Catholic News 2
NEW YORK (AP) -- Immigrants, their advocates and others opposing a Donald Trump presidency continued to protest Sunday, speaking out against the president-elect's support of deportation and other measures....
KARAMLIS, Iraq (AP) -- There were gasps, followed by tears at a small church in northern Iraq as a group of Christians returned to their parish Sunday to find that everything had been destroyed, including the statue of the Virgin Mary, which Islamic State militants had decapitated before they left....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the year of the outsider, Reince Priebus was the face of the Republican establishment....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump made his first two key personnel appointments on Sunday, one an overture to Republican circles by naming GOP chief Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff, the other a shot across the bow of the Washington establishment by tabbing Breitbart news executive Stephan Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor....
PARIS (AP) -- Less insouciant, more policed - France is a changed place since Islamic State extremists killed 130 people in the country's deadliest attacks a year ago. Fearing it's becoming more divided, too, survivors and victims' families marked Sunday's anniversary of the violence by pleading for national unity instead....
(Vatican Radio) The Secretary General of the NATO military alliance has warned US President-elect Donald Trump that "going it alone" is not an option for Europe or the United States. Jens Stoltenberg made the comments amid mounting concerns in especially Eastern Europe that the United States will be less committed to their security despite Russia's growing military influence in the region. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: Stoltenberg urged Trump to realize that the West is facing its greatest security challenge in a generation.Several former Soviet satellite states who are now part of the alliance have been alarmed by Trump's election campaign rhetoric. He suggested that the United States would think twice about coming to the aid of any ally under attack if it had not paid its dues.Leaders in countries bordering Russia such as the Baltics and Poland are concerned that this could be interpreted by Moscow as a signal that it could potentially invade...
(Vatican Radio) The Secretary General of the NATO military alliance has warned US President-elect Donald Trump that "going it alone" is not an option for Europe or the United States. Jens Stoltenberg made the comments amid mounting concerns in especially Eastern Europe that the United States will be less committed to their security despite Russia's growing military influence in the region.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
Stoltenberg urged Trump to realize that the West is facing its greatest security challenge in a generation.
Several former Soviet satellite states who are now part of the alliance have been alarmed by Trump's election campaign rhetoric. He suggested that the United States would think twice about coming to the aid of any ally under attack if it had not paid its dues.
Leaders in countries bordering Russia such as the Baltics and Poland are concerned that this could be interpreted by Moscow as a signal that it could potentially invade other nations without facing resistance from the US. It also has led to concerns in Kiev that the US may eventually recognize Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
Writing in Britain's Observer newspaper, NATO Secretary general Stoltenberg conceded that Trump had a point about the need for some members to make a bigger financial contribution as the US currently accounts for almost 70 percent of the alliance's spending.
STRATEGIC INTEREST
But the NATO chief also stressed that American leaders had always recognized that they had a profound strategic interest in a stable and secure Europe.
His remarks came while European Union foreign ministers gathered Sunday to discuss the impact of Trump's election on trans-Atlantic ties and whether it will complicate relations with an increasingly belligerent Russia.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker isn't optimistic. "I believe that we'll have two years of wasted time while Mr. Trump tours a world he doesn't know. Mr. Trump said during his campaign that Belgium was a village somewhere in Europe," he said.
Vatican Radio has learned however that President-elect Trump is in contact with officials to help him maintain good relations with European and other leaders.
Vatican City, Nov 13, 2016 / 01:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Holy Doors close in churches and basilicas around the world, including in Rome, it is estimated that over 20 million people participated in the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy at the Vatican – and a billion people may have participated in churches worldwide.According to Msgr. Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, it is estimated that 20.4 million people attended Year of Mercy events at the Vatican over the course of this year.The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization was in charge of putting Pope Francis’ vision for the Year of Mercy into practice – both in the Vatican and abroad.As the year comes to a close, the Holy Doors at three basilicas in Rome – St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major – were closed during special Masses held Nov. 13. The Holy Doors at churches and basilicas ar...
Vatican City, Nov 13, 2016 / 01:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Holy Doors close in churches and basilicas around the world, including in Rome, it is estimated that over 20 million people participated in the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy at the Vatican – and a billion people may have participated in churches worldwide.
According to Msgr. Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, it is estimated that 20.4 million people attended Year of Mercy events at the Vatican over the course of this year.
The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization was in charge of putting Pope Francis’ vision for the Year of Mercy into practice – both in the Vatican and abroad.
