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Paris, France, Sep 12, 2016 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A woman was charged over the weekend by French authorities in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to attack Notre Dame cathedral with a car bomb.

Ornella G. was charged Saturday with “terrorist criminal association to commit crimes against people” and “attempted assassinations as an organized gang in connection with a terrorist enterprise,” the Paris prosecutor's office announced, according to CNN.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, declared that France is facing a “maximum threat” after a car with explosive materials was found near Notre Dame cathedral last Thursday.

“We've seen it again these last few days, these last few hours and again while we are speaking. Every day, the intelligence services, the police, the gendarmerie (similar to the National Guard), every day, they are thwarting attacks, dismantling the Iraqi-Syrian networks.”

This past Wednesday Sept. 7, French police arrested six people for abandoning days prior a car in the vicinity of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, with the emergency flashers on and inside various cooking gas cylinders, a blanket soaked in gasoline and an extinguished cigarette. They did not find any detonation devices.

Police officials reported the arrest of six women, four of which were later released. Of the two under arrest, one of them is connected to a man who had died on behalf of the Islamic State, and the other, Inès Madan, the 19-year-old owner of the car in which the explosive material was found, had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State.

“There are young girls radicalized just as much as the men, who also want the status of martyr, and so they want to take action.”

These arrests have been “a race against time” to prevent them from acting again, according to a recent statement by French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The multiple arrests on Sept. 7 are connected to three attacks: the foiled car bomb attack near Notre Dame cathedral, the murder of two police near Paris this past June, and the stabbing of the French priest, Father Jacques Hamel as he was celebrating Mass this past month of July.

In the last 10 months more than 200 people have died in France in different terrorist attacks. Attacks, which according to the Associated Press, mark a new phase in the efforts of the Islamic State to spread terror throughout Europe. Manuel Valls said authorities are monitoring nearly 15,000 people in France believed to be in the process of radicalization, sources at CNN report.

“Among the changes that have occurred in recent months, the dismantled jihadist cell was made up entirely of women completely imbued in the ideology of the Islamic State,” said François Molins, magistrate and prosecutor for the French Republic.

The group was directed by persons in Syria who turn these women into soldiers, Molins said. In recent months the number of teen age girls and young people recruited by the Islamic State in France has increased.

France has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when the terrorist attacks at the Bataclan theater and multiple other locations throughout the Paris left over 100 dead and several hundred more wounded.

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Munich, Germany, Sep 12, 2016 / 04:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has said he is satisfied with the papacy of Pope Francis and sees “no contradictions” between their pontificates.

“Yes, there is suddenly a new freshness in the Church, a new joy, a new charisma that addresses the people, which is something beautiful. Many are thankful that the new Pope now approaches them in a new style. The Pope is the Pope, it doesn’t matter who it is,” Benedict said in his newly published collection of interviews.

The collection, published as Last Testament, consists of his interviews with journalist Peter Seewald. Seewald had previously interviewed him for Salt of the Earth, God and the World, and Light of the World.

Archbishop George Ganswein, Prefect of the Papal Household and personal secretary of Benedict XVI, took part in the latest book’s Sept. 12 launch with Seewald in Munich. Archbishop Ganswein’s remarks excerpted and interpreted the former Pope’s words to Seewald.

In Benedict XVI’s own words, he sees “no breach anywhere” between his pontificate and that of his successor.

“New accents yes, but no contradictions,” he told Seewald. “He is a man of practical reform. And that is the courage with which he addresses problems and searches for solutions.”

Benedict praised Francis’ “direct affection for the people.”

“That is very important. He is definitely a man of reflection. And a thoughtful person, but at the same time someone who is used to always being with people,” the emeritus Pope said. “And perhaps I was actually not with the people enough.”

For Benedict, Francis’ election was a “big surprise.” He saw that the new Pope “spoke on one side with God and on the other side with the people. I was really glad to see that. And happy.”

He said he had previously not experienced the warmth and “very personal affection” of Archbishop Bergoglio.

“That was a surprise for me!” Benedict recollected.

Archbishop Ganswein said the book provides expanded understanding and even correct the record about Benedict XVI in several ways. It explores the reasons, motives and exact circumstances of the Pope’s “puzzling resignation” and it discuss his relationship with Pope Francis.

It discusses Benedict’s personal views on the different crises and so-called scandals of his papacy.

