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(Vatican Radio) "We are rescuers and we are saving lives in the Aegean Sea:" this is how the NGO Proactiva Open Arms is literally reaching out with arms extended, to save refugees landing on the Greek island of Lesbos.

At Wednesday’s General Audience, Proactiva founder Oscar Camps presented Pope Francis with the life jacket of a 6 year old girl who drowned together with her family as they tried to reach safety on Lesbos.

"I know. I know your story," the Pope said to Oscar Camps, who said he and his non-profit Spanish organization arrived on Lesbos after they saw the horrifying images of “hundreds of children dying along the shore and nobody was doing anything. " "Each boatload of people, has a dramatic tale to tell:" families are separated, orphaned children who lost their parents along the way now find themselves in a strange country, a continent that is not their own,  and no one to help them.

Camps said he and other lifeguards were indignant about the tragedy unfolding in nearby Greece.  He couldn’t just sit on the couch at home – so, he took 15,000 euros in savings and together with a group of volunteer rescue workers and lifeguards, set off for Lesbos last September.

Since then, the Proactiva team has been on hand to help the some 3,000 people, most fleeing the conflict in Syria, who arrive on the island each day. "There have been days when we’ve reached 8,000 in one day, without forgetting tragedies like that of October 28, 2015 in which more than 300 men and women and drowned," said Laura Lanuza, another Proactiva Open Arms volunteer.

Pope Francis visited the island of Lesbos on 16 April this year. On the flight back to Rome, he confessed to reporters that, for him, it had been a "sad journey" full of grief, having witnessed the plight of the refugees.

"With his visit, Pope Francisco gave us a lesson for everyone," Oscar Camps observed.  The Pope brought back to Rome three families of refugees, Camps recalled, “so we are now in the Vatican to thank him, returning the visit and to explain how the situation is developing [on Lesbos].”

The volunteer rescuer said the Pope congratulated the Proactiva team for their work and said they were in his prayers and that the current crisis situation is "no humanitarian crisis,” but a crisis “of humanity".

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The Lahore Archdiocese has formed an association to offer faith formation and professional development for Christian nurses in Pakistan.

Archbishop Sebastian Francis Shaw of Lahore announced the formation of the Pakistan Christian Nurses Association during a May 25 meeting at Darul Kalam, the religious education center in Lahore.

"Don't get trapped. Serve carefully in the country especially while making important decisions in your life … Hold on tightly to your Christian identity," Archbishop Shaw said.

Participants at the meeting criticized an admission policy to the General Nursing and Midwifery Diploma Program in Pakistan that appeared to favor Muslim applicants, with bonus points awarded to those who pass a test on the Quran offered by an authorized Islamic seminary.

Fazilat Lal, a nursing instructor at Children's Hospital Lahore, said Christian nurses are often bypassed for promotions and face on-the-job harassment in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

"They are usually ignored in yearly incentives as well as promotions," she said. (UCAN)

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(Vatican Radio)The top leader of the European Union, Donald Tusk, has urged the global community to show solidarity towards refugees and says Europe's biggest refugee crisis since World War Two is is a global problem. His remarks came after the Italian navy said at least 5 people died and hundreds of others narrowly escaped drowning after their smugglers’ boat capsized in the southern Mediterranean and Greek police evacuated more refugees from an overcrowded camp near Macedonia. 

Stefan Bos reports

Tusk, the president of the EU's European Council, told reporters at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan that he would seek support and commitment from the seven most developed economies to increasing global assistance for the immediate and long-term needs of refugees.

He said he was aware "that because of geography, most of the responsibility regarding the refugee crisis" will be on Europe. "However we would also like the global community to show solidarity and recognize the fact that this is a global crisis." he said.  "Therefore we will seek the support of our G7 partners in three dimensions. First to commit to increase global assistance so that the immediate and long term needs of refugees and...communities are met."   

The G7 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

His call for solidarity came while the Italian navy said it had managed to save about 550 people after their smugglers boat capsized in the southern Mediterranean.

DRAMATIC PHOTO'S

Dramatic photo's showed that their their boat – a repurposed trawler – tipped over, throwing those on deck into the water. At least a handful of people reportedly died in the incident.

