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NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. prosecutors are investigating claims that dozens of top Russian athletes participated in a sophisticated state-sponsored doping program, The New York Times reported Tuesday....
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Still unbeaten, still undeniable....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly appear to have called a truce....
MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Nine years ago, Father Amado Picardal helped bury a teenager from a slum family who was gunned down by motorcycle-riding assassins in the southern Philippine city of Davao. The death was among hundreds in the large port city blamed on an anti-crime purge some believed was secretly run by its mayor, Rodrigo Duterte....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Latest on Tuesday's primary elections in Kentucky and Oregon (all times local):...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled to a neck-and-neck outcome in Kentucky's presidential primary Tuesday, as Clinton declared victory and sought to blunt the momentum of her Democratic rival ahead of a likely general election matchup against Republican Donald Trump. Sanders won Oregon and vowed to soldier on....
Washington D.C., May 17, 2016 / 03:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- If you are a Christian, your life should not be a perpetual Lent – this was the message of the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor at a prayer breakfast on Tuesday.“Don’t let anything rob you of the joy of the Gospel. Dare to be of good cheer,” Sister Constance Veit, LSP, said at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast May 17 in Washington, D.C.An archbishop had counseled her with those words during the sisters’ ongoing HHS mandate case against the federal government, a case that was sent back to the circuit courts by the Supreme Court on Monday.The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast has been held annually in Washington, D.C. since 2004, with an attendance of over 1,000. Catholic priests, bishops, religious, and lay leaders all gather to reflect and pray for the country.Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline...
Washington D.C., May 17, 2016 / 03:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- If you are a Christian, your life should not be a perpetual Lent – this was the message of the communications director for the Little Sisters of the Poor at a prayer breakfast on Tuesday.
“Don’t let anything rob you of the joy of the Gospel. Dare to be of good cheer,” Sister Constance Veit, LSP, said at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast May 17 in Washington, D.C.
An archbishop had counseled her with those words during the sisters’ ongoing HHS mandate case against the federal government, a case that was sent back to the circuit courts by the Supreme Court on Monday.
The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast has been held annually in Washington, D.C. since 2004, with an attendance of over 1,000. Catholic priests, bishops, religious, and lay leaders all gather to reflect and pray for the country.
Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, was the keynote speaker at the event. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Sister Constance also spoke.
The outgoing Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. Carlo Maria Vigano was also in attendance. Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington offered the invocation and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore said the closing benediction.
In her address, Sr. Constance discussed the importance of joy despite hardship. For several years, her community – which cares for the elderly poor in homes in the U.S. and across the globe – has been threatened by fines that could shut down their ministry if they do not agree to include contraception and similar products in their employer health care plan.
The sisters had been awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court, and will now wait as the lower court deliberates and comes to a ruling in their case.
But despite the uncertainty surrounding their future, Sr. Constance said, the sisters find joy and peace in following Christ and serving those in need.
She noted that Pope Francis named his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, or “The Joy of the Gospel,” and his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, “The Joy of Love.” In writing so much about “joy,” she said, “I think he is trying to tell us something.”
“I believe our contemporaries will listen to us only if we can show them by the way we live that the Gospel brings us lasting joy and happiness. Why follow it otherwise?” she said.
She also exhorted those in attendance to see Christ in all persons. This can only happen, she added, through having an “intimate encounter with God,” as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est.
“Going beyond exterior appearances, I perceive in others an interior desire for a sign of love, of concern,” she said. “Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities. I can give them the look of love which they crave.”
Christians must also not just know the faith, but have faith themselves and trust in God even though life may seem tumultuous, Sr. Constance continued.
“This quiet, yet firm, trust is what will enable us to overcome our natural timidity, our discouragement, or even our just anger in the face of a dominant culture that disrespects our most strongly-held convictions.”
This was the faith and trust of the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, St. Jeanne Jugan, she said, and the sisters still trust in God despite an ongoing lawsuit with the federal government that threatens them with heavy fines if they lose the case.
“When journalists ask me what we will do if we eventually lose our case, I always think of our foundress’ confidence in Providence, and I tell them that we have no contingency plan, because like her, we believe that God will never abandon us,” she said.
In his address, Speaker Ryan also discussed the importance of faith, focusing on the consequences of lacking that faith in the modern world.
“There is a growing need for faith in this nation,” he insisted, pointing to the “epidemic” of opioid abuse in the U.S. as an example. Over 29,000 people died from overdosing on prescription opioids and heroin in 2014, according to the Center for Disease Control, and millions currently abuse opioid pain relievers or heroin.
Having met with people suffering from addiction, Ryan noted that “they feel a deep, gnawing pain inside, and the reason they turn to drugs is to escape that gnawing pain.”
“That pain stems from a loneliness,” he added, but “it wasn’t until you meet a person face to face that you realize that we all feel loneliness at some level. We all feel that distance from God. What is sin but a turning away from Him?”
“It is not enough,” Ryan said, for legislators to come up with economic policies that help the poor and those with addictions, “though we should do that too.” Rather, he stressed, “there is a spiritual void that needs to be filled.”
“When you meet people who have beaten addiction, most of them say something like this: ‘It wasn’t me. It was God,’” he said.
“They know the true source of their success. In their struggles, they have come to know Him. And they have come to find happiness.”
