Catholic News 2
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) -- Amid loud chants of "USA! USA! USA!," San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt for the national anthem Sunday in his continuing protest against racial oppression and police brutality....
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- The 15-year-old daughter of Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay was fatally shot in the neck, authorities and the athlete's agent said Sunday....
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A bad cable delayed a rocket launch from Virginia on Sunday by a NASA shipper eager to make a strong comeback....
PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) -- Police in Montenegro have arrested 20 Serbs suspected of planning politically motivated armed attacks amid a parliamentary election Sunday that could determine whether the small Balkan state continues on its Western course or turns back to traditional ally Russia....
LONDON (AP) -- The United States and Britain on Sunday acknowledged the Western world's weak support for any military action against Syria's government as they sought ways to pressure President Bashar Assad and his chief backer, Russia, to halt a deadly offensive in Aleppo. They tried to present it as a possibility, nevertheless....
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- With roughly three weeks to Election Day, Republican strategists nationwide publicly concede Hillary Clinton has a firm grip on the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House - and may be on her way to an even more decisive victory over Donald Trump....
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi forces appear poised to launch their most complex anti-IS operation to date: retaking the country's second-largest city of Mosul. While the country's military has won a string of territorial victories that have pushed the Islamic State group out of more than half the territory the group once held, some Iraqi officials worry that the Mosul fight has been rushed and if the city is retaken without a plan to broker a peace, it could lead to more violen...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mike Pence said Sunday he and Donald Trump will abide by "the will of the American people" on Election Day, and suggested that Trump's claim of a 'rigged" election stems from his belief the media is ganging up on him....
(Vatican Radio) October 16th marks the celebration of World Food Day. It was established in 1979 to honor the founding date of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945. Today it is observed around the world by more than 150 countries, raising awareness to issues that cause hunger and poverty. Each year in order to highlight areas for focus and improvement, World Food Day adopts a different theme. This year the theme is ‘Climate is changing, food and agriculture must too.’ The global goal for defeating hunger is 2030; it is a goal that cannot be reached without addressing the issue of climate change.In a message released this week for the occasion and addressed to the Director General of FAO, Pope Francis said everyone has a responsibility to protect the planet for future generations. Alexandre Maybech, Principal Advisor for Agriculture, Environment, and Climate Change in the office of the Assistant Director General on Cultur...
(Vatican Radio) October 16th marks the celebration of World Food Day. It was established in 1979 to honor the founding date of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945. Today it is observed around the world by more than 150 countries, raising awareness to issues that cause hunger and poverty. Each year in order to highlight areas for focus and improvement, World Food Day adopts a different theme. This year the theme is ‘Climate is changing, food and agriculture must too.’ The global goal for defeating hunger is 2030; it is a goal that cannot be reached without addressing the issue of climate change.
In a message released this week for the occasion and addressed to the Director General of FAO, Pope Francis said everyone has a responsibility to protect the planet for future generations.
Alexandre Maybech, Principal Advisor for Agriculture, Environment, and Climate Change in the office of the Assistant Director General on Culture and Protection of Consumers in FAO, spoke with Vatican Radio’s Hayley Susino about the significance of World Food Day and the implications of climate change.
Listen:
Explaining the significance of World Food Day, Alexandre Maybech said:
“World Food Day is the occasion once a year to highlight the importance of food, food production, and food security and nutrition all over the world and to have a focus on some major issues of importance for food security.”
Each year there is a different theme chosen to highlight very important issues that impact hunger and food production. This year climate change was selected because it is already having an impact on agriculture and food security all over the world. Climate change is going to have an increasing impact, particularly in areas that are already food insecure.
In his professional opinion, Maybech stated, “climate change could very well jeopardize the objective of eradicating hunger and malnutrition before 2030.”
All too often, people take the accessibility and quantity of food available for granted. “It is important to remind everybody that food is not given. It takes a lot of work to get food on our plate and not everybody in the world has appropriate food on his or her plate everyday.” Maybech continued, “It takes a lot of work, a lot of investment, a lot of thinking and a lot of policies for appropriate institutions all over the world.”
“It is good that everybody in society - consumers, private sectors, and governments take one day to think about what has to be done together to be sure that food security and nutrition is assured all over the world, now and in the future,” emphasized Maybech.
World Food Day affects each and every human being because everybody needs to eat. The holiday helps to raise awareness on specific topics of major importance concerning food consumption and production around the world.
Pope Francis has addressed the FAO on more than one occasion. Maybech spoke about the influence of the Pope’s words:
“All that the Pope has said in FAO or about climate change has had a major impact in the way we work.”
He continued to say that Pope Francis’ words have “placed an immense role on raising awareness in the importance of solidarity, collective action and of how the work to eradicate hunger and malnutrition all over the world is a medical duty to a great extent.”
Pope Francis’ words have put an emphasis on understanding the impacts of everyone’s actions and how they can effect everyone’s lives years into the future. He also established a link between our collective responsibilities about climate change and highlighted that the ones who are most effected are the poorest and most vulnerable people.
