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(Vatican Radio)  The youngest son of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been released safe and well after being abducted by rival gunmen.

Listen to James Blears's report:

Alfredo Guzman was abducted with five other men by seven gunmen from the Jalisco new generation drug cartel in a restaurant at the international vacation resort of Puerto Vallarta, in the early hours of the morning, exactly a week ago.

An unnamed relative of his confirms they were all release, after intense negotiations leading to major concessions, which haven't been specified.

Meanwhile, Mexican government officials say they are investigating if municipal police in Puerto Vallarta were involved in this kidnapping. 

Alfredo's imprisoned father, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, led the Sinaloa drug cartel until his re-capture in January.

He's fighting extradition to the United States. Both father and son are wanted there on an array of drug trafficking charges.

More than 150,000 people have died in Mexico's ongoing nine year Drug War.

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(Vatican Radio)  Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed condolences to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Saturday's attack on a Kurdish wedding party killed at least 54 people, many of them children, while injuring some 70 others.

Putin's message came amid attempts by Moscow to improve ties with Ankara as Turkey is seen as both a strategic nation for Russia and the NATO-military alliance. Yet, it has done little to ease remaining tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report:

In a telegram Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday's attack in Turkey's southeastern city of Gaziantep was in his words shocking in its "cruelty and cynicism". It was reportedly carried out by a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14. Putin said the attack once again showed that "terrorism doesn't recognize not only the laws of civilized society but also the very basic norms of human morality."

The Kremlin said Putin also conveyed Russia's readiness to increase counter-terrorism cooperation with Turkey, including following through on agreements the two presidents reached during their recent talks in Russia.

Putin and Turkish President  Erdogan met two weeks ago for the first time since they decided to mend relations soured by Turkey's downing of a Russian military aircraft along the Syrian border in November.

Yet differences remain over at least some issues, including Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

'CRIMEA IS UKRAINIAN'

Over the weekend, Turkish President Erdogan reportedly reassured his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko that Ankara will continue to recognize the Crimean Peninsula as Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian presidential press service said Erdogan told Poroshenko that Turkey has not changed its "unwavering position regarding its support of Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity in the country's internationally recognized borders."

Since Russia's annexation of the peninsula, Erdogan, who backed Ukraine in the conflict, had frequently denounced the reported persecution of the Tatar minority by local authorities.

His latest comments came however at a sensitive time.

Thousands of Russian land and naval forces have been practicing moving hardware and troops into Crimea. The exercises on the peninsula come as a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is threatened -- by the deadliest month of fighting in a year between Ukrainian troops and Moscow-backed separatists.

UKRAINE'S 'SABOTAGE PLOT' 

Additionally Putin has expressed anger over an alleged sabotage plot by Kiev. "It seems that our partners in Kiev have decided to exacerbate the situation," Putin said while visiting Crimea last week.

"It is clear that they do it because they do not want or they cannot comply with the Minsk peace agreement. I hope this will not be the final choice of our partners
and that common sense will prevail. We're not going to completely end our relationship despite the lack of willingness of the Ukrainian authorities to have full
diplomatic relations at an ambassadorial Level," Putin told the Security Council in Crimea.    

Kiev has denied wrongdoing and Ukrainian President Poroshenko has warned of a Russian invasion.

Despite different views on Ukraine, Moscow and Ankara seek closer ties. Though Turkey claims it wants to remain in the Western NATO-military alliance, it
also seeks closer relations with non-NATO nations such as Russia. It comes amid mounting tensions with the West over the aftermath of a recent failed coup
attempt.

The West has criticized Turkey's government for detaining tens of thousands of people following the coup. 

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Vatican City, Aug 22, 2016 / 11:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Benedict XVI's new memoir, a lengthy interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, is being translated into English and will be released this November.

Letzte Gespräche is being translated as Last Testament by Jacob Phillips, a lecturer in theology at St. Mary's University, Twickenham. It will be published by Bloomsbury.

The work is the fruit of several interviews conducted by Seewald a few months after Benedict resigned from the papacy.

It touches on recent events such as the reform of the Roman Curia, his abdication, and Pope Francis, as well as serving as an overview of his life, from his childhood to his time as Bishop of Rome.

It includes Benedict’s childhood under the Nazi regime, the hardships of the war and the discovery of his vocation to the priesthood, his appointment as Archbishop of Munich, and his time in the Vatican prior to his election to the papacy. It also covers his first few days as successor of St. Peter as well as his decision to resign and his thoughts on Pope Francis.

In his responses to Seewald, Benedict speaks about himself, his faith, his weaknesses, his private life, and the scandals and controversial issues of his papacy.

The retired Pope also speaks about the reform of the Roman Curia, the “Vatileaks” scandal that many pinned as the reason for his stepping-down, and outlines the differences between him and Francis in light of “his own peculiarities” and those of his Argentine successor.

Last Testament is Seewald's fourth book-interview with Benedict. In 2010 he published Light of the World, and while Ratzinger was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith they produced Salt of the Earth and God and the World.

Phillips, the books' English translator, is an affiliate of St. Mary's Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. He earned his doctorate at King's College London, writing about the Lutheran pastor and Nazi victim Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

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Vatican City, Aug 22, 2016 / 12:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis commended the sacrament of confession as the prime means of encountering God's mercy in his message sent Monday to Italy's National Liturgical Week, which is being held in Gubbio.

In Confession “there is fulfilled the encounter with the re-creating mercy of God whence come new women and men who announce the good life of the Gospel by a life which is reconciled and reconciling,” the Pope said in a message signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and sent Aug. 22 to Bishop Claudio Maniago of Castellaneta, president of Italy's Center for Liturgy.