Warsaw, Poland, May 17, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Thousands of Polish pro-lifers have called on parliament to pass a bill that would further restrict abortion in the country.“Today we are calling on our state authorities to guarantee full legal protection of unborn children,” Pawel Kwasniak said to a Sunday rally of over 1,000 people in Warsaw.Kwasniak heads the Support Center for Life and Family Initiatives, the Warsaw-based pro-life NGO that organized support for the proposal.Rallies in favor of the proposed bill were held in 140 cities and towns across Poland May 15, organizers said. Backers of the bill include Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo.The proposed citizen’s bill would allow abortions only to save a women’s life. It would increase the maximum prison sentence for unauthorized abortions from two years to five. Those who provide information about or arrange for a legal a...
Warsaw, Poland, May 17, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Thousands of Polish pro-lifers have called on parliament to pass a bill that would further restrict abortion in the country.
“Today we are calling on our state authorities to guarantee full legal protection of unborn children,” Pawel Kwasniak said to a Sunday rally of over 1,000 people in Warsaw.
Kwasniak heads the Support Center for Life and Family Initiatives, the Warsaw-based pro-life NGO that organized support for the proposal.
Rallies in favor of the proposed bill were held in 140 cities and towns across Poland May 15, organizers said. Backers of the bill include Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo.
The proposed citizen’s bill would allow abortions only to save a women’s life. It would increase the maximum prison sentence for unauthorized abortions from two years to five. Those who provide information about or arrange for a legal abortion abroad could be liable as an accessory to the act, Deutsche Welle reports.
In June 2011 backers of a similar proposal gathered over 500,000 signatures in support, but the bill was defeated by a majority of MPs. Citizens must gather over 100,000 valid signatures by the end of June to oblige parliament to proceed, Agence France Presse reports.
Since 1993, Poland’s abortion law allows abortions only for pregnancies that result from rape or incest, that pose a risk to the health of the mother, or that involve a severely deformed unborn baby.
Three former first ladies of Poland opposed the bill in a letter. These include Danuta Walesa, the wife of former president, Nobel Prize winner, and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa.
Some abortion proponents are seeking 100,000 signatures to make Poland’s abortion law more permissive.
About 700-1,800 legal abortions take place in Poland each year.
IMAGE: CNS photo/Watan Yar, EPABy David AgrenMEXICO CITY (CNS) -- A Catholicbishop in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has called for compassiontoward the impoverished populations harvesting opium poppies out of necessity,saying such people are not sinners and are neglected by the government.He asked the army to stopfumigating small farmers' poppy fields "until there are other options foropium poppy growers" and said the practice was "taking food out oftheir mouths (and) starving them to death.""People who grow opiumpoppies are the most marginalized people in the state and the country. ... It'scampesinos (peasant farmers) who plant the flower, not narcotics traffickers,"Bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza of Chilpancingo-Chilapa told the newspaper ElUniversal. "Those that plant (opium poppies) are somewhat enslaved,receiving a minimal benefit, and they grow it to get by. ... The church mustnot condemn it because the majority of people (growing poppies) do it becauseof a lack of opt...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Watan Yar, EPA
By David Agren
MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- A Catholic bishop in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has called for compassion toward the impoverished populations harvesting opium poppies out of necessity, saying such people are not sinners and are neglected by the government.
He asked the army to stop fumigating small farmers' poppy fields "until there are other options for opium poppy growers" and said the practice was "taking food out of their mouths (and) starving them to death."
"People who grow opium poppies are the most marginalized people in the state and the country. ... It's campesinos (peasant farmers) who plant the flower, not narcotics traffickers," Bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza of Chilpancingo-Chilapa told the newspaper El Universal. "Those that plant (opium poppies) are somewhat enslaved, receiving a minimal benefit, and they grow it to get by. ... The church must not condemn it because the majority of people (growing poppies) do it because of a lack of options."
Priests in drug-producing Mexican states often confront the realities of local people growing illegal cash crops such as marijuana and opium poppies to put food on the table. Bishop Rangel made his comments as violence consumed the state of Guerrero, which lies south of Mexico City and includes some of the country's most marginalized municipalities.
The state is still reeling from the attack on 43 students by police in 2014 as they commandeered buses to travel to protest in Mexico City. One of the buses may have been transporting opium paste, provoking the attack. Experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, who reviewed the case, called on Mexican investigators to probe that angle.
For decades, Guerrero has been coveted as a trafficking corridor and a site for planting and harvesting opium poppies. Increased heroin use in the United States is believed to be driving a demand for opium poppies produced in Mexico, which are processed into paste and smuggled to the United States.
"Growing is nothing new," said Father Mario Campos, a priest in the Diocese of Tlapa, which serves the marginalized La Montana region, populated by isolated and impoverished indigenous communities sustained by illegal cash crops and remittances.
"The problem is not the growing of opium poppies," Father Campos said. "The problem is unemployment. People have to work. They need economic resources so that their children go to school. They need income to buy the basics."
Guerrero Gov. Hector Astudillo is floating the idea of decriminalizing some poppy production and selling the crop to the pharmaceutical industry for medicinal purposes as a way of reducing violence among the criminal groups buying and processing opium poppies.
Antonio Mazzitelli, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime representative in Mexico, told the Associated Press that demand was lacking to justify producing more opium poppies.
Bishop Rangel supported the decriminalization idea, but said he wanted to see more alternatives offered to farmers.
"If the government invested a little more in the Sierra ... and paid closer attention to education, invested in highway infrastructure, health centers and hospitals, it would be different," he said.
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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Widely viewed pictures and video of a protester being kicked by Kenyan riot police as he lay on the ground have caused a stir in this East Africa country, prompting debate on police brutality and civil rights....
