Catholic News 2
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) -- Authorities are investigating the stabbings of nine people at a Minnesota mall as a potential act of terrorism - a finding that would realize long-held fears of an attack in the immigrant-rich state that has struggled to stop the recruiting of its young men by groups including the Islamic State....
ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) -- The Latest on a suspicious device found near a train station in New Jersey (all times local):...
NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities questioned several people early Monday after car stop in Brooklyn as they worked to determine if there is a connection between an explosion that rocked a bustling New York City neighborhood, an unexploded pressure-cooker device found blocks away, an earlier pipe bomb blast at a New Jersey shore town or explosive devices found across the state near a train station....
The Latest on Week 2 of the NFL season (all times Eastern):...
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- After 1,192 days, Brazil's run of hosting mega-sports events came to an end Sunday at the Paralympic Games....
NEW YORK (AP) -- "Are we ready to make the Emmys great again?" asked Jimmy Kimmel as he finished his opening monologue....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Game of Thrones" conquered the Emmy kingdom Sunday, honored as top drama for the second consecutive year and becoming the most honored prime-time TV series ever on a night of surprises and sharp political jabs....
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Latest on an explosion hitting a crowded Manhattan neighborhood (all times local):...
New York City, N.Y., Sep 18, 2016 / 01:50 pm (CNA).- Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman who escaped ISIS captivity after her family was slaughtered, has been named a new U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and has been nominated for both a Nobel Peace Prize and as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2016.But despite the global recognition that Murad has garnered for the atrocities she and thousands of women like her have suffered, her lawyer, renowned Lebanese-British human rights advocate, activist and author Amal Clooney said that while the nominations mark progress, little has actually been done to bring justice to those committing genocide.According to the British paper The Independent, in her speech at Murad’s Sept. 16 induction ceremony as Goodwill Ambassador, Clooney noted that it was her first time speaking in the chamber of the U.N. headquarters in New York, and stressed that “I wish I could say I'm proud to be here but I am not.” ...
New York City, N.Y., Sep 18, 2016 / 01:50 pm (CNA).- Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman who escaped ISIS captivity after her family was slaughtered, has been named a new U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and has been nominated for both a Nobel Peace Prize and as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2016.
But despite the global recognition that Murad has garnered for the atrocities she and thousands of women like her have suffered, her lawyer, renowned Lebanese-British human rights advocate, activist and author Amal Clooney said that while the nominations mark progress, little has actually been done to bring justice to those committing genocide.
According to the British paper The Independent, in her speech at Murad’s Sept. 16 induction ceremony as Goodwill Ambassador, Clooney noted that it was her first time speaking in the chamber of the U.N. headquarters in New York, and stressed that “I wish I could say I'm proud to be here but I am not.”
“I am ashamed as a supporter of the United Nations that states are failing to prevent or even punish genocide because they find that their own interests get in the way. I am ashamed as a lawyer that there is no justice being done and barely a complaint being made about it,” she said.
Clooney said she is also ashamed as a woman “that girls like Nadia could have their bodies sold and used as battlefields,” and is shamed as a human being “that we ignore their cries for help. We know that what we have before us is genocide, and we know that it is still ongoing.”
Murad, 23, was captured by ISIS militants in 2014 when the group stormed Mt. Sinjar in Iraq, murdering her elderly mother and six brothers alongside hundreds of others. Like thousands of other Yazidi women, Murad was spared death but was taken as a slave and subjected to horrendous sexual and physical abuse after being sold as a slave multiple times.
Having experienced numerous humiliations and violations against her dignity, Murad managed to escape after three months and fled to Germany, where she currently lives.
Her appointment as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking for the U.N.’s drugs and crime body comes just months after she briefed the U.N. Security Council in the first-ever session on human trafficking Dec. 16, 2015.
In her testimony that day, Murad recounted her painful abduction and captivity, describing how she had been rounded up with other Yazidis when ISIS attacked, and watched as the militants shot men and boys in cold blood.
“We found ourselves faced with a true genocide…ISIS had one intention: to destroy the Yazidi identity by force, rape, recruitment of children, and destruction of all of our temples,” she said, noting that six of her brothers were among some 600 men and boys slaughtered by the militants in one day, while her mother was one of 80 elderly women executed and buried in a mass grave.
She stressed that the jihadists “didn’t come to kill the women and girls, but to use us as spoils of war, as objects to be sold … or to be gifted for free. Their cruelty was not merely opportunistic. The ISIS soldiers came with a pre-established policy to commit such crimes.”
“Rape was used to destroy women and girls and to guarantee that these women could never lead a normal life again,” she said, and recounted how on Aug. 15, 2014, ISIS militants came to her school and separated the men and women, killing the men and taking the women by bus to a different region.
“Along the way they humiliated us, they touched us and that violated us,” she said, explaining that they were taken to Mosul and brought to a building with thousands of other Yazidi families and exchanged as “gifts.”
“One of these men came up to me, he wanted to take me. I looked at the floor. I was absolutely petrified. When I looked up I saw a huge man, he was like a monster. I cried out, I said ‘I’m too young and you’re huge!’ He hit me, he kicked me and beat me,” Murad recounted.
She recalled that a few minutes later she was approached by a smaller man, and begged him to take her instead. The man, she said, asked her to change religion, but “I refused.”
He then asked for her hand in marriage, Murad said, and she then told him she was “ill.”
