Catholic News 2
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- The host city of the annual Group of Seven foreign ministers' meeting that ends Monday has been reborn seven decades after Hiroshima was devastated by an atomic bomb in 1945. Here are five things to know about the western Japanese city of 1.2 million people, other than the bomb....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a stark warning for Donald Trump as he eyes a possible general election showdown with Hillary Clinton, Americans trust the Democratic front-runner more than the Republican businessman to handle a wide range of issues - from immigration to health care to nominating Supreme Court justices....
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- The Golden State Warriors got a momentous victory in the one place they hadn't won in nearly two decades....
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (AP) -- Rescue officials on Monday sifted through a Hindu temple in southern India where more than 100 died when a fireworks display - an unauthorized pyrotechnic display that went horribly wrong - swept through for a religious festival packed with thousands....
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the revered memorial to Hiroshima's atomic bombing on Monday, delivering a message of peace and hope for a nuclear-free world seven decades after United States used the weapon for the first time in history and killed 140,000 Japanese....
Washington D.C., Apr 10, 2016 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- He had a courtside seat to a historic college basketball game, but Fr. Rob Hagan has actually witnessed many games over the years – and more importantly, has ministered to many players.He’s the basketball team chaplain at Villanova University. “The whole reason I’m here is because I’m an Augustinian priest,” he told CNA in an interview, noting the university’s Augustinian roots.“I owe so much of everything that’s happened in my life to the Augustinians, and that foundation that started with me as a student here at Villanova, myself.”Fr. Hagan graduated from Villanova in 1987. He’s been the basketball team chaplain since 2004, and also serves as an associate athletic director at the school, overseeing compliance with the National Collegiate Athletics Association as well as sports medicine and health and safety.During the recent NCAA men’s basketball tourn...
Washington D.C., Apr 10, 2016 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- He had a courtside seat to a historic college basketball game, but Fr. Rob Hagan has actually witnessed many games over the years – and more importantly, has ministered to many players.
He’s the basketball team chaplain at Villanova University. “The whole reason I’m here is because I’m an Augustinian priest,” he told CNA in an interview, noting the university’s Augustinian roots.
“I owe so much of everything that’s happened in my life to the Augustinians, and that foundation that started with me as a student here at Villanova, myself.”
Fr. Hagan graduated from Villanova in 1987. He’s been the basketball team chaplain since 2004, and also serves as an associate athletic director at the school, overseeing compliance with the National Collegiate Athletics Association as well as sports medicine and health and safety.
During the recent NCAA men’s basketball tournament, an animated Fr. Hagan could be seen during Villanova games encouraging the team from the end of the bench. He got a front-row seat to Kris Jenkins’ historic three-point shot to win the championship game at the end, the first title-winning buzzer-beater in over 30 years.
He admitted his courtside seat was a big perk of his chaplaincy, as well as “the thrill of being with them (the team) during such an exciting journey” during the March tournament. However, his work – and his story – runs far deeper than a basketball game.
After his graduation from Villanova, he went to law school. Along the way, he considered a vocation to become an Augustinian priest despite misconstrued notions of what a vocation looked like.
“I kind of had this understanding of priesthood as someone who was kind of in church praying 24/7,” he continued, but then realized that many Augustinians were active chaplains in hospitals, schools, mission work, finance, and other areas.
“A lot of people talk about the notion of 'call,' as if St. Paul got knocked off his horse, and Moses saw the Burning Bush,” he added. His own calling turned out to be “not as radical as you might think.”
“And so over time, it just began to speak more and more to my heart,” he continued, and found that he actually used his gifts as a lawyer in the ministry.
“Meeting with people, building relationships, walking with them through difficult moments in their life and helping them see and find the light in the darkness is very much what lawyers do,” he noted
During his formation in seminary, he spent one year helping at a Staten Island parish only a few miles from Lower Manhattan – which happened to be during the 9/11 attacks.
“I had the incredible experience of dealing with people in loss and tragedy as our country kind of tried to heal from that incredible wound.”
The experience aided him later on as a priest he said.
After the 2003-04 basketball season, the long-time Villanova basketball chaplain retired, and Coach Jay Wright invited Fr. Hagan to take his place. He’s been the basketball chaplain for 12 years now.
Sports is “a wonderful metaphor for life,” he explained. “When you’re dealing with wins and losses and getting up when you’re down, and the value of teamwork and doing things together, and overcoming mistakes and hardship – there’s a lot of common ground between sport and spirituality.”
And in his ministry, he “inevitably” ends up in deep conversations “about the value of having a relationship with God, and the wisdom that comes from that, and the strength that comes from that, and the grace that comes from that,” he added.
However, he listens first before preaching. “As much as people like to think that I’m teaching and preaching to them, I’m doing more listening, and I listen to them,” he said. “And I get a sense of maybe what’s going on in their head and their heart.”
The “core values” of Villanova University are truth, unity, and love, he said, and these “are going to penetrate everything we do.”
These values surface in his daily ministry, when “you’re constantly building relationships, you’re constantly looking for ways to work together,” he said. This champion basketball team was built on that foundation, he said, on brotherhood and humility.
For example, during the middle of the season one of the players found out that his godfather had just died. His teammates were brothers to him, Fr. Hagan said. “These big tough strong guys were shedding real tears together for their friend who lost a close family member,” he said. “They were there for each other.”
