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HONOLULU (AP) -- The U.S. Navy officer in charge of a flight crew that located three castaways on a remote Pacific island said Monday he has never seen or heard of another rescue quite like it....
Gaza City, Apr 11, 2016 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- Newly uncovered ancient ruins of Byzantine-era church are threatened by the construction of a commercial shopping mall in Gaza, with Palestinian Christians and archaeologists making desperate appeals to save a piece of history.“It breaks one’s heart to see such destruction of a valuable source of history and one just cannot wipe out thousands-of-years-old history and its significant value,” a young person based in the Holy Land, who wanted to go unnamed, told CNA Apr 11.“It should not be looked at as a religious issue but a discovery of a treasure, knowledge…But developers see the site as an opportunity. We pray that peace prevails in the region.”Construction workers were preparing a large area of land for the construction of a new shopping mall. On April 2, they found ancient ruins believed to be from a Byzantine church dating back as early as the fourth or fifth century A.D.The discovery included sever...

Gaza City, Apr 11, 2016 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- Newly uncovered ancient ruins of Byzantine-era church are threatened by the construction of a commercial shopping mall in Gaza, with Palestinian Christians and archaeologists making desperate appeals to save a piece of history.
“It breaks one’s heart to see such destruction of a valuable source of history and one just cannot wipe out thousands-of-years-old history and its significant value,” a young person based in the Holy Land, who wanted to go unnamed, told CNA Apr 11.
“It should not be looked at as a religious issue but a discovery of a treasure, knowledge…But developers see the site as an opportunity. We pray that peace prevails in the region.”
Construction workers were preparing a large area of land for the construction of a new shopping mall. On April 2, they found ancient ruins believed to be from a Byzantine church dating back as early as the fourth or fifth century A.D.
The discovery included several valuable artifacts including a foundation stone nearly three feet long. It had been engraved with a common Greek symbol for Christ. There were also several Corinthian-style marble pillars, one of which is almost 10 feet tall.
Meanwhile, Christians and archaeologists have criticized local authorities for their handling of the discovery. They say the authorities have been silent and have done nothing to protect the historical archaeological area where the construction work has continued.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has appealed to the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO and to the local Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The local government lacks adequate personnel and funds to preserve the excavations.
Jamal Abu Rida, the general director of the antiquities ministry, said in a statement that the site has historical value.
The site is located near Gaza’s old spice market, the 1,000-year-old Omari Mosque and the fifth century Church of Saint Porphyrius.
Gaza was a prosperous seaport during the time of the Roman Empire. It had a diverse population of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Egyptians and Persians.
The region is birthplace of St. Hilarion, who founded Palestinian monasticism. He built the first monastery in Palestine in 329 A.D. There was widespread church construction in Gaza in the late fourth and early fifth centuries A.D.
“During that era, there was a great interest among the Byzantine rulers to build churches in the Gaza Strip,” Abu Rida said, according to Reuters.
This continued until the Muslim general Amr Ibn Al As conquered Gaza in 637 A.D.
Abu Rida said his ministry’s mission is “to preserve our Palestinian history before Islam and after Islam.”
Father Ibrahim Nairouz, a Palestinian clergyman of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, has objected to the treatment of the ruins. He protested what he said was the insensitive approach of the authorities in handling the issue, the Jerusalem Post reports. He has written to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and to the Palestinian Minister of Antiquities and Tourism to save the valuable archeological site.
“If they had found the remains of a mosque or a synagogue or any other ancient would they have handled the situation in the same way?” Fr. Nairouz said.
Other action came from Hiam Al-Bitar, Director of Museums and Antiquities at the Ministry of Tourism. She said that it is important to rise above all political differences and continue to communicate.
She said the presentation of shared human history is in the interest of every Palestinian.
Al-Bitar has also appealed to UNESCO to help preserve the archaeological discovery. She wants the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem to come to Gaza to study the site.
Photo credit: TUM2282 via www.shutterstock.com.
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New York City, N.Y., Apr 11, 2016 / 02:39 pm (CNA).- Christopher Bell was in his twenties and living in Times Square when he heard something that sounded like the voice of God.Bell had been working with homeless and runaway kids in New York City, when he encountered pregnant women with young children who had no homes. At the time, Bell said there were no long-term programs that were ministering to pregnant women with other children.“I thought there was a need to have longer-term housing for mothers and babies, but I didn’t know what to do,” Bell told CNA.“I was close to Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and I complained to him, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something to help these young mothers and children?’”Fr. Groeschel, founder of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, told Bell that he would help him start the ministry that would eventually become Good Counsel Homes. Hearing those words from Fr. Groeschel “sounded almost li...

New York City, N.Y., Apr 11, 2016 / 02:39 pm (CNA).- Christopher Bell was in his twenties and living in Times Square when he heard something that sounded like the voice of God.
