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The Vatican has created new email addresses for well wishers to leave Birthday messages for the Pope. 

Pope Francis turns 80 years old on December 17th. 

According to his staff, Pope Francis will be working “just as normal” on the day itself. He will reveive the President of Malta in an audience and will later meet with the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Cardinal Marc Oullet, as well as other guests and dignitaries. He will also celebrate Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican, along with those Cardinals who are living and working in Rome. 

Seven new Vatican email addresses have been created, to allow well wishers to leave Birthday messages for the Pope. Messages can be left in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Polish and Latin.

The email addresses are: Papafranciscus80@vatican.va  (Latin)  PapaFrancesco80@vatican.va   (Italian)  PapaFrancisco80@vatican.va  (Spanish / Portuguese)  PopeFrancis80@vatican.va  (English)  PapeFrancois80@vatican.va  (French)  PapstFranziskus80@vatican.va  (German)  PapiezFranciszek80@vatican.va  (Polish) 

A social media hashtag has also been created. #Ponitfex80 

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Pope Francis has appointed a new Bishop of Dallas, Texas. Bishop Edward James Burns, presently serving as Bishop of Juneau in Alaska, has been selected to lead the Catholic community in the North East Texan city. 

The Diocese has been without a Bishop since August, 2016, when Pope Francis transferred the then-Bishop Kevin Farrell to the Vatican to lead the New Dicastry for Laity, Family and life. Bishop Farrell was later made a Cardinal.

Bishop Edward James Burns was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1957. He was Ordained a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1983. He served in a number of pastoral roles within the Diocese, including Rector of the Saint Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh. He was also a member of the US conference of Catholic Bishops, focusing on Vocations and religious life. 

Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Juneau in Alaska in 2009. He also took on more responsibility at the Bishops Conference, serving as chairman of the Committee on the protection of Children and young people, and a director of the Catholic relief services. 

As well as English, Bishop Burns also speaks Spanish.  

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More than a thousand Catholics witnessed the Beatification of 17 martyrs of Laos in the Sacred Heart Cathedral of the capital Vientiane, Sunday morning. Filipino Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, Archbishop of Cotabato led the Beatification Mass, which was also attended by government officials wearing traditional garb, seated in the front rows, as well as two cardinals, several bishops and many priests.  With some 60,000 Catholics making up just 1% of the country’s nearly 7 million population, the turnout was high with many people following the liturgy from a giant screen outside the cathedral.   

The group of 17 martyrs known as  “Joseph Tien and his 16 companions” were killed for their faith between 1954 and 1970 at the hands Communist Pathet Lao forces. Six of them were Laotians, ten were priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) and one was Italian Oblate of Mary Immaculate (OMI) priest Fr.  Mario Borzaga, who was killed in 1960 along with his young Lao catechist Paul Thoj‎.

Pope Francis on Sunday recalled the 17 martyrs of  Laos saying, “Their heroic fidelity to Christ can be an encouragement and example to missionaries, especially catechists, who in mission lands play a valuable and irreplaceable apostolic role, for which the entire Church is grateful.”   Drawing attention to catechists, he said “they do a lot of work, such a beautiful job! Being a catechist is a beautiful thing: you bring the message of the Lord so that it grows inside of us,” the Pope said inviting a round of applause for catechists.

Card. Quevedo said that 17 martyrs are heroes of the faith and that their story should be made known to younger generation.  He said that even though Laos has "a very small flock" they should remember that, if the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, "then we shall surely see the fruit of their spilled blood." "The grain of wheat has fallen to the ground and has died. With the utmost certainty it shall bear fruit in the number of Catholics, in the quality of your faith and in the number of vocations to the priestly and religious life," the cardinal added.  He invited all Christians to celebrate the liturgical feast of the martyrs on 16 December. 

At the end of the Mass, a Laotian government official spoke.  Apostolic Delegate to Laos, residing in Bangkok, Thailand, resident in Bangkok, Archbishop Paul Tschang In-Nam also spoke, inviting on the government to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See. 

The Mass was followed by a festive community lunch accompanied by traditional songs and dances, which the authorities limited only to the cathedral grounds.   (Source: AsiaNews/UCAN)

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Two Yazidi women who escaped sexual enslavement by the Islamic State group accepted the European Union's Sakharov Prize for human rights on Tuesday and said they would continue to be a voice for others suffering a similar fate.  

Lamiya Aji Bashar, 18, said the EU's top human rights prize was one ``for every woman and girl who has been sexually enslaved'' by IS.  With poignant testimony that silenced EU lawmakers, she and 23-year-old Nadia Murad spoke of their personal fate and escape. The focus of their message, however, was a demand that the international community protect their people, a minority of 500,000 living primarily in northern Iraq.

Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls are still captives of IS militants in Iraq and Syria. The Yazidi follow an ancient religion that IS and other Muslim hard-liners consider heretical.

The award, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. (Source: AP)

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The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), the association of bishops of various Catholic rites in southern India’s Kerala state has taken a critical look at the Indian government’s demonetization programme and the campaign for a cashless economy.  In a statement issued at the conclusion of the winter conference of the KCBC at the Pastoral Orientation Centre in Kochi, the Bishops’ Council has urged the government to alleviate sufferings of people followingthe banning of 500 and 1000-rupee notes. It cautioned the authorities to be vigilant against the banking system being turned into a mechanism for exploitation of the common man.

The council pointed out that investment of the money mobilised from the rural and backward sectors in the urban-oriented large enterprises would result in widening the urban-rural divide.  This would create a situation whereby the villages would be exploited for the benefit of the cities. It wanted the government to take immediate action to solve the crisis in the cooperative sector, which had an important role in the development of rural areas.  The council demanded the authorities to take measures which would ensure the welfare and development of agriculture, small business, and coastal areas.

Kerala’s bishop urged the government to take steps to alleviate the sufferings of the common man, following the banning of high-value currency notes. Steps should be taken to ensure that the government machinery functioned efficiently and without corruption so that the positive results of the demonetization campaign reached the people.  (Source: UCAN)

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Westchester, N.Y., Dec 12, 2016 / 11:02 pm (CNA).- What if proof for God's existence – and our very souls – could be found within our DNA?

Published in September of this year by Howard Books, Bruce Buff's novel “The Soul of the Matter” is the first in his three-part fictional series that grapples with faith and reason. In an interview with CNA, Buff discussed his reasons and inspirations behind this unique thriller. He reflected on how his faith has affected this novel, the importance behind faith and reason, and the influences which have gone into the creation of his new book.

Below is the full text of the interview:

CNA: What is your faith background, and how does it inform the novel?

Buff: I'm a practicing Catholic whose initial faith formation – grammar school religious ed and two years of Catholic high school – was enough to teach me the basics though without a lot of understanding. I had this view that if I was generally good to others, that was enough. Then my faith changed and deepened dramatically starting in the summer 1994 when I picked up my father-in-law’s copy of C.S. Lewis's “The Problem of Pain.” Reading that was extraordinary, and started a search that continues today. After reading Peter Kreeft’s “Making Sense Out of Suffering,” I saw that he was teaching at BC. Since I was working in eastern Connecticut, I was able to take Kreeft's night course, “The Three Greatest Men Who Lived: Socrates, Buddha and Jesus.” For me, nothing has been the same since. Themes and questions that Lewis and Kreeft discuss, about the seeming incompatibility of a loving, all powerful God with widespread and horrific suffering, and what that means God wants from us, are raised in “The Soul of the Matter” series.

CNA: What does this have to say about the relation between faith and reason, and religion and science?

Buff: That science, properly understood, points clearly to God's existence and our spiritual nature, that rather than being an exception, the supernatural is all around us. Consequently, faith and reason, religion and science, based on a good understanding of God will agree. Now of course there can appear to be significant differences between religion and science, such as the Biblical description of the origin of both the universe and humanity. I think there are good answers to this and other apparent differences but I’ll leave that to others to discuss.

CNA: Who do you hope to reach with this novel?

Buff: Anyone who likes thought-provoking thrillers. Beyond that, I want to reach people open to the idea that God exists. For those who share my Judeo-Christian beliefs, I hope my book helps strengthens some aspect of their thinking about science and faith. For others, I'd like them to understand that every moment of their life is their soul in action, that we are here by intent, and that God’s apparent, but not actual, absence means some important things about Him and His expectations for us that are worth further exploration.

CNA: How did you develop the science behind the book?

Buff: November 1999, sitting in my father-in-law’s office, working on my computer, the question of what connects bits inside a computer into words, or how pixels on the screen are transformed into images in our minds, popped into my mind and got me off and running on consciousness. Eventually, I concluded that if physics exists as scientists believe it does, then the material world alone cannot be the source of perceptions, awareness, cognitive thinking, and feeling. Therefore we have immaterial minds and every moment of our lives is our souls in action. I then realized that the immaterial mind challenges the Darwinian view of a completely naturalistic, unguided process as the complete explanation for human origin. In looking for a plausible sounding way, strictly for purposes of the story, that something could be encoded in DNA, I soon realized that there isn’t enough DNA to direct human development, turn a fertilized egg into an adult human, unless complex processing greatly expands the 3 billion DNA “letters” into a much larger set of information.

