Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 11, 2016 / 05:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The last known surviving soldier of the Cristero War, Juan Daniel Macías Villegas, died last month in his home town of San Julián, Mexico. He was 103 years old. Mexican photojournalist Alejandro Moreno Merino told CNA that the funeral rites for Macías took place at San José church, with his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren in attendance.The attendees walked in procession almost two miles to the cemetery next to the “Cristero National Guard,” a Catholic organization that seeks to preserve the memory of the martyrs who died during the religious persecution in Mexico in the early 20th century.Mexico's Cristero War was sparked by anti-clerical legislation being passed by the Mexican President Elías Calles in 1926.The laws banned religious orders, deprived the Church of property rights and denied priests civil liberties, includ...
Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 11, 2016 / 05:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The last known surviving soldier of the Cristero War, Juan Daniel Macías Villegas, died last month in his home town of San Julián, Mexico. He was 103 years old.
Mexican photojournalist Alejandro Moreno Merino told CNA that the funeral rites for Macías took place at San José church, with his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren in attendance.
The attendees walked in procession almost two miles to the cemetery next to the “Cristero National Guard,” a Catholic organization that seeks to preserve the memory of the martyrs who died during the religious persecution in Mexico in the early 20th century.
Mexico's Cristero War was sparked by anti-clerical legislation being passed by the Mexican President Elías Calles in 1926.
The laws banned religious orders, deprived the Church of property rights and denied priests civil liberties, including the right to trial by jury and the right to vote.
As the restrictions on religious liberty increased, Catholics could be fined or imprisoned for teaching Church doctrine, wearing clerical attire, meeting together after their convents were disbanded, promoting religious life or holding religious services in non-church locations.
The persecution became so fierce that thousands of Catholics began to forcibly resist, fighting under the slogan and banner of “Cristo Rey” (Christ the King).
— ACI Prensa (@aciprensa) March 10, 2016
Macías was among those who fought the persecution. Born on July 21, 1912 in a town called Rancho de los Palos Verdes, he was baptized by a priest named Father Narciso Elizondo, the same one who years later blessed him when he took up arms.
When he was 13 years old, he started to fight with the “Cristeros” under the famed General Victoriano Ramírez and was part of his squadron called “the Dragons of El Catorce.” He took part in various campaigns in the Jalisco and Guanajuato highlands area, and in the second Cristero campaign (1935-1937) under the command of Lauro Rocha.
After the war, Macías lived in the rural community of San Julián until the day he died. This area produces milk and raises cattle, and also was the first town to take up arms on January 1, 1927 against the repressive government laws of that time.
MIAMI (AP) -- Nine months after Donald Trump became a presidential candidate, his rivals are still searching for a formula to stop his improbable political rise....
MIAMI (AP) -- Nine months after Donald Trump became a presidential candidate, his rivals are still searching for a formula to stop his improbable political rise....
(Vatican Radio) Japan is marking the fifth anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that left thousands of people dead and triggered the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.Listen to Christopher Wells’ report: The 9.0-magnitude quake struck offshore on a chilly Friday, sparking huge black waves along a vast swathe of coastline and killing nearly 20,000 people.The tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant, where meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation over a wide area of the countryside, contaminating water, food and air.More than 160,000 people were evacuated from nearby towns and some 10 percent still live in temporary housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their hometowns and have begun new lives. Some areas remain no-go zones due to the high radiation.On Friday, Emperor Akihito Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in a ceremony in Tokyo that included a moment of silence at the time the quake struck. Bells rang out in the cit...
(Vatican Radio) Japan is marking the fifth anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that left thousands of people dead and triggered the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.
Listen to Christopher Wells’ report:
The 9.0-magnitude quake struck offshore on a chilly Friday, sparking huge black waves along a vast swathe of coastline and killing nearly 20,000 people.
The tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant, where meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation over a wide area of the countryside, contaminating water, food and air.
More than 160,000 people were evacuated from nearby towns and some 10 percent still live in temporary housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their hometowns and have begun new lives. Some areas remain no-go zones due to the high radiation.
On Friday, Emperor Akihito Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in a ceremony in Tokyo that included a moment of silence at the time the quake struck. Bells rang out in the city centre and residents across the nation bowed their heads in remembrance. Japan marked the day with prayers and graveside visits.
Billions of dollars in government spending have helped stricken communities rise from the ruins, including elevating the earth to protect them from future waves and cleaning radiation-contaminated land, but much remains to be done for thousands still languishing in barracks-like temporary housing.
