Catholic News 2
PARIS (AP) -- Francois Fillon won France's first-ever conservative presidential primary Sunday after promising drastic free-market reforms and a crackdown on immigration and Islamic extremism, beating a more moderate rival who had warned of encroaching populism....
MIAMI (AP) -- Celebration turned to somber reflection and church services Sunday as Cuban-Americans in Miami largely stayed off the streets following a raucous daylong party in which thousands marked the death of Fidel Castro....
HAVANA (AP) -- They came for salsa music and mojitos and ended up wandering through a city turned still and silent by nine days of national mourning for Fidel Castro....
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that "millions" voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton's nearly 2 million edge in the popular vote and returning to his campaign mantra of a rigged race even as he prepares to enter the White House in less than two months....
BEIRUT (AP) -- Simultaneous advances by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces into eastern Aleppo on Sunday set off a tide of displacement inside the divided city, with thousands of residents evacuating their premises, and threatened to cleave the opposition's enclave....
There are no statues of Fidel Castro in Cuba. No school, street, government building or city bears his name. And while his likeness stares back from billboards and official portraits, it is absent from pesos and postage stamps....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Cuban government must move toward enacting greater freedoms for its people and giving Americans something in return if it wants to keep warmer U.S. relations initiated by President Barack Obama, top aides to President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday....
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- In a reprise of campaign-season rancor, Donald Trump and his lieutenants are assailing an effort - now joined by Hillary Clinton - to recount votes in up to three battleground states, calling the push fraudulent, the work of "crybabies" and, in the president-elect's estimation, "sad."...
Homs, Syria, Nov 27, 2016 / 06:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The fourth-century saint Mar Elian’s relics survived the Islamic State’s destruction of the Syrian monastery that bears his name, and a priest who escaped captivity says these are among the signs of hope for Syria.“In Mar Elian, we have always hoped to welcome everyone. Mar Elian was really a sign of hope for the Syrian people,” Fr. Jacques Mourad told CNA. “Everything changed when I was taken hostage. But we can still build something. We must, however, await the end of this war.”Fr. Mourad was captured by the Islamic State group in May 2015, and escaped some five months later. He was prior of the monastery of Mar Elian, in the Syrian town of Al Qaryatayn, about 60 miles southeast of Homs.The monastery had given refuge to hundreds of Syrians displaced from Al Quaryatayn, and partnered with Muslim donors to provide for their needs.“Mar Elian was a hermit who lived in the fourth century, a...
Homs, Syria, Nov 27, 2016 / 06:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The fourth-century saint Mar Elian’s relics survived the Islamic State’s destruction of the Syrian monastery that bears his name, and a priest who escaped captivity says these are among the signs of hope for Syria.
“In Mar Elian, we have always hoped to welcome everyone. Mar Elian was really a sign of hope for the Syrian people,” Fr. Jacques Mourad told CNA. “Everything changed when I was taken hostage. But we can still build something. We must, however, await the end of this war.”
Fr. Mourad was captured by the Islamic State group in May 2015, and escaped some five months later. He was prior of the monastery of Mar Elian, in the Syrian town of Al Qaryatayn, about 60 miles southeast of Homs.
The monastery had given refuge to hundreds of Syrians displaced from Al Quaryatayn, and partnered with Muslim donors to provide for their needs.
“Mar Elian was a hermit who lived in the fourth century, and his relics were kept in the monastery dedicated to him,” the priest said.
In August 2015, Islamic State militants captured and destroyed the monastery. Between 160 and 230 Christians and Muslims were abducted from the town. Several dozen are known to have escaped captivity.
Despite the horrors of war, the area’s Christians still looked to the monastery of Mar Elian.
“After the destruction of the monastery, we thought his relics were lost, but instead we were able to find them. This gave us great consolation,” Fr. Mourad said. The recovery of the relics represents “a great sign of hope for the coming days,” he added.
