256 in 2015.

Although this drop can be credited to an improvement in the work of local authorities, for Fr. Patrico Hileman – a priest responsible for establishing Perpetual Adoration chapels in Latin America – there is a much deeper reason: Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

“When a parish adores God day and night, the city is transformed,” Fr. Hileman said.

The priest told Radio María Argentina that in 2013 the missionaries opened the first Perpetual Adoration Chapel in Juarez. At that time “40 people a day were dying because two drug gangs were fighting over the city to move drugs into the United States.”

It was the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels, whose former leader Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán Loera was recently extradited from Mexico to the United States.

Fr. Hileman recalled that “the parishes were saying that the war wasn't ending because a group of soldiers were with one gang and the police were with the other one. They were killing people, burning houses down so they would leave, fighting over the city.”

One of the parishes that was “desperate” asked the missionaries to open a Perpetual Adoration chapel because they assured that “only Jesus is going to save us from this, only Jesus can give us security.”

The missionaries only took three days to establish the first Perpetual Adoration chapel in Juarez.

Fr. Hileman told how one day, when the city was under a state of siege, a lady was on her way to the chapel to do her Holy Hour at 3:00 in the morning, when she was intercepted by six soldiers who asked her where she was heading.

When the woman told them that she was going to “the little chapel” the uniformed men asked her what place, because everything was closed at that hour. Then the woman proposed  they accompany her to see for themselves.

When they got to the chapel, the soldiers found “six women making the Holy Hour at the 3:00 in the morning,” Fr. Hileman said.

At that moment the lady said to the soldiers: “Do you think you're protecting us? We're praying for you 24 hours a day.”

One of the uniformed men fell down holding his weapon,“crying in front of the Blessed Sacrament. The next day at 3:00 in the morning they saw him in civilian clothes doing a Holy Hour, crying oceans of tears,” he said.

Two months after the chapel was opened, the pastor “calls us and says to us: Father, since the chapel was opened there has not been one death in Juarez, it's been two months since anyone has died.”

“We put up ten little chapels in a year,” Fr. Hileman said.

As if that were not enough, “at that time they were going to close the seminary because there were only eight seminarians and now there are 88. The bishop told me me that these seminarians had participated in the Holy Hours.”

Fr. Hileman pointed out that “that is what Jesus does in a parish” when people understand that “we find security in Christ.”

He also noted that “the greatest miracles occur in the early hours of the morning. “

The early morning “is when you're most at peace, when you hear God better, your mind, your heart  is more tranquil, you're there alone for God. If you are generous with Jesus, he is a thousand times more generous with you,” Fr. Hileman said.

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