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FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his combat outpost in Afghanistan and spent five years in captivity, will be court-martialed under a new commander-in-chief....
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A wave of bombings struck outdoor markets and a restaurant in Shiite-dominated neighborhoods of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people, officials said - the latest in deadly militant attacks far from the front lines in the country's north and west where Iraqi forces are battling the Islamic State group....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Buckling under conservative pressure, the Republican-led House Rules Committee pulled a legislative sleight of hand and stripped a provision from the annual defense policy bill that would have required women between the ages of 18 and 25 to sign up for a military draft....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump is moving quickly to install political operatives in more than a dozen states, targeting Maine and Minnesota among others that traditionally favor Democrats, as the Republican White House contender lays the groundwork for an expanded electoral battlefield....
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- As Oregon and Kentucky queue up to vote in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, the pall of a divisive state party convention in Nevada hangs over the race....
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a telegram expressing his condolences for the death of Cardinal Giovanni Coppa, a long-serving diplomat and official of the Roman Curia. Cardinal Coppa was one of the chief Latinists of the II Vatican Council. He wrote several volumes on St. Ambrose of Milan, the Gospels, and the Fathers of the Church.As Nuncio, he served in Czechloslovakia (later the Czech Republic).In his telegram, addressed to the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Pope Francis remembers Cardinal Coppa as a dedicated and pastorally sensitive servant of the Church and the Papacy. “As Assessor of the Secretariat of State and as Delegate for the Pontifical Diplomatic Representations,” writes Pope Francis, “he showed pastoral wisdom and careful attention to the needs of others.” The Holy Father goes on to say, “When he was sent as Pontifical Representative to the Nunciature in Prague, he gave witness to a particularly intense...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a telegram expressing his condolences for the death of Cardinal Giovanni Coppa, a long-serving diplomat and official of the Roman Curia. Cardinal Coppa was one of the chief Latinists of the II Vatican Council. He wrote several volumes on St. Ambrose of Milan, the Gospels, and the Fathers of the Church.
As Nuncio, he served in Czechloslovakia (later the Czech Republic).
In his telegram, addressed to the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Pope Francis remembers Cardinal Coppa as a dedicated and pastorally sensitive servant of the Church and the Papacy. “As Assessor of the Secretariat of State and as Delegate for the Pontifical Diplomatic Representations,” writes Pope Francis, “he showed pastoral wisdom and careful attention to the needs of others.” The Holy Father goes on to say, “When he was sent as Pontifical Representative to the Nunciature in Prague, he gave witness to a particularly intense and fruitful commitment to the spiritual good of that nation.”
The Holy Father concludes with promises of “fervent prayers of suffrage, so that, by the intercession of the Virgin Mary and of St. Ambrose, of whose works he was among the foremost students, the Lord might welcome the Cardinal – sorely missed – in joy and peace eternal,” and imparts his Apostolic Blessing on all those who share in suffering at the loss of so zealous a Pastor.
(Vatican Radio) Saying Jesus' path is serving others, Pope Francis urged Christians on Tuesday to overcome the lure of worldliness and human ambition and warned against social climbers who are tempted to destroy the other in order to reach the top. His remarks came during his homily at the morning Mass celebrated in the Santa Marta residence. The gospel reading where Jesus’ disciples were arguing among themselves over who was the greatest was used by the Pope for his reflections about the dangers of power, money, ambition and vanity. He noted that whereas Jesus was warning his disciples about his coming humiliation and death, they were concerned with worldly matters such as who would become the most powerful among them.Christians must overcome the temptation to be social climbers, seeking powerIn response to the apostles’ arguments, Pope Francis reminded of Jesus' warning to his disciples that "if anyone wishes to be first he shall be the last of all ...
(Vatican Radio) Saying Jesus' path is serving others, Pope Francis urged Christians on Tuesday to overcome the lure of worldliness and human ambition and warned against social climbers who are tempted to destroy the other in order to reach the top. His remarks came during his homily at the morning Mass celebrated in the Santa Marta residence.
The gospel reading where Jesus’ disciples were arguing among themselves over who was the greatest was used by the Pope for his reflections about the dangers of power, money, ambition and vanity. He noted that whereas Jesus was warning his disciples about his coming humiliation and death, they were concerned with worldly matters such as who would become the most powerful among them.
Christians must overcome the temptation to be social climbers, seeking power
In response to the apostles’ arguments, Pope Francis reminded of Jesus' warning to his disciples that "if anyone wishes to be first he shall be the last of all and the servant of all."