Christians in Syria are looking forward to “placing the bones of Mar Elian back in the places where they were kept, and to pray again around that relics.”
The town of Al Qaryatayn was re-taken by Russian-backed Syrian forces and their allies in April 2016.
The priest reflected on the motives of the Islamic State.
“When ISIS troops took the region, among the first things they attacked was Mar Elian’s tomb, with the aim to destroy only the ancient monastery,” he added.
For the militants, he explained, tombs, relics and saints are “a heresy.”
“They cannot accept that the cities they seize have places where tombs or relics of saints are kept. They believe that there is no need for a tomb, as once a person passes away, his existence is over on earth.”
Fr. Mourad said that Islamic State militants, in capturing him, “wanted to send a message to Christians in the region: you are not welcome here. It was a way to push Christians to flee.”
Despite signs of hope, the future of the monastery, like the future of the people in the region, is uncertain.
Reviewing the situation, Fr. Mourad lamented that “nothing has changed in Mar Elian, and everything is abandoned.” He stressed that there is only a small community of Muslims still living in the area, “perhaps because they have no more places where to live.”
“Large parts of the city were destroyed,” he said.
Over 280,000 people have died since the Syrian civil war began in March 2011. Another 12.8 million people have been forced from their homes.
Vatican City, Nov 27, 2016 / 08:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The season of Advent is a reminder to us to open our horizons and have concern for more than just material things, the Pope said Sunday during his Angelus address.Advent is an invitation “to sobriety, to not be dominated by the things of this world, to material reality, but rather to govern them,” Pope Francis said Nov. 27 in St. Peter's Square. “If, on the contrary, we are conditioned and overpowered by them, it is not possible to perceive that which is much more important: our final encounter with the Lord: and this is important. That, that encounter.”He pointed to the three comings of Christ, tto which Advent point us: his Incarnation; his daily walking with us and his consoling presence; and his “coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”The day's Gospel reading “brings out the contrast between the normal unfolding of things, the daily routine, and the sudden c...
Vatican City, Nov 27, 2016 / 08:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The season of Advent is a reminder to us to open our horizons and have concern for more than just material things, the Pope said Sunday during his Angelus address.
Advent is an invitation “to sobriety, to not be dominated by the things of this world, to material reality, but rather to govern them,” Pope Francis said Nov. 27 in St. Peter's Square. “If, on the contrary, we are conditioned and overpowered by them, it is not possible to perceive that which is much more important: our final encounter with the Lord: and this is important. That, that encounter.”
He pointed to the three comings of Christ, tto which Advent point us: his Incarnation; his daily walking with us and his consoling presence; and his “coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
The day's Gospel reading “brings out the contrast between the normal unfolding of things, the daily routine, and the sudden coming of the Lord,” Francis reflected.
“It always strikes us to think of the hours preceding a great calamity: all are tranquil, doing the same things without knowing their life is about to be turned upside down. The Gospel certainly does not wish to scare us, but to open our horizon to another dimension, the largest dimension, which on he one hand relativizes the everyday things but at the same time renders them precious, decisive.”
“Relationship with the God-who-comes-to-visit gives to every gesture, every thing, a different light, a 'thickness', a symbolic value,” the Pope said.
The things of everyday should be seen from the perspective, the horizon, of our final encounter with Christ, Pope Francis taught. Thus is Advent “an invitation to vigilance, because not knowing when He will come, we must always be ready to depart.”
“In this season of Advent, we are called to enlarge the horizons of our hearts, to be surprised by the life which is presented each day with its novelty. In order to do this we need to learn to not depend on our own securities, our own consolidated plans, because the Lord comes in the hour which we don’t imagine. This introduces us to a much more beautiful, and great, dimension.”
The Pope concluded, praying that Mary would help us to not consider ourselves as owners of our lives, “not resistent when the Lord comes to change them, but ready to meet him as an awaited and agreeable guest, even though he upsets our plans.”