Amnesty International has condemned the 2015 suffocation of men and boys, by South Sudanese forces, on the grounds of a parish belonging to Comboni missionaries. According to a press release made available to Vatican Radio by Amnesty international, South Sudanese government forces deliberately suffocated more than 60 men and boys who were detained in a shipping container before dumping their bodies in an open field in Leer town, Unity State, according to new evidence gathered by Amnesty International. The organisation’s researchers recently visited the grounds of the Comboni Catholic Church where the October 2015 killings took place. They also visited the site, about one kilometre from Leer town, where the bodies were dumped. They found the remains of many broken skeletons still strewn across the ground. The findings are contained in a new briefing South Sudan: ‘Their Voices Stopped’: Mass Killing in a Shipping Container in Leer.According...
Amnesty International has condemned the 2015 suffocation of men and boys, by South Sudanese forces, on the grounds of a parish belonging to Comboni missionaries.
According to a press release made available to Vatican Radio by Amnesty international, South Sudanese government forces deliberately suffocated more than 60 men and boys who were detained in a shipping container before dumping their bodies in an open field in Leer town, Unity State, according to new evidence gathered by Amnesty International.
The organisation’s researchers recently visited the grounds of the Comboni Catholic Church where the October 2015 killings took place. They also visited the site, about one kilometre from Leer town, where the bodies were dumped. They found the remains of many broken skeletons still strewn across the ground. The findings are contained in a new briefing South Sudan: ‘Their Voices Stopped’: Mass Killing in a Shipping Container in Leer.
According to witnesses, between 20 and 23 October 2015, government soldiers arbitrarily arrested dozens of men and boys in Luale village and Leer town. They then forced them, with their hands tied behind their backs, into one or more shipping containers located at the Comboni Catholic Church.
By the following morning, all but one of the remaining detainees had died. One witness told Amnesty International researchers.
About sixty Grade 4 boys of Hartmann House Preparatory School in Harare, Zimbabwe have visited and made generous donations of groceries to Makumbi Children’s Home at Makumbi Mission. The donations were made as part the school’s Lenten project.According to the head of the boys’ delegation, Mrs Virginia Darrell, the gift of groceries to the home, housing about 80 orphaned and homeless children, came in the context of the school’s Lenten project of assisting the less privileged and training the boys to be men for others.“We have adopted Makumbi project for our Lenten appeal and at Hartmann House we have a code of conduct where we train these boys to be men for others…” said Mrs Darrell.Thanking the boys and the school for the donations, the children’s home Matron, Sr Diana, LBCL, expressed her gratitude to Hartmann’s for the thoughtfulness and continued support to the children at Makumbi.Hartmann House is a Jesuit sch...
About sixty Grade 4 boys of Hartmann House Preparatory School in Harare, Zimbabwe have visited and made generous donations of groceries to Makumbi Children’s Home at Makumbi Mission. The donations were made as part the school’s Lenten project.
According to the head of the boys’ delegation, Mrs Virginia Darrell, the gift of groceries to the home, housing about 80 orphaned and homeless children, came in the context of the school’s Lenten project of assisting the less privileged and training the boys to be men for others.
“We have adopted Makumbi project for our Lenten appeal and at Hartmann House we have a code of conduct where we train these boys to be men for others…” said Mrs Darrell.
Thanking the boys and the school for the donations, the children’s home Matron, Sr Diana, LBCL, expressed her gratitude to Hartmann’s for the thoughtfulness and continued support to the children at Makumbi.
Hartmann House is a Jesuit school serving the Catholic community of Zimbabwe. Traditionally, Catholics use the 40 days period of Lent for prayer, fasting, penance, almsgiving and works of charity.
Pretoria, South Africa, Mar 11, 2016 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Repentance, spiritual healing, and hard conversations are necessary to respond to racism and racial divisions, the bishops of South Africa said on Monday.The Holy Spirit “calls us as a country to be healed; to build and develop relationships of equality, dignity and mutual respect,” the bishops wrote. “Dialogue, rational and respectful, is necessary so that we open ourselves to receive God’s healing.”The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference on March 7 released its pastoral letter “A Call to Overcome Racism.” In addition to the South Africa, the conference includes the bishops of Botswana and Swaziland.“In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, as Church in Southern Africa, we commit ourselves to a credible and comprehensive conversation on racism,” the bishops said. “We realize that this is not an easy conversation, one that many of us may prefer to avoid...