“Along the path where Jesus shows us to journey, the guiding principle is service. The greatest is the person who serves most, who serves others most, not the person who boasts, who seeks power, money… vanity, pride. No, these people are not the greatest. And this is what happened here with the apostles, even with the mother of John and James, it’s an event that happens every day in the Church, in every community. ‘But which of us is the greatest? Who’s in charge?’ Ambitions: there is always this desire to be a social climber, to have power, in every community, parish or institution.”
No to bad mouthing others in order to rule
Pope Francis went on to stress how service is still the Church’s message to us nowadays. Whilst the world speaks about who has more power to be in charge, Jesus reminds us that He came amongst us “to serve” and not “to be served.”
“Vanity and power … and how and when I have this worldly desire to seek power, not to serve but to be served and spare no efforts to get there: gossiping, speaking ill of others… Envy and jealousy create this path and they both destroy. And we all know this. This occurs in every institution of the Church: parishes, colleges, other institutions, even in the dioceses … everywhere. There’s this desire for worldliness and this is all about wealth, vanity and pride.”
Worldliness is the enemy of God and divides the Church
Reiterating that Jesus came to serve, the Pope said Christ has showed us the true path of Christian life: service, humility. He explained that when the great saints spoke of being very sinful,the reason for this was was because they had this worldliness inside them and they had many worldly temptations. None of us, he stressed, can say ‘I am a holy and pure person.’
“All of us are tempted by these things, we are tempted to destroy the other person in order to climb higher. This is a worldly temptation but one that divides and destroys the Church. It is not the spirit of Jesus. It’s wonderful, we can imagine the scene: Jesus who says these words and his disciples who say ‘no, better to not question (Him) too much, let’s go ahead,’ his disciples who prefer to argue among themselves over who will be the greatest. We’d do well to think about the many times that we have seen this in the Church and about the many times that we ourselves have done this and ask our Lord to show us the way, to understand that love of this world, namely worldliness, is an enemy of God.”
Zagreb, Croatia, May 17, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA).- Was the controversial Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac a target of decades-long communist smears and disinformation? One researcher of the period says the facts can counter false claims about the beatified cardinal's wartime record.“Stepinac was and remains an enormous hero in Croatia today,” Prof. Ronald J. Rychlak told CNA.“Just about every church you go into there’s a picture or a statue or a painting of Stepinac. He’s truly a national hero over there. And he did stand against the Ustashe. He stood against the communists as well. They imprisoned him.”Cardinal Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death in 1960 at the age of 61.In Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the pro-Nazi Ustashe movement came to power under leader Ante Pavelic after the Axis occupied the country.“They were very vicious. They were considered worse than the Nazis in their persecution of Jews, of S...
Zagreb, Croatia, May 17, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA).- Was the controversial Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac a target of decades-long communist smears and disinformation? One researcher of the period says the facts can counter false claims about the beatified cardinal's wartime record.
“Stepinac was and remains an enormous hero in Croatia today,” Prof. Ronald J. Rychlak told CNA.
“Just about every church you go into there’s a picture or a statue or a painting of Stepinac. He’s truly a national hero over there. And he did stand against the Ustashe. He stood against the communists as well. They imprisoned him.”
Cardinal Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death in 1960 at the age of 61.
In Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the pro-Nazi Ustashe movement came to power under leader Ante Pavelic after the Axis occupied the country.
“They were very vicious. They were considered worse than the Nazis in their persecution of Jews, of Serbs, of anyone who got in their way,” said Rychlak, a professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Pope St. John Paul II beatified Cardinal Stepinac as a martyr in October 1998. His cause for canonization is still pending, but Pope Francis has arranged a special commission of Catholic and Orthodox leaders to explore his wartime record.
Many in the Serbian Orthodox community are deeply skeptical of the cardinal’s wartime record. For Rychlak, however, the historical record is on the cardinal’s side.
Pavelic, the Ustashe head, called himself a Catholic. The Ustashe claimed a Catholic background, and forcibly converted many people to Catholicism. The future cardinal initially cooperated with the government, but was not silent in the face of its crimes.
“Stepinac’s sermons against the Ustashe were so strong. They prohibited them from being published, because they were so strong against the Ustashe,” Rychlak said.
His words were secretly printed and circulated and occasionally broadcast over the radio.
“There’s a great story about a Nazi officer who came to Zagreb and he heard Stepinac preach,” Rychlak recounted. The archbishop condemned the Ustashe’s actions so strongly, the general said “If a churchman in Germany spoke like that, he would not step down from the pulpit alive.”