“A few days later he forced me to get dressed and put makeup on,” she said, recalling that after raping her, he forced her to serve as part of his military faction and humiliated her daily by torturing her and forcing her to wear clothes that didn’t fit her body.
On her first attempt to flee, Murad said she was stopped by a guard who then beat her, made her take her clothes off and then put into a room with the other guards, who raped her until she fainted.
After she finally managed to escape three months later, Murad said she was accepted into Germany, where she received the necessary medical attention.
She voiced her thanks to Germany for their welcome, but noted that the suffering she is advocating to end is not just her own, but a “collective suffering” of all women who face the same horrors.
At the Sept. 16 induction ceremony, which was set to coincide with the Sept. 21 U.N. International Day of Peace, Clooney emphasized that “what Nadia has told us about is genocide, and genocide doesn’t happen by accident. You have to plan it.”
“We know exactly who the perpetrators are. They brag. ISIS brags about its crimes online,” she said, explaining that “no one is more blameless” than a young Yazidi woman who has lost everything.
“Yet two years on, two years after the genocide began, 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held captive by ISIS and not a single member of ISIS has been prosecuted in a court anywhere in the world for crimes committed against the Yazidi,” she observed.
Clooney praised Murad for her courage, saying the young woman’s strength and leadership “astounds me.”
“She has defied all the labels that life has given her: orphan, rape victim, slave, refugee. She has instead created new ones: survivor, Yazidi leader, women’s advocate, Nobel Peace Prize nominee. And now, as of today, Goodwill Ambassador.”
Speaking directly to Murad, Clooney said she was sorry “that we have failed you,” and voiced her hope that Murad’s appointment would be a turning point for all victims of sexual violence in human trafficking.
Murad has already met with various world leaders and heads of state in order to raise awareness of the plight of Yazidis suffering as victims of human trafficking.
Through her ambassadorship, according to the U.N. media advisory, Murad will focus on different advocacy initiatives and will raise awareness of the plight of the countless victims still suffering due to trafficking, particularly refugees, women and girls.
Denver, Colo., Sep 18, 2016 / 04:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Coming in 2017, families in Northern Colorado will have the option to send their children to a Catholic elementary school through a new regional, classical academy in Thornton.“It is with great joy that we announce the opening of a new Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Denver to be called Frassati Catholic Academy,” stated a letter from Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver and the Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Kevin Kijewski.“Given the growing Catholic population around Thornton, we desire to offer a new opportunity to help form your children both spiritually and academically,” the Sept. 15 statement continued.In an email interview, Kijewski told CNA that one of the reasons they chose to make Frassati Catholic Academy a classical education school was because of parents.“Classical education, while not completely new in the archdiocese, is an academic program of study that many millennial...
Denver, Colo., Sep 18, 2016 / 04:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Coming in 2017, families in Northern Colorado will have the option to send their children to a Catholic elementary school through a new regional, classical academy in Thornton.
“It is with great joy that we announce the opening of a new Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Denver to be called Frassati Catholic Academy,” stated a letter from Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver and the Superintendent of Catholic Schools, Kevin Kijewski.
“Given the growing Catholic population around Thornton, we desire to offer a new opportunity to help form your children both spiritually and academically,” the Sept. 15 statement continued.
In an email interview, Kijewski told CNA that one of the reasons they chose to make Frassati Catholic Academy a classical education school was because of parents.
“Classical education, while not completely new in the archdiocese, is an academic program of study that many millennial parents prefer,” Kijewski said.
“Parents are rediscovering how timeless lessons from great thinkers such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Cicero can prepare their students for a rapidly changing world,” he continued.
Frassati Catholic Academy will be the first regional Catholic academy opened by the archdiocese of Denver, meaning that it will not be associated with a single parish, but will rather serve a range of different families in various parishes throughout the Northern Colorado region.
The school, located in an almost 62,000 sq. foot building, will be located at 133rd Ave. and Colorado Blvd. on over seven acres of land. The academy will open Fall 2017, and will offer programs to children beginning at junior kindergarten through the fifth grade.
Kijewski said they have great hopes for their first academic year.
“For our first year of operation in the fall of 2017, we expect anywhere between 120 to 240 children to enroll in grades K through 5. We will be adding an additional grade up to grade 8 for each subsequent year,” he told CNA.
With a focus on classical education, the archbishop’s letter stated that Frassati Academy will “be rooted in the wisdom of the past, particularly in western civilizations such as Greece and Rome,” where the “study of Latin, Art, and Music will be integral parts of the curriculum.”
“The foundations of classical education will equip our young people to faithfully navigate today’s secular and rapidly changing world,” the statement continued.
According to the school’s website, classical education will also help the next generation navigate “our modern world (which) requires classical thinking skills more than ever.” The site also states that the classical style will foster children’s “ability to be critical thinkers, literate evaluators, ethical problem solvers, and socially responsible global citizens.”
The patron of the school, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, is an Italian outdoorsman known for his social activism and adventurous spirit - especially appropriate for the Colorado area. Blessed Frassati died at the age of 25 and was beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 2002, 77 years after his death.
“He is known as the man of the beatitudes, a title which speaks to living out the faith with authentic joy,” noted the statement from the archbishop and superintendent.
“We believe he is an excellent patron for this new school,” they continued, saying he “serves as a great example for young people today, especially here on the Front Range.”
Registration for the school will open during Catholic Schools Week on January 30, 2017. More information can be found at www.gofrassati.org