Maybech stressed the urgency for collective action:
“There is an urgency to adapt our food production and consumption systems to climate change and also of the urgency of all of us acting to limit as much as possible the affects of climate change precisely because climate change threatening the most vulnerable populations.”
Rome, Italy, Oct 16, 2016 / 06:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday, Pope Francis canonized seven new saints in the Catholic Church, saying that prayer isn’t always a smooth path, but that like the saints, Christ supports us even when it is difficult.“The saints are men and women who enter fully into the mystery of prayer. Men and women who struggle with prayer, letting the Holy Spirit pray and struggle in them,” Pope Francis said Oct. 16.“They struggle to the very end, with all their strength, and they triumph, but not by their own efforts: the Lord triumphs in them and with them. The seven witnesses who were canonized today also fought the good fight of faith and love by their prayers.”In a Mass with 80,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis declared seven new saints, including the new Saints Elizabeth of the Blessed Trinity, a Carmelite nun; and José Sánchez del Río, who was martyred at the age of 14.“…w...
Rome, Italy, Oct 16, 2016 / 06:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday, Pope Francis canonized seven new saints in the Catholic Church, saying that prayer isn’t always a smooth path, but that like the saints, Christ supports us even when it is difficult.
“The saints are men and women who enter fully into the mystery of prayer. Men and women who struggle with prayer, letting the Holy Spirit pray and struggle in them,” Pope Francis said Oct. 16.
“They struggle to the very end, with all their strength, and they triumph, but not by their own efforts: the Lord triumphs in them and with them. The seven witnesses who were canonized today also fought the good fight of faith and love by their prayers.”
In a Mass with 80,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis declared seven new saints, including the new Saints Elizabeth of the Blessed Trinity, a Carmelite nun; and José Sánchez del Río, who was martyred at the age of 14.
“…we declare and define Blessed Solomon Leclercq, José Sánchez del Río, Manuel González García, Lodovico Pavoni, Alfonso Maria Fusco, José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero and Elizabeth of the Trinity Catez to be Saints,” Francis stated.
“And we enroll them among the Saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole Church.”
In his homily, Pope Francis likened our prayers to the battle Moses waged against Amalek as recounted in the Book of Exodus. Even though he grew weary and discouraged, Moses was supported by Aaron and Hur, and was able to persevere in prayer for Israel.
“This is the kind of spiritual life the Church asks of us: not to win by war, but to win with peace! There is an important message in this story of Moses: commitment to prayer demands that we support one another,” he said.
“To pray is not to take refuge in an ideal world, nor to escape into a false, selfish sense of calm,” Francis said. “On the contrary, to pray is to struggle, but also to let the Holy Spirit pray within us.”
Not alone, but through Christ, the saints “attained the goal,” the Pope continued. “Thanks to prayer, they had a generous and steadfast heart. They prayed mightily; they fought and they were victorious. So pray!”
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity was a Carmelite nun from the 20th century. She grew up in Dijon, France near a Carmelite monastery. After visiting the monastery at age 17, she felt called to join.
Obedient to her mother, who said she could not enter until age 21, she continued to work with troubled youth, teaching them the faith, until she entered the Carmel in Dijon in 1901. She died from Addison’s disease only 5 years later, at the age of 26.
St. José Sánchez del Río was born in Sahuayo de Morelos, Mexico in 1913. He was a Mexican Cristero. At the age of 14 he was tortured and put to death by government officials when he refused to renounce his Catholic faith.
Often pictured on horseback, Argentinian priest St. José Gabriele del Rosario Brochero was known for his service to the poor and sick; St. Solomon Leclercq was a French priest killed during the French Revolution for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the new government.
St. Manuel González García was a Spanish Roman Catholic bishop; St. Lodovico Pavoni, an Italian priest, founded the Sons of Mary Immaculate; and St. Alfonso Maria Fusco, also an Italian priest, founded the Sisters of St. John the Baptist.
Pope Francis acknowledged that weariness in our prayer lives is “inevitable.” But that, with the support of our brothers and sisters, the Lord can succeed in us.
“The ‘battle’ of perseverance cannot be won without prayer. Not sporadic or hesitant prayer, but prayer offered as Jesus tells us in the Gospel: ‘Pray always, without ever losing heart,’” he said.
“This is the Christian way of life: remaining steadfast in prayer, in order to remain steadfast in faith and testimony.”
The mystery of prayer, Pope Francis said, is to keep “crying out, not to lose heart, and if we should grow tired, asking help to keep our hands raised.”
We are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, so even if we grow weary, we are not alone, the Pope said.
“Only in the Church, and thanks to the Church’s prayer, are we able to remain steadfast in faith and witness.”
At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis led pilgrims in the Angelus, noting in his message the World Day against Poverty taking place Oct. 17.
“Let us join forces, moral and economic, to fight together against poverty that degrades, insults and kills so many brothers and sisters, by implementing standard policies for families and for work,” he said.
