Catholic News 2
ROME (AP) -- A pair of strong aftershocks shook central Italy late Wednesday, crumbling churches and buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets just two months after a powerful earthquake killed nearly 300 people....
CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) -- The prospect of a police raid on an encampment protesting the Dakota Access pipeline faded as night fell Wednesday, with law enforcement making no immediate move after protesters rejected their request to withdraw from private land....
BEIRUT (AP) -- The Latest on developments in the civil war in Syria (all times local):...
MOSCOW (AP) -- A group of Ukrainian hackers has released thousands of emails from an account used by a senior Kremlin official that appear to show close financial and political ties between Moscow and separatist rebels in Eastern Ukraine....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon worked Wednesday to stave off a public relations nightmare, suspending efforts to force California National Guard troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan to repay their enlistment bonuses that may have been improperly awarded....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- His presidential dreams increasingly in question, Donald Trump pushed his business empire to the center of his political campaign Wednesday. Taking a break from battleground states, he made the case at his newest hotel that all Americans should look to his corporate record for evidence of how well he'd run the country....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Hillary Clinton appears on the cusp of a potentially commanding victory over Donald Trump, fueled by solid Democratic turnout in early voting, massive operational advantages and increasing enthusiasm among her supporters....
(Vatican Radio) The response of Christians to refugees, migrants and internally displaced people will be at the heart of the historic ecumenical events taking place in Sweden on Monday to mark the forthcoming 500th anniversary of the Reformation.Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation will preside at a joint prayer service in Lund cathedral, before travelling together to the nearby city of Malmö for an event spearheaded by Caritas Internationalis and the LWF’s charitable arm, its World Service department.The event in Malmö’s main sports arena will feature personal testimonies from refugees and those working for human rights in India, South Sudan, Burundi, Colombia and Syria. To underline the importance of working together for the common good, the heads of Caritas and the World Service will sign a declaration of intent for closer cooperation and shared witness to the world. Maria Immonen heads the LWF’s Department for Wor...
(Vatican Radio) The response of Christians to refugees, migrants and internally displaced people will be at the heart of the historic ecumenical events taking place in Sweden on Monday to mark the forthcoming 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation will preside at a joint prayer service in Lund cathedral, before travelling together to the nearby city of Malmö for an event spearheaded by Caritas Internationalis and the LWF’s charitable arm, its World Service department.
The event in Malmö’s main sports arena will feature personal testimonies from refugees and those working for human rights in India, South Sudan, Burundi, Colombia and Syria. To underline the importance of working together for the common good, the heads of Caritas and the World Service will sign a declaration of intent for closer cooperation and shared witness to the world.
Maria Immonen heads the LWF’s Department for World Service which works with local and international partners in over 30 countries worldwide. She talked to Philippa Hitchen about its role and about the importance of these ecumenical events….
Listen:
The LWF’s World Service was set up in response to the refugee crisis in the aftermath of World War II, Maria says, so “refugees and internally displaced people have always formed the key and core population group whom LWF works with”. Overtime, she says, that has expanded into working with other suffering the results of natural or manmade disasters, as well as moving into long term development programmes.
Reaching people at grass roots
Maria notes that ecumenical cooperation is important in the work “to reach as many people as you can”, especially the most vulnerable, and faith based communities, she says, are always central to that task because “they reach the grass roots better than any other existing organisation on the planet”. Ecumenism is also important, she continues, because we can share goals, methodologies and motivation as we seek to put people and human dignity at centre of our work.
Joint Declaration of Intent
One good example of Catholic-Lutheran cooperation, which will be highlighted at the Malmö event, Maria says, is the work Caritas and World Service are doing in Colombia, “protecting human rights defenders and involving remote communities in the peace process in Colombia”. The Declaration of Intent that the two organisations will sign is “precisely to make it more systematic, that we always do look at what each party is doing and try to find ways of combining our strengths and reaching more people” in need, she says.
Christian voice in secular context
Asked about the importance of the work of Caritas and the World Service in the secular, or ‘post-Christian’ context of Sweden and the Nordic countries, Maria says, it is “easy from a Christian faith background to understand why we want to work with the poorest of poor, for open and welcoming communities” By joining voices on the care of creation, or human rights and justice, she says, the better we will be able to work together and articulate those core messages.
See Christ in suffering people
Asked about her hopes for the Malmö event, Maria says that, at one level for Caritas and the LWF, “the commitment we’re very publically setting ourselves up for[…..] will have very practical implications on how we do our programming” in the years to come. But, she adds, as we move “from the church building [in Lund] to a very secular environment” of Malmö’s ice hockey arena to focus on refugees, people on the move, “I think it’s a very powerful message that the Church is for the world”. She says Christians have been given the task, as Churches and as individuals, “to make a difference to people who are in very, very difficult circumstances and to see Christ in those suffering people, and to address his or her needs... with care and compassion and concern for humanity”.
