Catholic News 2
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Janelle Monae stormed the Congo Square stage amid blaring guitars, pounding drums and a screaming crowd that grew even louder when she announced to a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival crowd that she intended to pay tribute to Prince....
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- More than 200,000 convicted felons will be able to cast ballots in the swing state of Virginia in November under a sweeping executive order Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Friday....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Friday she will appeal to South American trade blocs if she is removed from office, blasting the push to impeach her as a coup and a naked attempt by Brazil's elite to snatch power back from her Worker's Party....
LONDON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plunged into a whirlwind of royal socializing Friday that began over a birthday lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and ended at a dinner hosted by the trio of young royals who represent the future of the British monarchy....
PIKETON, Ohio (AP) -- Eight members of a family, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her 4-day-old baby next to her, were fatally shot in the head Friday, leaving their rural town reeling while a search was launched for whoever's responsible....
Vatican City, Apr 22, 2016 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The death of the songwriter, singer and music producer Prince drew reactions from the Vatican and praise for his musical talent.Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, sent a tweet quoting the artist’s song “Sometimes It Snows In April:”“Sometimes, sometimes I wish that life was never ending / All good things they say, never last.”The singer died at his Chanhassen, Minn. home on April 21 at the age of 57, the New York Times reports. His given name was Prince Rogers Nelson.Prince played guitars, keyboards and drums in multiple music genres since the late 1970s. He won the Grammy award seven times and achieved Top 10 hits like “When Doves Cry” and “1999.” His acclaimed 1984 movie and album “Purple Rain” was about an aspiring musician.The Italian edition of the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano spoke of the artist’s death in Giu...
Vatican City, Apr 22, 2016 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The death of the songwriter, singer and music producer Prince drew reactions from the Vatican and praise for his musical talent.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, sent a tweet quoting the artist’s song “Sometimes It Snows In April:”
“Sometimes, sometimes I wish that life was never ending / All good things they say, never last.”
The singer died at his Chanhassen, Minn. home on April 21 at the age of 57, the New York Times reports. His given name was Prince Rogers Nelson.
Prince played guitars, keyboards and drums in multiple music genres since the late 1970s. He won the Grammy award seven times and achieved Top 10 hits like “When Doves Cry” and “1999.” His acclaimed 1984 movie and album “Purple Rain” was about an aspiring musician.
The Italian edition of the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano spoke of the artist’s death in Giuseppe Fiorentino’s article “The Prince and the ‘labels’.”
Fiorentino said Prince had engaged in a long battle with the major music labels and with digital music platforms.
“Prince was then boycotted by those who control the pop music market,” Fiorentino charged.
He predicted an obsessive broadcast of Prince songs like “Purple Rain” that will only last a few days. The music company labels will “once again prevail over the reasons of true music.”
“And Prince will be back into obscurity, despite his undeniable talent that led him to a very natural way from rock to funk, from disco to jazz. What remains of it – beyond some of the excesses typical of the Eighties – is precisely the genius with which he could move between different genres. A rare gift in the world of pop music. That gray world dominated by the ‘labels’.”
While his music and performances were at times raunchy, his music sometimes had Christian-inspired overtones.
Prince was raised a Seventh Day Adventist and later became a Jehovah’s Witness, the Washington Post reports. His conversion became public in 2004 when a hometown newspaper reported that he was offering its publication the Watchtower door-to-door.
Washington D.C., Apr 22, 2016 / 04:41 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious freedom leaders applauded the U.S. State Department’s recent re-designation of nine countries – and the inclusion of one more – as the worst situations for religious freedom, but urged the agency to do more.After the State Department on April 14 added Tajikistan to its “Country of Particular Concern” list, keeping the nine countries already on the list, the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said it “welcomes the designation of these ten countries.”The countries already on the list were Burma, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Sudan.A “country of particular concern” is a term used by the State Department to denote the countries that present the worst situations for religious freedom in the world. Either these governments “engage in” or “tolerate” “severe viola...
Washington D.C., Apr 22, 2016 / 04:41 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious freedom leaders applauded the U.S. State Department’s recent re-designation of nine countries – and the inclusion of one more – as the worst situations for religious freedom, but urged the agency to do more.
After the State Department on April 14 added Tajikistan to its “Country of Particular Concern” list, keeping the nine countries already on the list, the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said it “welcomes the designation of these ten countries.”
The countries already on the list were Burma, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Sudan.
A “country of particular concern” is a term used by the State Department to denote the countries that present the worst situations for religious freedom in the world. Either these governments “engage in” or “tolerate” “severe violations of religious freedom that are systematic, ongoing and egregious,” USCIRF explained in its 2015 annual report.
Tajikistan, a Muslim-majority country in central Asia, was recommended to the list by USCIRF because its government has cracked down on minority religions in the country. The commission’s 2015 annual report explained that “numerous laws that severely restrict religious freedom have been implemented in the country since 2009.”
Restrictive actions include religions having to register with the government and ask permission for church meetings, heavy penalties for unregistered religious activity, and lack of due process for those tried under the country’s anti-extremism law.
Additionally, the State Department’s own International Religious Freedom report stated that “Tajikistan is the only country in the world in which the law prohibits persons under the age of 18 from participating in public religious activities.”
The USCIRF recommended in addition that Vietnam, Iraq, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, and Syria be designated as CPCs, though the State Department declined to include them on the list.
According to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the administration can legally pursue a number of actions, such as economic sanctions, against CPCs to hold them accountable and pressure them to honor freedom of religion.
The State Department also announced it would no longer be sanctioning four of the nations currently on the CPC list: Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The decision was made “following determinations that the important national interest of the United States required exercising this waiver authority,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an April 15 press briefing.
USCIRF responded by pressing the agency to take the actions against these offending countries as it is authorized to do.
“The CPC designation brings with it a unique toolbox of policy options to effectively promote religious freedom, and USCIRF encourages the Administration to use these tools,” Dr. Robert George, the commission's chairman, responded April 20.
PIKETON, Ohio (AP) -- Eight members of a family, including a mother sleeping in a bed with her 4-day-old baby next to her, were fatally shot in the head on Friday, leaving their rural town reeling while a manhunt was launched for whoever's responsible....
LONDON (AP) -- President Barack Obama called Friday for the overturning of a North Carolina law that requires transgender people to use public bathrooms conforming to the sex on their birth certificates and restricts protections for LGBT people....
LONDON (AP) -- Lending political backup to a struggling friend, President Barack Obama made a forceful plea Friday for Britons to heed Prime Minister David Cameron's call to stay in the European Union and dismissed critics who accused the U.S. president of meddling in British affairs....
