Catholic News 2
MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) -- A man who claimed to have a bomb that could "take out the room" barricaded himself inside a suburban Atlanta bank Friday, sparking an hours-long standoff that forced police to bust through a brick wall of the building and later ended with the suspect's death....
NEW YORK (AP) -- A disgruntled doctor had slipped into his former workplace and was firing through the halls of Bronx Lebanon Hospital. But the staff there still had patients to take care of - like the newborn with a bowel obstruction who needed intensive care....
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Ali Said fled war-torn Somalia two decades ago after his right leg was blown off by a grenade. Last year, the father of seven was shot in his other leg by robbers while living in a Kenyan refugee camp....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Days after a seaside reception for his father-in-law's presidential campaign, Jared Kushner set out to pitch a deal to a small-town mayor: Kushner Cos. would transform an aging shopping mall into a live-work destination, bringing culture and commerce to a scraggy stretch of the Jersey Shore....
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- A South Carolina inmate broke out of a maximum-security prison using wire cutters that were apparently flown in by drone, officials said Friday, describing a new and devilishly hard-to-stop means of escape....
EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) -- Islamic militants in Egypt's Sinai unleashed a suicide car bomb and dozens of masked and heavily armed gunmen who descended in multiple SUVs on a remote security outpost in the desert peninsula on Friday, killing at least 23 soldiers and wounding 33, officials said....
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- The United States and Russia struck an agreement Friday on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, crowning President Donald Trump's first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is the first U.S.-Russian effort under Trump's presidency to stem Syria's six-year civil war....
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- At long last face to face, President Donald Trump confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin directly Friday over Moscow's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, as the two leaders sought to use their historic first meeting to move past the issue and forge closer cooperation on Syria....
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the heads of the Group of 20 nations, who are gathered in Hamburg, Germany from July 7-8.Addressed directly to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Message details four principles of action, which the Holy Father offers as guides for the building of fraternal, just and peaceful societies: time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part.Pope Francis expresses the hope that those four principles – drawn from his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium – might also serve as an aid to reflection for the Hamburg meeting and for the assessment of its outcome.Click below to hear our full report The Holy Father’s reflections touch on several pressing issues, including the ongoing migration crisis.“In the minds and hearts of government leaders, and at every phase of the enactment of political measures, there is ...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a Message to the heads of the Group of 20 nations, who are gathered in Hamburg, Germany from July 7-8.
Addressed directly to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Message details four principles of action, which the Holy Father offers as guides for the building of fraternal, just and peaceful societies: time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part.
Pope Francis expresses the hope that those four principles – drawn from his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium – might also serve as an aid to reflection for the Hamburg meeting and for the assessment of its outcome.
Click below to hear our full report
The Holy Father’s reflections touch on several pressing issues, including the ongoing migration crisis.
“In the minds and hearts of government leaders, and at every phase of the enactment of political measures, there is a need to give absolute priority to the poor, refugees, the suffering, evacuees and the excluded, without distinction of nation, race, religion or culture, and to reject armed conflicts,” Pope Francis writes.
The Holy Father also addresses the situation in South Sudan, the Lake Chad basin, the Horn of Africa and Yemen, where thirty million people are lacking the food and water needed to survive, writing, “A commitment to meet these situations with urgency and to provide immediate support to those peoples will be a sign of the seriousness and sincerity of the mid-term commitment to reforming the world economy and a guarantee of its sound development.”
Writing on the ever-present threat and reality of conflict in the world, the Holy Father recalls the upcoming hundredth anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s Letter to the Leaders of the Warring Peoples, asking that the world put an end to all these “useless slaughters. [Emphasis in original]”
“War,” Pope Francis writes, “is never a solution.”
Pope Francis goes on to write of the urgent need to overcome ideological divides.
“The fateful ideologies of the first half of the twentieth century have been replaced by new ideologies of absolute market autonomy and financial speculation,” he writes.
Calling for a recovery of, “a sound and prudent pragmatism, guided by the primacy of the human being and the attempt to integrate and coordinate diverse and at times opposed realities, on the basis of respect for each and every citizen,” which was the hallmark of, “the significant political and economic achievements of the past century,” the Holy Father prays that the Hamburg Summit may be illumined by the example of those European and world leaders who consistently gave pride of place to dialogue and the quest of common solutions, especially Schuman, De Gasperi, Adenauer, and Monnet.
“Problems, Pope Francis goes on to write, “need to be resolved concretely and with due attention to their specificity, but such solutions, to be lasting, cannot neglect a broader vision. They must likewise consider eventual repercussions on all countries and their citizens, while respecting the views and opinions of the latter.”
He then repeats the warning that Benedict XVI addressed to the G20 London Summit in 2009, to the effect that the states and individuals whose voices are weakest on the world political scene, are precisely the ones who suffer most from the harmful effects of economic crises for which they bear little or no responsibility, and that this great majority, which in economic terms counts for only 10% of the whole, is the portion of humanity that has the greatest potential to contribute to the progress of everyone.