Bell had been working with homeless and runaway kids in New York City, when he encountered pregnant women with young children who had no homes. At the time, Bell said there were no long-term programs that were ministering to pregnant women with other children.
“I thought there was a need to have longer-term housing for mothers and babies, but I didn’t know what to do,” Bell told CNA.
“I was close to Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and I complained to him, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something to help these young mothers and children?’”
Fr. Groeschel, founder of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, told Bell that he would help him start the ministry that would eventually become Good Counsel Homes. Hearing those words from Fr. Groeschel “sounded almost like the voice of God and it was a great encouragement,” Bell recalled.
Good Counsel Homes was founded soon after in 1985 with the goal of helping women with children get off the streets and find stability through work or education.
“As soon as we opened on March 10, 1985, we were getting calls from women who were pregnant and women who were pregnant with other born children... So we responded to the need and took in the mothers,” Bell said.
Since 1985, Good Counsel Homes has aided more than 7,000 women at their residence homes and have expanded to four additional houses in New York and New Jersey.
During their time at Good Counsel Homes, the women in residence are offered finance, health, relationship and life-skills classes, as well as information about child growth and development. The average stay for a mother and her children at Good Counsel Homes is about 13 months, which allows them enough time to establish a job or some kind of stable independence.
Bell still remembers the first woman who came to Good Counsel Homes. She had a small son, but said that he was not her first child. She previously had an abortion when she was in high school, having been told that her nine-week-old baby in utero was a “blob of bloody tissue.”
After this experience, Bell found that about half of the women who came through Good Counsel Homes had been involved in an abortion. He decided to start an extension ministry of Good Counsel Homes called Lumina, to help individuals who had been affected by an abortion.
“Lumina is not only for the women of Good Counsel to learn about post-abortion healing, but also for women and men and siblings around the country to be educated and to find groups and healing and hope,” Bell said, adding “we want all of those involved in abortion to know that God can forgive you.”
Bell has experienced countless other difficult situations in which the women at Good Counsel Homes have been victims of rape or incest. He also recalled a woman who had been advised by her doctor to abort because her unborn child could potentially be born with defects.
“It's horribly unfortunate and really incomprehensible to me that doctors in these kinds of situations only offer pregnant women a termination,” he reflected.
“We know that even if the child is only going to live a few moments, it’s healthier physically, and it’s healthier psychologically, and certainly it’s healthier spiritually for the mother to give birth to her child - to let nature and to allow God to have his way.”
Over the years, there have almost been 1,000 births from the women who have resided at Good Counsel Homes. They have also been instrumental in opening additional maternity homes in eight other states across the country. However, Bell says this “is not enough.”
“We are now looking to open or merge with other maternity homes,” Bell stated, saying they will accept women of all statuses, regardless of poor mental health or addictive behaviors.
“We want to take women in and try to help them make those next big steps. And we’d like to see other homes like ours open throughout the country.”
The Good Counsel Homes hotline is (800)-723-8331.
IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul JeffreyBy Paul JeffreyIRBIL, Iraq (CNS) -- Adelegation of U.S. Catholic leaders visiting northern Iraq was challenged to gohome and work for peace in the troubled region."You have come to listen toyour brothers and sisters in Iraq who are suffering. The situation is veryhard. We cry out with one voice, 'Don't forget us,'" Auxiliary BishopShlemon Warduni of Baghdad said during a Mass in the small village of Inishke,near Dahuk. The Chaldean Catholic serviceincluded members of the local Christian community, as well as Christians whowere displaced by the Islamic State group from elsewhere in Iraq.Representatives of the Yezidi and Muslim communities also greeted thedelegation, which was headed by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chair ofthe Catholic Near East Welfare Association. He was accompanied by BishopWilliam F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, who is also on the CNEWAboard.The group spent April 9-11 inKurdistan, the autonomous region of northern I...

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey
By Paul Jeffrey
IRBIL, Iraq (CNS) -- A delegation of U.S. Catholic leaders visiting northern Iraq was challenged to go home and work for peace in the troubled region.
"You have come to listen to your brothers and sisters in Iraq who are suffering. The situation is very hard. We cry out with one voice, 'Don't forget us,'" Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad said during a Mass in the small village of Inishke, near Dahuk.
The Chaldean Catholic service included members of the local Christian community, as well as Christians who were displaced by the Islamic State group from elsewhere in Iraq. Representatives of the Yezidi and Muslim communities also greeted the delegation, which was headed by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, chair of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. He was accompanied by Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, who is also on the CNEWA board.
The group spent April 9-11 in Kurdistan, the autonomous region of northern Iraq. When Islamic State swept through Mosul and Qaraqosh in 2014, more than 125,000 Christians, along with other victims, fled to safety in Kurdistan, where CNEWA has helped local churches construct housing, clinics and schools.
Yet Bishop Warduni said peace trumps humanitarian aid any day.
"We don't want anything. Iraq is very rich, but now it is very poor. We only want our rights to go back to our homes and villages," he said.