The National Liturgical Week is focusing this year on “liturgy as a place of mercy.”

Pope Francis noted that this theme “helps one perceive that all the liturgy is a place where mercy is encountered and welcomed in order to be given; a place where the great mystery of reconciliation is made present, announced, celebrated, and communicated.”

While each sacrament and sacramental show forth God's mercy “according to the diverse circumstances of life … The gift of Mercy is resplendent in a particular way in the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation,” he said.

“We are reconciled so as to reconcile. The mercy of the Father cannot be confined in 'intimistic' and 'self-consoling' attitudes, because its potency is demonstrated in the renewal of persons, rendering them capable of offering to others a living experience of the same gift.”

The Pope exhorted that “based on the belief that one is pardoned in order to pardon, we must be witnesses of mercy in every environment, provoking a desire and a capacity for pardon.”

“This is a task to which we are all called,” he said, “especially in front of the rancor in which too many are entrapped, who need to rediscover the joy of interior serenity and the taste of peace.”

Pope Francis reflected that Confession “must therefore be perceived as an expression of the 'Church in outreach', as a 'door' not only by which to re-enter after having been away, but also a 'threshold' open to the various peripheries of humanity ever more in need of compassion.”

The message concluded with the Pope's hope that the celebration of Italy's Liturgical Week would promote an “ecclesial and personal life full of mercy and compassion.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Robert Duncan

By Cindy Wooden

ROME (CNS) -- In the chapel of the first house Blessed Teresa of Kolkata established in Rome, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk of the Missionaries of Charity talks about her life, mixing the concrete and even mundane with the spiritual and even mystical.

"She was very human -- she loved chocolate, she loved ice cream," the priest said. At the same time, her letters to her spiritual directors make it clear "she's among the great mystics of the church," having experienced the sweetness of hearing Jesus' voice and, later, the desolation of feeling he had abandoned her.

"Mother Teresa was no plastic saint," said Father Kolodiejchuk, who is superior general of the Missionaries of Charity Fathers and postulator of Blessed Teresa's sainthood cause. Mother Teresa was a "very concrete, feet on the ground" organizer and hands-on minister to the poorest of the poor, he said.

The priest, a native of Canada, spoke to Catholic News Service Aug. 19 at the home Mother Teresa initially founded in Rome for novice sisters. Now a base for the order's priests, it is a warren of rooms built around a courtyard covered with a densely leafed grape vine laden with fruit nearing purple ripeness.

The grapes should be ready for harvest by Sept. 4, the date Pope Francis is scheduled to declare Blessed Teresa a saint.

"Mother Teresa could be the patron saint of women who are having difficulty conceiving," Father Kolodiejchuk said when asked for suggestions. When couples would tell her they were having trouble having children, "she would take a miraculous medal, kiss it and then she would say simply, 'Say this prayer: "Mary, mother of Jesus, give us a child.'" That was the whole prayer. And sure enough, one year later there would be the couple with a baby in hand."

But the priest, who travels constantly as superior of his order and chief promoter of Blessed Teresa's sainthood cause, said she also could be the patron saint of airplane travelers. "She's my personal patron saint for my luggage," he said. Before a trip, he says a little prayer and "I have never had any difficulty with my luggage. Never lost. Always shows up."

Mother Teresa's canonization is the church's formal proclamation that she is with God and can intercede on behalf of those who pray for her assistance, Father Kolodiejchuk said. Sainthood recognizes that she "lived in an excellent way -- a heroic way -- the Christian life and shows us concretely what the Christian life involves."

For Father Kolodiejchuk, "the single most heroic aspect of her life" is her extraordinary commitment to God, the church and the poor despite what Mother Teresa described in letters to her spiritual director as "the darkness," a feeling that lasted some 50 years.

"She was a woman passionately in love with Jesus," Father Kolodiejchuk said. "As a young religious she made this resolution to love him as he's never been loved before, which is a daring thing to say if you are taking it seriously."

In 1946, Mother Teresa -- at the time a Loreto sister -- heard the voice of Jesus calling her to serve him in the poorest of the poor. It was an intense, mystical experience of "that union, that presence, that intimacy with Jesus," he said. "And then she lost it and that's painful."

"So the trial is that she feels that Jesus doesn't love her. She feels unwanted, unloved," he said.

Father Kolodiejchuk said that for Mother Teresa, it was like "a woman who loves passionately her husband, but it seems like he couldn't care less, and yet she is there faithfully, loving, doing all the things a loving wife would do."

Living through that experience with "heroic faith," constant acts of charity and real love for God and for the poor, he said, is a witness to the real meaning of commitment and that "love is not principally a feeling. Certainly that's part of it for almost everyone, but in the end, it is classical Thomas Aquinas: Love is in the will. It's our choosing."

Feeling unloved was not just a painful experience for Mother Teresa, he said. It was also another way for her to live in deep communion with Jesus and with the materially and spiritually poor she dedicated her life to serving.

In the chapel of every Missionary of Charity community, next to the crucifix, are the words of Jesus, "I thirst."

"Thirst for Jesus explains everything" the missionaries do, he said. From the very beginning, Mother Teresa said the order was founded "to quench the thirst of Jesus on the cross for love and souls. So, in this darkness, she is quenching, satiating Jesus' thirst by, paradoxically, not experiencing that love. Or to say it in another way, they are so united that Jesus can share with her his most terrible pain."

Her experience of feeling unloved also meant she lived "in solidarity with the spiritually poor," Father Kolodiejchuk said. "She would have this empathy because she would have the same sense of, 'Yeah, I know what it is to be unloved and unwanted and feeling lonely -- to want to love and be loved, and it seems like it's not there.'"

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Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden

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