He severely condemned the Ustashe’s destruction of Zagreb’s main synagogue in 1941.
“A House of God, of whatever religion, is a holy place,” he said. “An attack on a House of God of any religion constitutes an attack on all religious communities.”
In October 1943 homily, the archbishop condemned notions of racial superiority.
“The Catholic Church knows nothing of races born to rule and born to slavery,” he said. “The Catholic Church knows races and nations only as creatures of God.”
The Ustashe lost control to Marshal Tito’s communists partisans, who had used Stepinac’s anti-Ustashe comments in their propaganda. Yugoslavia’s communists then turned on Archbishop Stepinac.
In 1946, Stepinac was put on trial for allegedly collaborating with the Ustashe’s crimes. The trial drew critical coverage from Western media like Time and Newsweek and protests from those who saw it as a show trial.
Among the trial’s critics was the American Jewish community leader Louis Breier, who organized protests in New York City support of the archbishop.
Archbishop Stepinac was denied effective representation and only met with his attorney for an hour before the trial. The government’s witnesses were told what to say, and the archbishop was not allowed to cross-examine them.
What you have is a false narrative created by Soviet agents.
He was sentenced to hard labor, but after a global outcry his sentence was reduced to house arrest.
“Nevertheless, it becomes the public record that he was convicted of collaboration,” Rychlak said.
Rychlak sees the trial and its aftermath as part of the same propaganda campaign that would target Pope Pius XII, Hungary’s Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty and other Eastern Bloc churchmen with claims of Nazi collaboration.
“What you have is a false narrative created by Soviet agents,” Rychlak said. “The directive would have come from the Kremlin.”
A communist-made movie circulated throughout Yugoslavia used footage of the archbishop’s trial in a misleading way.
At the trial, Archbishop Stepinac began his 18-minute criticism of the trial’s legitimacy with the phrase “I will not defend myself against these charges.” The movie only showed this first phrase, and not the archbishop’s lengthy criticism.
In the early 1960s, the Italian writer Carlo Falconi sought the records of the Stepinac trial from the Yugoslavian government. Rychlak said the government’s records show a “frantic rush” to respond.
“If they turn over the files as they existed, it would be clear that it’s a sham. They fabricate some documents, cherry-pick some documents, and send him some files,” the professor said.
Falconi’s book and its strong criticism of Stepinac then became a foundational text in criticisms of Pius XII’s wartime record.
After the fall of communism, one of the first acts of the new parliament was to apologize for the archbishop’s show trial. The archbishop’s prosecutor acknowledged the prosecution was motivated by the archbishop’s bad relationship with the communists, not because of his relationship with the Nazis. Others involved in the fabrication of documents came forward and denied that Cardinal Stepinac’s trial was legitimate.
“Disinformation is a false narrative that appears to come from a reliable source,” Rychlak said. “Once it’s out there, it takes on a life of its own.”
Rychlak authored the book “Hitler, the War, and the Pope,” a history of Pius XII in World War II. He co-authored the 2013 book “Disinformation” with Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former leader in the Romanian secret police and intelligence services who defected to the U.S. in 1978.
Pacepa has charged that many of the false claims about Cardinal Stepinac are due to the work of the Yugoslavian state security service UDBA and Soviet intelligence agents.
Three years after the cardinal’s trial, trial, Vyshinksy became foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
After five years in a Yugoslav jail, Archbishop Stepinac was given the option of seeking refuge in Rome or confinement under house arrest in his home parish. He chose the latter.
In 1953, Pope Pius XII made him a cardinal, although he was never allowed travel to the Holy See to be officially elevated. He died in 1960 of an alleged blood disorder, which was said to have been caused by the conditions he endured in jail. Recent tests of his remains by Vatican investigators show evidence he was also poisoned.
In June 2011 Pope Benedict XVI praised Cardinal Stepinac as a courageous defender of those oppressed by the Ustase, including Serbs, Jews and gypsies.
He said the cardinal stood against “the dictatorship of communism, where he again fought for the faith, for the presence of God in the world, the true humanity that is dependent on the presence of God.”
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Oklahoma City center Steven Adams has apologized for describing Golden State's guards as "quick little monkeys" in an interview with ESPN following the Thunder's 108-102 win over the Warriors in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals....
HAARLEM, Netherlands (AP) -- With crime declining in the Netherlands, the country is looking at new ways to fill its prisons. The government has let Belgium and Norway put prisoners in empty cells and now, amid the huge flow of migrants into Europe, several Dutch prisons have been temporarily pressed into service as asylum-seeker centers....