Looking directly at Cardinal Dolan, Bishop Warduni said: "We need a good Samaritan, but a new one, and this is you, along with the other leaders who came with you. We thank you and your people, for they have done so much for us with their prayers and with their money. But we ask you to ask your government to establish peace in our country. Tell your president, please, that our children and our youth want to grow in freedom. Your Eminence, take with you our good wishes to your faithful, and don't forget us."
In his homily for the Mass, Cardinal Dolan told those packed into the small church: "You are now suffering away from your homes and families. You are on the cross with Jesus. But we can never forget that Easter always conquers Good Friday. The resurrection always triumphs over the cross."
Speaking through a translator because the service was in Aramaic, Cardinal Dolan said: "Jesus is alive in the love and charity that his people have for one another. That is why in our time here in Kurdistan we have seen Jesus alive in hospitals and clinics and refugee camps and schools and parishes like this. And it is our privilege to be able to be part of this love and charity that you have for one another here."
"We have come to tell you we love you very much," Cardinal Dolan said. "We know of your suffering. And we can never forget you."
In an April 11 Mass in a camp for the displaced in Ankawa, on the outskirts of Irbil, the delegation got the same message it heard the previous day.
"We feel very grateful for this fraternal solidarity that you are showing. And we all do hope that you will intervene with your government, with those who have a word to say on the international scene, to be faithful to the principles on which your country was founded. That includes the right of all people, every human being, to live in freedom and dignity," Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan said in his homily.
"When we see that strong nations like yours uphold the rights of those who have been uprooted, at that time we will really live the hope of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ."
In an interview at the end of the visit, Cardinal Dolan told Catholic News Service that the pastoral visit would provoke renewed advocacy back home.
"We value the relationship we have with our government, but we sometimes smile when outsiders think we have a lot more clout than we really have. But that's not going to stop us from trying," the cardinal said. "When we get back, Bishop Murphy and I will brief our fellow bishops and the Holy See, and we will share with our political leaders what we have seen and heard. We owe it to the people here because they have asked us to do that."
Cardinal Dolan acknowledged that the church's counsel was rejected in the lead up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which many believe helped create the conditions from which Islamic State emerged.
"Catholics in the United States can at least be grateful that, more often than not, the church has been on the right side when it comes to these issues," Cardinal Dolan said. "Pope St. John Paul II told our presidents, 'This will be a road of no return, and you will look back in future years and regret what you're doing.'"
Bishop Murphy said the U.S. bishops always spoke of the need for caution in the region.
"Maybe we were too cautious with our cautionary words, and I think you could make a case for that, but there are a lot of people who have strong opinions against what happened who voted for it at the time. We never did," he told CNS.
As they visited with the displaced and the pastoral workers who accompany them, some of what the U.S. church leaders saw and heard was not easy to experience. In an April 9 public forum in a displaced camp in Ankawa, Amal Mare was one of several displaced persons who offered testimony. She praised local Christians for welcoming her family when they fled from Qaraqosh.
"Yet when are we going to be able to leave? We are living here in misery, and we want to go back to Qaraqosh," she said, sobbing as Cardinal Dolan embraced her. "We miss our churches. We are sons and daughters of the church. Here we created a church in this hall, and every night for the last 18 months we have all prayed the rosary here. But now we're losing hope. How much longer will we have to wait?"
Meeting April 9 with a group of students at the Chaldean Catholic St. Peter's Seminary in Irbil, Cardinal Dolan told the seminarians that they had good models of ministry from which to learn.
"Pope Francis keeps saying that we priests must be with our people. We just came from a refugee camp where we met a priest who slept outside on his mattress because he said he couldn't sleep inside if his people were outside. We've met with sisters and priests who walked with the people from Mosul as they were fleeing. That's the model of the priesthood. That's Jesus. To be with our people all the time, to be especially close to your people in the difficult times," the cardinal said.
Bishop Murphy told the seminarians he was impressed by their faithfulness in the midst of violence and terror.
"Although these are difficult times, the church has always known difficult times. You lift me up. It is the strength of your faith that has brought you here, and it is that faith which gives me great hope for your future," he said.
The head of the Chaldean Catholic community in Kurdistan, which has provided a variety of services to the displaced, praised the church leaders' visit.
"It has been a visit of solidarity, a visit of love, a visit of hope, where we can really feel that we are not forgotten, that we've been in the prayers of His Eminence and the bishops and the whole Christian community in America. It means a lot for us," Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil told Catholic News Service.
"And once we're not forgotten, we are sure they will make every possible effort to remind the politicians, to remind everyone, that there are persecuted, vulnerable communities in Iraq. They are Christians, Yezidis and others, and we have to do something for them. We are brothers, and whenever a brother suffers or experiences sadness, the family gets together, prays together, and works together to overcome this."
In addition to Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Murphy, the delegation included Msgr. John Kozar, president of CNEWA, and Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York.
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