Pretoria, South Africa, Mar 11, 2016 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Repentance, spiritual healing, and hard conversations are necessary to respond to racism and racial divisions, the bishops of South Africa said on Monday.
The Holy Spirit “calls us as a country to be healed; to build and develop relationships of equality, dignity and mutual respect,” the bishops wrote. “Dialogue, rational and respectful, is necessary so that we open ourselves to receive God’s healing.”
The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference on March 7 released its pastoral letter “A Call to Overcome Racism.” In addition to the South Africa, the conference includes the bishops of Botswana and Swaziland.
“In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, as Church in Southern Africa, we commit ourselves to a credible and comprehensive conversation on racism,” the bishops said. “We realize that this is not an easy conversation, one that many of us may prefer to avoid.”
They said such conversations can evoke such emotions as self-justification, self-righteousness, guilt and denial, or anger and sadness.
This means acknowledging racism in the Church before, during and after apartheid, the strict racial segregration of South Africa which ended in 1994.
The bishops took a repentant attitude.
“In humility, as St. Peter confessed, we your pastors prostrate before God and before all who are in pain, ask for forgiveness for our historic complicity with racism in the Church,” they said.
They called on “the faithful and all people of goodwill to do all in our power to address the problem of racism in our society and in the Church.” They encouraged South Africans to address the social trauma resulting from colonialism and apartheid.
“We need to acknowledge the link between race, power and privilege,” they said. “We need to redress urgently the economic inequalities present in our society as a result of past racial discriminatory laws and practices; to allay unfounded fears and promotes justice.”
The bishops said that St. Peter and the early Church, “through the Holy Spirit,” overcame beliefs in racial superiority and the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability.
They cited St. Peter’s words in the Acts of the Apostles: “Truly I now perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
“Through our celebration of the Eucharist, the symbol of unity in the body of Christ, we ask the Lord to heal and transform the relationships in our dioceses and our parishes so that we become communities of faith where 'there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.'”
The bishops also offered practical advice, such as to avoid “loving only people who are just like ourselves.”
“In loving only those who share our racial and ethnic backgrounds, we fall short of fulfilling the demands of love which the Gospel calls for,” they said.
“While reaching out to one another, in open and honest dialogue, the sacrament of Reconciliation becomes especially important and meaningful because through it we come in our sinfulness to our all merciful Father for healing and forgiveness.”
Catholics should grow in appreciation for cultural diversity and its expression in the liturgy and parish activities, the bishops advised.
“Our experience of the Gospel call us to rejoice in diversity, to become more culturally inclusive and more enthusiastic in our appreciation of God’s gift of racial diversity,” they said. “This leads us to appreciate that in our parishes, in our religious communities and in our dioceses, the glory of the body of Christ is enriched and mediated through the various rich cultural, social economic contributions that each race and all ethnic groups contribute from their basket of traditions and social identities.”
They recommended “watchfulness and ardent prayer” to advance racial reconciliation. They encouraged parish and family prayer campaigns to overcome racism, special days of prayer and fasting, and cooperation with parishes across racial lines. They also encouraged cooperation with organizations that help combat racism.
The bishops’ conference will adopt a process to deal with issues of racism for use in small group reflections, in dioceses and parishes.
BOSTON (AP) -- Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, genealogical research website Ancestry.com is making 10 million Catholic parish records from Ireland - some dating to 1655 - available online for free to help people trace their Irish heritage....
BOSTON (AP) -- Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, genealogical research website Ancestry.com is making 10 million Catholic parish records from Ireland - some dating to 1655 - available online for free to help people trace their Irish heritage....
WAIANAE, Hawaii (AP) -- Allison Alterman likes to swim in the ocean for exercise near her home on Hawaii's Big Island. Sometimes her swimming group will see spinner dolphins gliding or jumping near their course....
WAIANAE, Hawaii (AP) -- Allison Alterman likes to swim in the ocean for exercise near her home on Hawaii's Big Island. Sometimes her swimming group will see spinner dolphins gliding or jumping near their course....
WILKINSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Police were seeking to identify suspects in a deadly ambush attack by two men who methodically shot and killed five people, including a pregnant woman, at a backyard cookout....
WILKINSBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Police were seeking to identify suspects in a deadly ambush attack by two men who methodically shot and killed five people, including a pregnant woman, at a backyard cookout....