Benedict admits he did not properly assess the political meaning of his 2006 Regensburg speech on the nature of faith and reason in Christianity and Islam. Media controversy focused on his citation of a Byzantine emperor who criticized Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Archbishop Ganswein said the interviews also show “the profoundly human dimension” of the man born Joseph Ratzinger.

“To him, power never meant anything, and he described the ‘happiest time’ of his life as those twelve months or so after his ordination on June 29, 1951 when he worked for a year as a young parochial vicar at Sacred Blood Parish in Munich,” Archbishop Ganswein said at the book launch.

In the new interviews, Archbishop Ganswein finds “a very distinct and new intimacy,” such as on topics like how Benedict’s mother was born before her parents married.  

There is even a bit of mirth.

“He never laughed so much in his other interview books. And never cried,” the archbishop said.

“Despite his superior and awakened intelligence and formation, he does not resemble, even from afar, a power-loving person who would love to be bigger than he really is or a scary high-inquisitor at all like he is often distortedly misrepresented by his “non-friends,” said Archbishop Ganswein.

For Benedict XVI, his almost unprecedented resignation was a chance “to disengage from the large crowds of people and adjourn into this greater intimacy.” It was “another way to remain faithful to my ministry.”

Asked if he regrets his resignation, Benedict XVI told Seewald “No. No, no. I see that it was right every day.”

The doctor had told him that he was no longer allowed to fly across the Atlantic, Archbishop Ganswein recounted. The next World Youth Day had been moved to 2013 instead of 2014 due to the World Cup. Otherwise, Benedict XVI would have tried to endure until 2014.

“But I knew: I can’t do it anymore,” Benedict said.

Benedict XVI rejected as “total nonsense” conspiracy theories that he resigned due to extortion or conspiracy. There was no practical pressure.

“You may never yield to coercion. You may not flee in the moment of the storm, but must withstand,” he said. “You can only step back if nobody is calling for it. And nobody demanded it in my day. Nobody. It was clear to me that I had to do it and that this was the right moment. It was a complete surprise for everyone.”

Archbishop Ganswein finds “an astounding amount of self-criticism, flavored with self-irony” in Benedict’s interviews with Seewald

Benedict still delights in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, during which he was a theological consultant. But he also sees problems with that epochal event.

“We thought then overly theological and did not consider what public image these things would have,” he said. There were also “many destructions and delusions.”

Benedict saw himself as a progressive at the time, when others would denigrate him with claims he was a freemason, or incapable, or heretical.

The former Pope says he is frequently astonished by his “naïveté” and the “brazenness” with which he spoke at the time.

At the same time he now describes himself as a “true fan of John XXIII” and the “total unconventionality” of the canonized Pope who called the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

The former Pope Benedict now writes Sunday homilies for four to nine people.

“I am really more of a professor – someone who ponders and considers intellectual things. I wanted to be a real professor for life.”

Such is the life now of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

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Washington D.C., Sep 12, 2016 / 05:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Christians can’t be second-class citizens if they are to remain in the Middle East, and the next United States administration will need to stand up for their rights, the head of the Knights of Columbus has said.

Speaking at the National Advocacy Convention 2016 for persecuted Middle Eastern Christians, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus insisted that for Christians in the Middle East, “the system of religious apartheid in the region must end.”

“Our tax dollars to the region must not be used to rebuild a discriminatory system that continues to impose second-class citizenship upon religious minorities,” he added, insisting that U.S. aid “should be contingent on the application of full rights of citizenship to every citizen of Iraq and other countries in the region.”

Anderson called for presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to commit themselves to upholding those rights.

The 2016 National Advocacy Convention was held Sept. 7-9 in Washington, D.C. The group In Defense of Christians sponsored the event along with The Philos Project, the Institute for Global Engagement, and the National Armenian Conference of America.

On Thursday, religious leaders and advocates met with members of Congress to discuss the future of Christians in the Middle East.

That evening, the Solidarity Award was presented to three figures for their work in protecting persecuted Christians; Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) were honored for co-sponsoring a House resolution to state that genocide was taking place against Christians in Iraq and Syria.

Anderson was also recognized for his work. The Knights have raised over $11 million for Christians in the Middle East and have provided humanitarian aid for refugees driven from their homes by the Islamic State and who are not receiving aid sent through the Iraqi government. The Knights also helped push the U.S. to declare that Christians were victims of genocide in Islamic State-occupied territory.

Anderson, accepting the award, insisted that the Christians “are the ones who deserve an award” for having “lost everything except their faith.”

“These Christians persevere through an everyday heroism; and despite the tragic costs of that heroism, they continue to hope,” he added. “And their hope includes a faith in us.”