Along with brotherhood, humility was actually key to the team’s championship run, Fr. Hagan explained. Every player was “willing to sacrifice a piece of themselves, whether it might be playing time, points, minutes, popularity, attention, adulation.”
There’s a saying that “it’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one’s concerned about who gets the credit,” he noted. “And these young men really exemplified that.”
The values don’t automatically translate into championship trophies, but the team’s focus is on something greater than awards, he said. “Whether we lose or we win, we don’t want that alone to define us and who we are. But rather, how we cared and played for each other.”
Relationships being more important than trophies “is a counter-cultural message,” he admitted. “TV highlights the one who makes the dunk, who scores all the points, and who signs the big contract,” but “what lies beneath that are all the intangible things that often go unnoticed that are really what’s most important.”
Humility, brotherhood – it’s an example for everyone. “What a great message for others, whether you’re in a family, in a marriage, running a business, working in a school – these are universal values,” he said.
Dohuk, Iraq, Apr 10, 2016 / 03:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On his second full day in Iraq, Cardinal Timothy Dolan traveled three hours to Dohuk, the city where the majority of those who fled Mosul, including the members of the minority Yazidi population, escaped to when ISIS overran the city.After the lengthy ride, Cardinal Dolan briefly visited a medical dispensary set up by CNEWA, where he greeted the staff and some refugees, most of whom come from Mosul.He then traveled to the Inishke village in the upper region of Dohuk where he concelebrated Mass in the Chaldean rite in the presence of the local Christian community, a number of refugees, as well as representatives of the Yazidi and Muslim communities.The principal celebrant for the Mass was Bishop Shlemom Wardoni, who is one of three auxiliary bishops serving under Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. Members of other rites, including the Syriac-Catholic rite, were also present at the Mass, including a number of displaced priests...
Dohuk, Iraq, Apr 10, 2016 / 03:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On his second full day in Iraq, Cardinal Timothy Dolan traveled three hours to Dohuk, the city where the majority of those who fled Mosul, including the members of the minority Yazidi population, escaped to when ISIS overran the city.
After the lengthy ride, Cardinal Dolan briefly visited a medical dispensary set up by CNEWA, where he greeted the staff and some refugees, most of whom come from Mosul.
He then traveled to the Inishke village in the upper region of Dohuk where he concelebrated Mass in the Chaldean rite in the presence of the local Christian community, a number of refugees, as well as representatives of the Yazidi and Muslim communities.
The principal celebrant for the Mass was Bishop Shlemom Wardoni, who is one of three auxiliary bishops serving under Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. Members of other rites, including the Syriac-Catholic rite, were also present at the Mass, including a number of displaced priests.
Although Cardinal Dolan was not the main celebrant at Mass, he preached the homily, conveying the core message that he came to share with everyone: “We love you…You are not forgotten.”
He then wrapped up his day with a visit to the Dawodiya displacement camp near Dohuk, which consists of roughly 2,200 people. About 60 to 70 percent of the camp’s inhabitants are Yazidi, while the rest are mainly Christians.
Some Muslims are also present in the camp, as well as a few other small minority religions.
The Yazidi population is one of Iraq's smallest ethnic-religious minorities. Of Kurdish descent, their religion is considered to be a pre-Islamic sect branching from Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism.
Most of the small community lived in Iraq's Nineveh province prior to the Islamic State's invasion. Their religion is syncretistic, and some Muslims consider the Yazidis to be devil worshippers.
Roughly 125 miles from Erbil, Dohuk is where the majority of Iraq’s Yazidi population now resides, as well as thousands of others forced to leave their homes in Mosul and Sinjar when ISIS unleashed an offensive that took the Nineveh Plain in June 2014.
When ISIS stormed Sinjar shortly after, many of the Yazidi population seeking to escape the attacks fled to the surrounding mountains. Facing the possibility of death if they retreated down the mountain, they had been stranded for days without access to food or water. Some, including children, died of dehydration due to the desert’s high temperatures.
They were finally released from the nightmare when the U.S. President Barack Obama air dropped shipments of food and water onto the mountain, and authorized airstrikes allowing them to safely flee to surrounding cities.
Cardinal Dolan’s trip to the city falls on the second day of his visit to Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is currently on a pastoral visit intended to offer support and solidarity to families, Church leaders, priests and religious who were displaced as a result of the 2014 ISIS attacks.
In addition to his role as Archbishop of New York, the cardinal is also chair of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Traveling with him is CNEWA board member Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, CNEWA President Msgr. John Kozar, and the Executive Director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York, Msgr. Kevin Sullivan. CNA is also part of the delegation.
BEIRUT (AP) -- Government forces and rebels clashed Sunday across northern and western Syria, imperiling a monthlong cease-fire ahead of peace talks in Geneva, while airstrikes pounded the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa, killing dozens....
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Danny Willett in a green jacket was hard to believe considering he wasn't even sure he could play the Masters two weeks ago....
DALLAS (AP) -- A man who was slain at an upscale suburban Dallas shopping center is identified in federal court documents as the acting leader of a notorious Mexican cartel, a claim that would run counter to the long-held belief that drug kingpins seldom try to hide in the United States....
