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Bergamo, Italy, May 27, 2016 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Loris Capovilla, St. John XXIII’s personal secretary, died May 26 at the age of 100. He had been the closest collaborator of the sainted “Good Pope John” for ten years.
 
Pope Francis sent his condolences in a telegram to Bishop Francesco Beschi of Bergamo. He said that Cardinal Capovilla “witnessed the Gospel with joy and served the Gospel with docility, first in the Diocese of Venice, and later with careful affection at the end of John XXIII’s life.” He called the cardinal “a zealous guardian and sound interpreter” of St. John XXIII's memory.

Capovilla’s long-term service turned into a lifelong commitment when John XXIII left all of his papers to his faithful secretary. Pope Francis named Archbishop Capovilla a cardinal during the Feb. 22, 2014 consistory on the eve of John XXIII’s canonization.

The cardinal lived in the Diocese of Bergamo. Cardinal Capovilla recently became sick due to age and had to be transferred to the Beato Palazzolo Clinic of Bergamo. When Pope Francis heard this, he made a May 16 phone call to the hospital to speak with the secretary of his predecessor.
 
Senator Marco Beato, an Italian MP who was a very good friend of the cardinal, was present with the ailing man.

“Fr. Loris could not talk anymore, but when he recognized the voice of the Pope, his face brightened. He had just enough strength to thank the Pope,” Beato told L’Eco di Bergamo, the Bergamo diocese’s newspaper.
 
Cardinal Capovilla’s story at the side of John XXIII starts in 1953.
 
Since 1940 he had been a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice and editor-in-chief of its magazine La Voce di San Marco. When he was appointed Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli chose the priest as his personal secretary.
 
Cardinal Capovilla recounted how he was chosen for the position in a conversation with Fr. Ezio Bolis, director of the John XXIII Foundation, published in the book Loris F. Capovilla: I miei anni con Papa Giovanni XXIII.

Roncalli’s choice of personal secretary drew concern from Msgr. Erminio Macacek, the vicar of Venice. He told the future Pope: “Your eminence, he is a good priest, he is good, but he is not very healthy. He will not live for long.” And Roncalli immediately replied: “Well, if he is not healthy, he will come with me and will die with me.”
 
These concerns for his health proved unfounded. Cardinal Capovilla died five months shy of his 101st birthday.

He was born Oct. 14, 1915 in Pontelongo in the province of Padua. After the death of his father, Capovilla moved to the Mestre municipality of Venice in 1929. He was ordained a priest in Venice on May 23, 1940, which fell on the Feast of Corpus Christi. By coincidence, the cardinal passed away on the same feast.
 
After his ordination, the cardinal worked in various positions in the diocese: in parishes, in the Curia, at schools, and in hospitals. He worked with Catholic Action was an assistant for minor inmates in prison. During the Second World War, he saved the lives of 10 Italian pilots who were chased by the Germans. For this reason was awarded with the Italian War Merit Cross.
 
He would spend ten years as Cardinal Roncalli’s personal secretary.

Cardinal Capovilla is considered to be behind some of the most groundbreaking episodes of St. John XXIII’s life. He encouraged the Pope’s meeting with Jules Isaac, a French historian and Jew whose family was taken to Auschwitz. The meeting provided an example of Catholic-Jewish friendship. The encounter between Isaac and John XXIII is the seed which blossomed into the Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra aetate on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions.
 
Then a Nov. 23, 1962 letter to then-Msgr. Capovilla from Cardinal Pietro Pavan suggested that an encyclical be drafted. This encyclical would be published in April 1963 as Pacem In Terris.
 
After St. John XXIII’s death on June 3, 1963, Msgr. Capovilla stayed in the Vatican for four more years in the service of Bl. Paul VI. He was then appointed Archbishop of Chieti in 1967, and in 1971 prelate of the Pontifical Shrine of Loreto.
 
In 1989, he retired in Sotto il Monte, John XXIII’s hometown, where he kept the late Pope’s memory alive. Cardinal Capovilla curated many of St. John XXIII’s writings. These include his memoir and diaries titled: “The heart and mind of John XXIII.”

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(Vatican Radio)  “Brought by waves:,” that’s the slogan of the fourth edition of the Children’s Train, an initiative of the Pontifical Council for Culture.  In collaboration with Italian State Railways, four hundred children from schools in Italy’s southern region of Calabria, will make the long trip north to the Vatican Saturday 28 May to meet Pope Francis. 

Listen to the report by Tracey McClure:

The slogan recalls the many migrants who’ve arrived on the shores of Calabria in recent years.  The Pope will receive the children in an audience in the Vatican at noon.

Last year, the train brought sons and daughters of inmates of southern Italian prisons to the Vatican.

Fr. Laurent Mazas, the director of the Council for Culture’s “Courtyard of the Gentiles” which is sponsoring the initiative, says this year, the focus of the journey is on children who are forced to flee their homes, “migrants who are asking to be welcomed , and are welcomed by Italian children.”