As the year comes to a close, the Holy Doors at three basilicas in Rome – St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major – were closed during special Masses held Nov. 13. The Holy Doors at churches and basilicas around the world are also closing the same day.
The year will officially end on Nov. 20, the Solemnity of Christ the King, when Pope Francis will close the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. It was opened on Dec. 8, 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
The opening of the door is meant to symbolically illustrate the idea that the Church’s faithful are offered an “extraordinary path” toward salvation during the time of Jubilee. Pilgrims who walked through the Holy Door were able to receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.
In his homily for the Mass at St. John Lateran, Cardinal Agostino Vallini spoke about how the Holy Door, just closed, was a visible sign of the Jubilee of Mercy, a year where we learned “once again” that the fate of the world is not in the hands of men, “but in the mercy of God.”
“What has it taught us, the meditation of God’s mercy in this year?” he asked. “First of all that mercy is not a sign of weakness or surrender,” but the “strong, magnanimous,” radiation of the loving omnipotence of the Father, who “heals our weaknesses, raises us from our falls and urges us to the good.”
Cardinal Vallini quoted the Pope saying, “The mercy of God is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality.”
If we look closely, he said, we can see how the whole history of salvation until today and into the future, has been an “economy of mercy.”
“If we stop to consider the love of Jesus toward sinners, the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and especially if we contemplate the passion and death on the cross, we will not find any other explanation than the manifestation of his mercy towards us.”
“Fixing our prayerful gaze on Jesus Crucified it will be easier to follow and imitate him in our human affairs, even painful ones,” he said.
During his address for the Angelus the same day, Pope Francis said that we must “stand firm in the Lord” and work “to build a better world;” that despite difficulties and sad events, what really matters is how Christians are called “to encounter the ‘Lord’s Day.’”
“Precisely in this perspective we want to place the commitment resulting from these months in which we have lived with faith the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy,” he said, “which concludes today in the dioceses of the whole world with the closing of the Holy Door in the cathedral churches.”
“The Holy Year has urged us, on the one hand, to keep our eyes fixed toward the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom and on the other, to build the future of this land, working to evangelize the present, so that it becomes a time of salvation for all.”
This past week the oldest wooden crucifix of St. Peter’s Basilica, dating from the 14th century, was returned to the church for the devotion of the faithful, the Pope noted.
“After a laborious restoration,” the cross “has been restored to its former splendor and will be placed in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel to commemorate the Jubilee of Mercy,” he said.
The Vatican marked the Jubilee Year with the addition of many events, including a special audience with the Pope, which happened on one Saturday each month in St. Peter’s Square.
There were also many larger events which took place, including a 24-hour long period of Eucharistic adoration and a prayer vigil. Additionally, “jubilees” were held which centered on, among others, the sick and disabled, catechists, teenagers, deacons, priests, religious, volunteers of mercy, and most recently, the poor and homeless.
Pope Francis also spent one Friday a month during the year making private visits to groups he found in special need of being shown God’s mercy. These “Mercy Fridays,” as they were called, included visits with refugees, victims of sex trafficking, those in hospitals and retirement homes, and children in difficult situations.
Ordinary jubilees occur every 25 or 50 years, and extraordinary jubilees are called for some momentous occasion. Two extraordinary jubilees were called in the 20th century – 1933, to mark the 1900th anniversary of Christ’s redemption in 33 A.D., and 1983, its 1950th anniversary.
St. John Paul II also held a “Great Jubilee” in the year 2000, marking the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ birth and the start of the new millennium.
At the start of the Jubilee of Mercy, during a general audience Dec. 9, Pope Francis asked pilgrims, “Why a Jubilee of Mercy? What does this mean?”
The answer, he said, is because “the Church needs this extraordinary moment. I’m not (just) saying ‘it’s good,’ no! I'm saying: the Church needs it.”
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi troops entered a town south of Mosul on Sunday where Islamic State militants destroyed artefacts at a nearby ancient Assyrian archaeological site, while special forces fended off suicide bombers during a cautious advance into the northern city....
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A powerful earthquake struck New Zealand's South Island early Monday, killing at least two people, causing damage to buildings and infrastructure, and prompting emergency services to warn people along the coast to move to higher ground to avoid tsunami waves....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Immigrants and their advocates added their voices on Sunday to those who have been marching and protesting Donald Trump's presidential win....