Yet for survivors the future remains uncertain. In Greece, riot police have begun to evacuate thousands of people staying in the Idomeni refugee camp near Macedonia. Some Syrians were allowed to leave on foot.

The camp in Idomeni doesn't have water or food. It has nothing," a Syrian man said while walking with his family to an uncertain destination. "The police everytime says: 'Go out, go back, go back, go back, go back, go back!. If you don't go back I fight against you'," he added.

A desperate Muslim woman said: "We need a good life. Not this life. This life is the life for animals. This is not human. Where are the human rights? Where is [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel? Where is Europe? I think there is nothing," she complained.    

Further away she and others don't have to expect solidarity in countries such as Hungary: A new opinion poll shows four out of five Hungarian voters are against an EU plan to redistribute as many as 160.000 refugees among EU member states. The poll was held ahead of a government-initiated referendum on the quota system, later this year.

   

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(Vatican Radio)  The Catholic Church’s leading churchman in England and Wales will be joining the head of the Anglican Communion tomorrow (Friday 27 May) for a live Question and Answer session on Facebook.  

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminister, and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby will answer questions on evangelisation, prayer, Christian unity and faith in a live chat, allowing the public to participate.

The discussion will begin at 2.20 pm GMT; the two churchmen will respond to questions posted on the comment thread here:  

The live event is the latest in a long line of ecumenical activities aimed at bringing the two Churches together.

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Rome, Italy, May 26, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- There's a demon that specializes in attacking the family, said exorcist César Truqui, a priest who participated in a course on exorcism held in Rome last year.

Fr. Truqui warned that everything that is harming the family, including divorce, pleases the devil.

Speaking to the Italian weekly Tempi in 2015, the priest said that there is “a demon who specializes in the attack on the family, also cited in the story of Tobias, called 'Asmodeus.'”

In the Old Testament book, the demon is known to have killed seven of Sarah's husbands and was chained in the desert by Saint Rafael. The demon “is present” in many exorcisms, Fr. Truqui said.

The priest recalled encountering the demon “in exorcisms by Father Gabriele Amorth and Father Francisco Bamonte, whom I assisted.” The 90-year-old Fr. Amorth is a renowned exorcist in Rome who has performed an estimated 70,000 exorcisms over the course of 29 years. Carrying out an exorcism can require multiple sessions and each time the rite is administered it is counted as one instance.

“I remember a young couple, very united, who wanted to get married, however, the woman had to undergo an exorcism to be set free,” Fr. Truqi said.  

During the exorcism “the demon was furious and threatened Fr. Amorth in order to prevent the marriage, otherwise he would kill the young woman. Obviously, it was a threat from the Liar which in fact did not happen.”

In that regard, the priest added that the devil also seeks to attack the family through ideologies and lifestyles, as well as individualistic thinking and the spread of divorce.

“They think 'if I don't like my husband anymore, I would be better off divorcing' but they forget about the consequences to the children and society,” he said. “This mentality that works against the family pleases the devil – he knows that a man who is alone without any points of reference is manipulable and unstable.”  

“Even today, and I'm more than 50 years old, just thinking that my mother and father love each other forever, I find comfort and courage. In contrast, the children of separated parents are more fragile and wavering,” he said.

In 2014, Pope Francis gave an address to the Charismatic Renewal, in which he pointed out that the devil seeks to destroy families because that is where Jesus grows, in the midst of the love of the spouses and in the lives of their children.

“He grows in the love of the spouses, he grows in the lives of the children. And  that's why the enemy attacks the family so much. The devil does not love the family. He seeks to destroy it, he wants to eliminate love there,” he warned at Rome's Olympic stadium before 52,000 people.

On that day Francis reminded that “families are these domestic churches. The spouses are sinners, like everyone, but they want to progress in the faith, in their fruitfulness, in the children and their children's faith.”

And so he asked the Lord to “bless the family, make it strong, in this crisis in which the devil wants to destroy it.”

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What happens when an entire country becomes infested with demons? https://t.co/RyRTGkByRZ

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) May 25, 2016

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