In an interview with Vatican Radio’s Fabio Colagrande, he stresses there will be a mix of foreign and Italian kids who’ve become friends at school, through sports and music – and for this, Fr. Mazas says, they will also be coming with an orchestra.

He notes that Pope Francis was very enthusiastic about last year’s encounter with the children:  “I believe it’s always a moment of great tenderness!”

In preparation for Saturday’s journey, participating schools have engaged the children in study groups on migrant themes and have composed the songs “Brought by waves” and “We are all brothers.”

The children will arrive by train in the Vatican Station within the Vatican gardens and will be welcomed by the children’s choir “Quattro canti” from Palermo and by youths of the association  “Sports without Borders,” an organization which gives sports opportunities to children from disadvantaged families.  The children will return to Calabria later Saturday.

The Principal of the Amerigo Vespucci school in Vibo Marina, Maria Salvia, says she and the children are very grateful and happy for the opportunity to visit the Vatican, “this place which welcomes all the other religions.” 

She points out that among the children on Saturday’s journey “will be many children from different religions…They are coming because this Pope is a truly welcoming Pope, so they feel at home.”

Many boats carrying hundreds of migrants have arrived in Vibo Marina, she explains.  Many of the children who’ve stayed are “fully part of the school world.  Integration is real; it’s not just words.”  Faculty try to teach the students that “being together has a very important significance.  It has to be built, and we try to build it together with them.” 

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(Vatican Radio)  US President Barack Obama made history today by becoming the first sitting U.S. leader to visit Hiroshima. He paid tribute to the ‘silent cry’ of the 140,000 victims of the atomic bomb dropped 71 years ago on the city, delivering an address in which he said nuclear nations have obligations to reduce their arsenals. 

Listen to Alastair Wanklyn's report:

During the ceremony, President Obama laid a wreath and then stood in silence at a cenotaph near where the first atomic bomb fell. 

He then made an address in which he said what the world needs is "a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare, but the start of our own moral awakening."

He said he will not live to see the world go non-nuclear, but he said all nations that have the weapons must work to that end.

President Obama also said, "Among those nations that have nuclear stockpiles, like my own, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them."

President Obama did not apologise for the bombing. Recent opinion polls in Japan have shown a majority of people here wanted not an apology but recognition of the suffering.

Obama met with two elderly men who survived the bombing in 1945. One of them shed tears and Obama embraced him.

Obama said science should to be used to benefit human life, not to destroy it. "When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done."

Some observers said Obama's visit was unthinkable only a few years ago. Until recently, the U.S. did not even send its ambassador to take part in Japan's annual bomb commemorations.

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Vatican City, May 27, 2016 / 11:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When Pope Francis met with the Sons of Divine Providence – also known as the Orionine Fathers – on Friday, he urged them to be faithful to the charism of their founder, St. Luigi Orione. So what is this charism?

“Don Orione recommended that you 'seek out and treat the wounds of the people, cure their infirmities, and reach out to them morally and materially: in this way your action would be not only effective, but profoundly Christian and saving,'” Pope Francis reminded the Orionines May 27 at the Vatican's Clementine Hall.

The Orionines are gathered in rome for their 14th General Chapter, at which they elected a new superior general, Father Tarcisio Vieira.

The Sons of Divine Providence were founded by St. Luigi Orione in 1893, while he was still a seminarian. St. Orione was born in Italy in 1872, and he was a student at the Valdocco Oratory in Turin, which was operated by St. John Bosco. His motto was “do good to all; harm no one.”

When he entered the seminary, St. Orione was inspired by the work of the Salesians, and decided to found his own oratory to educated the poor boys of Tortona. The next year, 1893, he began a boarding school for orphans, from which his religious congregation grew.

He was ordained a priest in 1895, and seminarians and priests were gathering around him to form what would become the Sons of Divine Providence. The order was given canonical approval by Bishop Igino Bandi of Tortona in 1903. Their work expanded to operating schools, boarding houses, agricultural schools, and charitable and welfare works across Italy, with several associated congregations being founded, as well.

The order expanded to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Palestine, Poland, Rhodes, the United States, England, and Albania, before St. Orione's death in 1940. He was canonized in 2004.

There are now approximately 1,000 Orionine priests and brothers serving the poor in 32 countries around the world.

“We are all on our way in following Jesus,” Pope Francis told the members of the congregation who were present at the general chapter. “The whole Church is called to follow with Jesus the paths of the world to encounter today's humanity which is in need, as Don Orione wrote, of 'the bread of the body and the divine balsam of faith'.

He recalled that St. Orione called them to be “servants of Christ and of the poor,” and that their path in doing this must “always unite the two dimension of your life: the personal and the apostolic.”

“You have been called and consecrated by God to remain with Jesus and to serve him in the poor and the excluded of society. In them, you touch and serve the body of Christ and grow in union with him,  always keeping watch to ensure faith does not become ideology, charity is not reduced to philanthropy, and the Church does not end up as an NGO.”

The Pope told the Sons of Divine Providence that their being servants of Christ “qualifies all you are and all you do, guaranteeing your apostolic effectiveness and rendering fruitful your service.”