CNA: Where did you get the idea for the novel?

Buff: In 1986 or so, I saw a magazine cover that said that all humans have an identical 20 percent of DNA in common. I then thought that the idea that information could be deliberately hidden in DNA, and what that would be, could make for an interesting thriller. It was strictly fictional.

CNA: Which character do you feel like best expresses the message of the book?

Buff: Dan Lawson. He starts off with traditional religious training, becomes a person of today’s secular world, finds himself struggling with his state of mind and happiness, which causes him to choose between an exploration for ultimate truth or acceptance of despair.

CNA: Which authors are some of your major influences?

Buff: C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, Walker Percy, Michael Crichton, and the Bible. I only began studying the latter in recent years, unfortunately. I’ve learned that a good companion guide is invaluable to help with context and meaning. Otherwise, it’s easy to misinterpret.

CNA: What influences did you draw the characters from?

Buff: I wanted them to reflect different worldviews and use their respective journeys and interactions as a way to explore ideas while hoping that readers will care about them. I imagined Dan as someone who has many gifts, everything has always come easy to him, and he’s tried to live the modern version of happiness. In one sense, he was headed towards what many now would consider the “ideal” life. His anger about some of the things he’s experienced has also shaped him sharply. Stephen started from the same place as Dan but is not angry, more open to self-examination, and choose a life that was a hybrid of the traditional and modern worldviews. Consequently, he was at different place. Trish is someone who seems like a naturally good person, who’s never thought about religion, but now is being exposed to ideas that are challenging her as well. Some readers have commented that there is more to Trish than meets the eye and that might be true.

CNA: Does “The Commission” or the “bad guy” Sarastro reflect a certain evil in the world today?

Buff: Absolutely. They are the logical extension of today’s predominant view that science, meaning the material world, is the sole explanation for everything. Once you buy into that, and deny God in the process, anything becomes possible. It’s ironic how much internal inconsistency there is with atheistic beliefs and behaviors. Of course Christians do a poor job of being Christians but that is consistent with being fallen creatures in need of redemption and grace. Few atheists recognize the contradictions inherent in their beliefs because, although they deny its existence and origin, they still possess the nature God gave them.

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Vatican City, Dec 13, 2016 / 08:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After what was a very short vacancy for the Diocese of Dallas, the Vatican announced Tuesday that Bishop Edward J. Burns of Juneau will now take the reigns.

He will replace Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who led the Dallas Diocese since 2007, but in September moved to Rome as the new head of the Vatican dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

Farrell was also one of three US bishops appointed cardinal during the latest Consistory, which took place Nov. 19 at the Vatican.
 
Burns, 59, has been Bishop of Juneau, Alaska since 2009, and will be installed in Dallas Feb. 9, 2017, at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a Dec. 13 Vatican communique said.
 
“I am extremely happy and humbled that Pope Francis has chosen me to lead such an important diocese and I look forward to serving the local Church of the Diocese of Dallas,” Bishop Burns said in a statement announcement his appointment.
 
“I am profoundly grateful for my experience in Juneau and I pray for God’s grace as I take on my new duties as Chief Shepherd of this ever-growing Diocese of Dallas,” he said.
 
The bishop said he looks forward to “listening and learning all that I can about this beautifully diverse Catholic community and I want to assure all in the Diocese of Dallas that I will be a shepherd for all people.”
 
Burns was born in Pittsburgh, Penn. Oct. 7, 1957, and ordained a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh June 25, 1983. He was appointed bishop of Juneau by Benedict XVI in Jan. 2009, and ordained a bishop March 3 of that year. He was given the title of Monsignor in 2006.
 
During his priesthood, in addition to serving in parishes, the now-bishop was also Rector of the Seminary and Diocesan Director for the permanent diaconate and for the permanent formation for the clergy in 1996 and Diocesan Director of the Clergy Personnel from 1997-1999.
 
He served as Executive Director of the USCCB Office for the Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations from 1999-2008 and was Rector of St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh from 2008 until his appointment as bishop of Juneau in 2009.
 
Since becoming a bishop, Burns has traveled throughout the US as a speaker and facilitator at various conventions and retreats. He has also been a frequent Bishop Catechist at World Youth Day events. He speaks both English and Spanish.
 
He has continued to be an active member of the USCCB, currently serving as Chairman of the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People. He is also a member of the USCCB Subcommittee on Catholic Home Missions and serves on the Board of Directors for Catholic Relief Services.
 
To mark his appointment, Burns has asked that a special Holy Hour be held in Dallas Dec. 13 for the diocese, as well as to provide an opportunity for people to join him in prayer for their the future.

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