“Consequently,” he writes, “there is need to make constant reference to the United Nations, its programmes and associated agencies, and regional organizations, to respect and honour international treaties, and to continue promoting a multilateral approach, so that solutions can be truly universal and lasting, for the benefit of all.”
The Catholic bishops of the Philippines are gathering in the capital Manila this weekend not only to discuss important pastoral challenges of the Church and the problems of the nation, but also to elect a new president and other officials for the coming 2 years. The bi-annual plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), July 8-10, comes at a crucial time when the nation is experiencing a war on drugs, an emergence of Islamist terrorism in the south, the revival of the death penalty and other issues. The bishops will start their 115th plenary assembly at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center on Saturday with a Mass by Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, who is ending his term as CBCP President.Under the presidency of Archbishop Villegas, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines been outspoken against several policies of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whose year-old rule has been largely marke...
The Catholic bishops of the Philippines are gathering in the capital Manila this weekend not only to discuss important pastoral challenges of the Church and the problems of the nation, but also to elect a new president and other officials for the coming 2 years. The bi-annual plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), July 8-10, comes at a crucial time when the nation is experiencing a war on drugs, an emergence of Islamist terrorism in the south, the revival of the death penalty and other issues. The bishops will start their 115th plenary assembly at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center on Saturday with a Mass by Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, who is ending his term as CBCP President.
Under the presidency of Archbishop Villegas, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines been outspoken against several policies of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whose year-old rule has been largely marked by a brutal war on drugs that has killed as estimated 10,000 suspected drug users and peddlers. After having led the CBCP for four years in two terms, Archbishop Villegas is ending his mandate in perhaps the toughest test of his presidency under Duterte. The Philippine president has not spared the Church, coming out strongly with diatribes and even expletives against the bishops, accusing them of corruption, hypocrisy and womanizing. The 56-year old Archbishop vowed that the Church would “continue to speak against evil," and that its leaders would do this "even if it will bring persecution upon us." CBCP officials have a term of two years in office and another term if re-elected.
Bishops who continue to be influential in a country with Asia’s largest Catholic population, have expressed concern over Duterte's leadership. In a pastoral letter released in January, the prelates denounced as "reign of terror" the government's war on drugs. Last year, upon the election of Duterte, Archbishop Villegas exhorted Filipinos to "stand up for moral rights," "resist moral wrongs," and "stand and defend every person’s life and dignity." The archbishop reminded people about martial law in the 1970s when the country "made a gentle turn to a street called faith that does justice … under the cloud of a military dictatorship and repression."
The conflict in the southern region of Mindanao and its fallout are likely to be in the agenda of the Philippine bishops’ plenary assembly. CBCP secretary-general Father Marvin Mejia said Bishop Edwin Dela Pena of Prelature of Marawi, where fighting is continuing, will lead the discussion. "We've heard so many things coming from the government [and] media, this time we want to hear it from the bishops themselves," said Father Mejia.
Terrorist gunmen allied with the so-called Islamic State (IS) attacked Marawi on May 23, burned the Catholic cathedral and a Protestant school, and took Bishop Dela Pena’s vicar, Fr. Teresito Suganob and several church workers as hostages. Duterte soon went on the offensive declaring martial law in the southern third of the Philippines in order to wrest back Marawi from the terrorists who are using the hostages as human shields. The conflict has dragged on for nearly 7 weeks as terrorist gunmen continue to occupy parts of four villages in the city. According to the government, more than 400 people have been killed, including 351 militants, 85 members of the security forces, and 39 civilians. About 260,000 residents have been displaced.
Fr. Mejia said Bishop Elenito Galido of Iligan, a neighboring diocese of Marawi where displaced families sought shelter, would discuss the "refugee situation in his area." He said that while the rehabilitation of Marawi may be discussed, the main goal of the discussion is "to know the real situation." "After that, it depends on the movement of the spirit if [the bishops] will come up with a statement or a specific programme," said the priest.
The Philippine bishops are also expected to talk about the role of young people in the Church in light of the upcoming Synod on the Youth at the Vatican in October next year. The goal will be to gauge the present state of youth culture with respect to the Catholic faith in the country, that will celebrate 500 years of the arrival of Christianity in 2021. To prepare for it, the bishops have invited a certain group to discuss their study on the Filipino youth culture. The Philippine Church will also have a sizeable presence at the upcoming Asian Youth Day in Yogyakarta, 30 July – August 9.
Fr. Mejia said there will also be discussion on the “new formation program for priests” in preparation for the local Church’s observance of the Year of the Clergy and Consecrated Persons in 2018.
The plenary assembly of the Philippine bishops meets in regular session twice a year in January and in July. When the assembly is not in session, a permanent council acts for the conference. CBCP currently has 131 members, 83 of whom are active, or those who handle archdioceses or dioceses, five are administrators, and 43 are retired. (Source: CBCPNews/UCAN)