He brought up St. Orione's commendation that his community treat the wounds of the people, saying that “I encourage you to follow these directions, which are very true!”

“In this way, you will not only imitate Jesus the Good Samaritan, but you will also offer to the people the joy of encountering Jesus and the salvation he brings to all.”

Pope Francis reminded the Orionines that “the proclamation of the Gospel, especially in our times, requires great love for the Lord, together with particular initiative. I have heard that while the Founder was still alive, in some places they called you 'the running priests', because they always saw you on the move, amid the people, with the rapid pace of those who care.”

“With Don Orione, I too exhort you not to remain enclosed within your particular environment, but to 'go out'. There is a great need for priests and religious who do not stay only in their institutions of charity – necessary though they may be – but who also know how to take to all places, even the most distant, the perfume of Christ's charity.”

He urged them, “Never lose sight of the Church, or of your religious community; rather, your heart must be there in your ‘cenacle’, but then you must go out to bring God's mercy to all, without distinction.”

The Pope told the Orionines that “your service to the Church will be more effective the more you apply yourselves to care for your personal closeness to Christ and to your spiritual formation. Bearing witness to the beauty of consecration, the good life of religious 'servants of Christ and of the poor', you will set an example to the young. Life generates life, and the holy and content religious inspires new vocations.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Lucy Nicholson, Reuters

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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles said in a May 25 statement that a planned increase in federal immigration raids is "yet another depressing sign of the failed state of American immigration policy." The raids were announced in mid-May.

Archbishop Gomez' comment was echoed by Seattle Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio L. Elizondo, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration. The archbishop is chairman-elect of the committee.

"These operations spark panic among our parishes," Bishop Elizondo said in a May 25 statement. "No person, migrant or otherwise, should have to fear leaving their home to attend church or school. No person should have to fear being torn away from their family and returned to danger."

While saying he recognized the federal government's role in upholding immigration laws, he said the deportations would not be "an effective deterrent" to migration because these "vulnerable populations" are facing a humanitarian crisis in their home countries.

On May 24, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel deported a mother and her 14-year-old daughter from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

ICE took the action despite knowing that the family was afraid of being killed in their home country, that their asylum claim had never been heard, and despite knowing that attorneys had requested a stay of removal and were in the midst of filing an appeal, according to Katie Shepherd, managing attorney for the Cara Family Detention Pro Bono Project, which provides legal representation and undertakes advocacy on behalf of mothers and children held in federal family detention centers.

According to Shepherd, ICE also knew that attorneys had requested a stay of removal for the family and were in the midst of filing an appeal.

"ICE swiftly deported the mother and her child, informing counsel only after the fact. It is outrageous that, knowing that her appeal was in the works and that she had expressed a fear of return, ICE chose to hustle the family out of the detention center in the dark of night and put them on a plane before the courthouse doors opened," Shepherd said in a May 25 statement.

"Just like in January, we are seeing mothers and children who are confused, disoriented, and terrified for themselves and their children," she added.

In January, Bishop Elizondo and Bishop Kevin W. Vann of Orange, California, chairman of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson about recent raids that had netted 121 undocumented immigrants in a three-day span, many of them mothers and children.

"Our organizations have firsthand knowledge that these actions have generated fear among immigrants and have made their communities more distrustful of law enforcement and vulnerable to misinformation, exploitation and fraud," the two bishops told Johnson. "To send migrant children and families back to their home countries would put many of them in grave danger because they would face threats of violence and for some, even death."

CLINIC is one of four partners in the Cara Project. The others are the American Immigration Council, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

"This family is just the latest in the string of lives destroyed by a government that refuses to administer our refugee protection system with the care it requires. Sadly, ICE's harsh enforcement tactics will put many more vulnerable people at risk," said the Cara Project's Shepherd.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, also issued a statement May 25 about the new wave of deportation raids.

"Children and families should not be used as pawns in a politics of deportation aimed more at maintaining the illusion that we have a viable immigration policy in this country than at actually addressing the issue," he said. "The entire system needs reform; it fails to protect the most basic of human goods. Those fleeing violence should be accorded due process protection."

Over the past year or more, the Brownsville Diocese, which is in the Rio Grande River Valley, has had an increase of immigrants with numbers as high as 200 on some days. Mostly from Central America, the immigrants receive help at the diocesan respite center at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen at continue north to other states.

Michelle Mendez, who represents some clients for CLINIC and does training and legal support as well, also moderates a closed Facebook page for women who were detained. Introduced just last October, the group, she said, now has 750 members.

Having worked in direct services for many years prior to joining CLINIC, Mendez said, "I learned that clients, despite lacking sophistication in some areas, had on their phones What's App or something that's cheaper to call internationally and Facebook, because they want to connect with folks all over."

On the page, "we give them guidance on the removal proceedings," Mendez said. "They have a lot of misinformation or lack of information. They think that reporting to ICE on a monthly basis is the same as going to court. Or that changing your address with ICE is the same as changing your address with the court." Neither is true, she added, and some women have been tripped up by this false belief.

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Contributing to this story was Mark Pattison.

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