Strengthening and networking of Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in Africa and beyond can be a significant contribution of the African Church to the world, the one-week Pan-African meeting on SCCs has observed. The meeting which convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, early this week, brought together 16 participants from Kenya, Burkina Faso, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia.Speaking at the meeting, Tanzania’s Auxiliary Bishop of Bukoba Diocese, Method Kilaini said the idea of SCCs started in the then Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1961, as the fruit of the Second Vatican Council. Bishop Kilaini quoted Saint Pope John Paul II who praised SCCs saying that Small Christian Communities are focused on, "Christians coming together for prayer, Scripture reading, catechesis and discussion on human and ecclesial problems with a view to a common commitment. These communities are a sign of vitality within the Church, an in...
Strengthening and networking of Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in Africa and beyond can be a significant contribution of the African Church to the world, the one-week Pan-African meeting on SCCs has observed. The meeting which convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, early this week, brought together 16 participants from Kenya, Burkina Faso, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia.
Speaking at the meeting, Tanzania’s Auxiliary Bishop of Bukoba Diocese, Method Kilaini said the idea of SCCs started in the then Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1961, as the fruit of the Second Vatican Council.
Bishop Kilaini quoted Saint Pope John Paul II who praised SCCs saying that Small Christian Communities are focused on, "Christians coming together for prayer, Scripture reading, catechesis and discussion on human and ecclesial problems with a view to a common commitment. These communities are a sign of vitality within the Church, an instrument of formation and evangelization, and a solid starting point for a new society based on 'civilisation of love.'"
The Auxiliary Bishop of Bukoba Diocese explained that the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) countries embraced the concept of Small Christian Communities in 1973 and then adopted the idea as a pastoral priority of the region in 1976. After that, different conferences, dioceses and parishes in Africa started rolling out SCCs as a pastoral programme.
Bishop Kilaini who has more than ten years experience in coordinating activities of Small Christian Communities at the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC) has urged a subtle shift towards networking SCCs with the view to enhancing evangelization.
The Bishop further said that SCCs needed to be made “more systematic by creating social media platforms such as WhatsApp groups, websites, blogs and Facebook to help interact, exchange ideas and share experiences with the World,” he added that the Catholic faithful in Germany had shown interest in SCCs.
(Rose Achiego in Nairobi)
Email engafrica@vatiradio.va
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2016 / 10:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican will host a concert for the poor and homeless of Rome next month, not only using the concert to raise money for Pope Francis’ charities, but also inviting the poor to attend as the guests of honor.Called “With the Poor and for the Poor,” free-will donations taken at the end of the concert will benefit Pope Francis’ charitable projects: this year, the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and an agrarian school in Burkina Faso.The concert will take place Nov. 12 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.Following the concert, volunteers of the Jubilee of Mercy and members of the choir of the Diocese of Rome will distribute a meal and a small gift to the invited guests as a reminder of the evening.Performances at the concert will be by the Roman Symphonic Orchestra and the National Choir of Saint Cecilia, directed by Academy Award-winner Ennio Morricone. They will be performing excerpts from...
Vatican City, Oct 26, 2016 / 10:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican will host a concert for the poor and homeless of Rome next month, not only using the concert to raise money for Pope Francis’ charities, but also inviting the poor to attend as the guests of honor.
Called “With the Poor and for the Poor,” free-will donations taken at the end of the concert will benefit Pope Francis’ charitable projects: this year, the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and an agrarian school in Burkina Faso.
The concert will take place Nov. 12 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
Following the concert, volunteers of the Jubilee of Mercy and members of the choir of the Diocese of Rome will distribute a meal and a small gift to the invited guests as a reminder of the evening.
Performances at the concert will be by the Roman Symphonic Orchestra and the National Choir of Saint Cecilia, directed by Academy Award-winner Ennio Morricone. They will be performing excerpts from some of Morricone’s most famous works.
Alongside them, Msgr. Marco Frisina will direct the choir of the Diocese of Rome in performing several sacred songs and will lead those present in reflections on the theme of charity in honor of the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.
The event, organized by the Opera Nova Onlus and the choir of the Diocese of Rome, is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and by the St. Matthew Foundation in memory of Cardinal Van Thuan, a Vietnamese cleric who was imprisoned by his nation's communist government for 13 years.
Guests of an earlier edition of the concert which took place at the Vatican May 14, 2015 included detainees from Rome’s Rebbibia prison, in addition to elderly, the sick, families and young persons from Roman parishes, particularly in poorer areas.
In his speech for the announcement of the 2015 concert, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli drew attention to the emphasis on poverty, and quoted Pope Francis, saying it is something which “calls us to plant hope!”
In reference to the event’s title, he explained that the concert will be “with” the poor because the protagonists will be those most in need.
All donations made by the sponsors of the concert as well as those who wish to make an offering will be given to Pope Francis’ charitable projects, which in 2014 boasted over one and a half million in charitable giving. Distribution of the funds is a responsibility of the papal almoner, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski.