Thus, for the U.S. to honor their hope, they must support a solution for Christians in Iraq and Syria that will work for Christians in the long-term, he said.

One chief theme of the convention was how, after the U.S. declared that genocide was taking place against Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims in areas controlled by the Islamic State, victims of genocide can be resettled in their own homes and protected in the future.

There must be two prongs to future U.S. policy in the region, Anderson maintained – ensuring that aid reaches genocide victims through successful channels, and that the aid is dependent upon Christians enjoying their rights as citizens.

Currently, the survivors are still facing genocide, albeit one of “attrition,” he said.

“Many of those who have lost everything now live as refugees who cannot find employment or housing or adequate medical care or clothing, or education for their children,” he said.

“But a genocide that some began by the sword cannot be allowed to succeed through indifference,” he continued. “The U.S. must make sure that aid reaches Christians displaced from their homes, many of who reportedly get no financial support from our government or from the United Nations.”

“The current aid channels have failed. We can no longer rely exclusively or even primarily upon government delivery systems in the region,” he said. Thus “new delivery channels and new partnerships with religious organizations” will have to be explored, he said, and genocide victims must be prioritized for receiving aid.

After the 2016 election in the U.S., the next administration will have to show a “new realism in our approach to issues of human rights in the region,” Anderson insisted, promoting rights based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights rather than Sharia.

“When Islamic governments speak of human rights, they may be thinking of those rights as defined – or as confined – in the Sharia-based Cairo Declaration,” he said. “Realism demands that we not mislead ourselves or allow others to mislead us in this regard.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Dianne Towalski, The Visitor

By Dianne Towalski

ALBANY, Minn. (CNS) -- Agnes Imdieke awakened the morning of Sept. 3 in her apartment on the outskirts of Albany and got ready for the day. As she did every day, she lit a candle and said a prayer for the safe return of Jacob Wetterling.

It's a ritual she set aside time for each morning for the past 27 years since the 11-year-old boy was abducted from a rural area near his hometown of St. Joseph Oct. 22, 1989.

Later that day, Agnes learned that Jacob's remains had been found in a remote area near Paynesville. Danny Heinrich confessed to his kidnapping and murder during a hearing Sept. 6 in a Minneapolis courtroom, having earlier led authorities to the boy's body.

Now, Imdieke's prayers have a different focus: bittersweet gratitude that Jacob was finally found and returned to his family, and for healing for everyone touched by his death, especially his mother, Patty Wetterling.

Her commitment to pray for Jacob gained strength thanks to her late mother, Fredericka.

On Oct. 21, 1990, Agnes and her sister, Benedictine Sister Alice Imdieke, were talking with their mother, whose health was failing at the time. They asked her if there was anything she would wish or hoped for. She told them she hoped that Jacob would be found and returned to his family.

Fredericka died the next day -- on the first anniversary of Jacob's abduction.

"Mom always prayed for him," Agnes told The Visitor, newspaper of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Like so many others, Fredericka had been deeply affected by Jacob's disappearance and had been following the news coverage in the months that followed.

"It was one of the last things she said. I think that really hit us," Sister Alice said. "I think we have kept this up because that was (our) mother's wish."

The dedication of Agnes and others who have been praying for Jacob is a powerful witness of how faith can unite others, Sister Alice said.

Benedictine Sister Karen Rose, director of mission advancement for St. Benedict's Monastery in St. Joseph, said in an email to The Visitor that the sisters are "holding the Wetterling family in prayer," and "calling on social media followers to pray with us."

"So far, we've reached about 4,000 people on Facebook alone," she said Sept. 3. "We've had a beautiful response, with many commenting and sharing. I hope it is some comfort to the family to know that so many people, in so many places, are reaching out to them through prayer."

Like many in the community, Sister Alice is feeling mixed emotions. In the back of her mind, she remained hopeful that Jacob would make it home alive. 

"It's a sad thing," Sister Alice said. "But now the whole family knows where he is and they can ... hopefully find peace."

In a Sept. 5 statement from Patty Wetterling via the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center's Facebook page, she created a list of things people can do that she said will "bring her comfort today." The list includes:

-- Say a prayer.

-- Light a candle.

-- Be with friends.

-- Play with your children.

-- Giggle.

-- Hold hands.

-- Eat ice cream.

-- Create joy.

-- Help your neighbor.

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Towalski is a multimedia reporter for The Visitor, newspaper of the Diocese of St. Cloud.

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