(Vatican Radio) Vatican Weekend for February 27, 2016 features our weekly report on the general audience of Pope Francis with pilgrims from across the world. This is followed by a timely spiritual reflection, a musical meditation and the story of a lady from our family tree of faith. At the end of the programme you can enjoy a chat with our popular 'Latin Lover'.A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:
(Vatican Radio) Vatican Weekend for February 27, 2016 features our weekly report on the general audience of Pope Francis with pilgrims from across the world. This is followed by a timely spiritual reflection, a musical meditation and the story of a lady from our family tree of faith. At the end of the programme you can enjoy a chat with our popular 'Latin Lover'.
A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:
Vatican City, Feb 26, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his first children's book Pope Francis touches on a variety of both lighthearted and sensitive topics from war and solving the world’s conflicts, to Sunday school, miracles and his preference for tango.When asked by 6-year-old Prajla from Albania if he liked to dance as a child, the Pope said he liked it “a lot! I liked to be together with other children, playing...dancing our typical dances from Argentina. I had a lot of fun.”He told Prajla that as a teenager he liked to dance tango, and that for him, to dance “is to experience joy and happiness.”“When someone is sad they can't dance. Generally kids have a big asset: being happy. And because of this when they are young they dance and express the joy in their heart,” he said, noting that “the people who can't experience joy in their heart are always serious.”Because of this, the Pope told children to dance, &l...
Vatican City, Feb 26, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his first children's book Pope Francis touches on a variety of both lighthearted and sensitive topics from war and solving the world’s conflicts, to Sunday school, miracles and his preference for tango.
When asked by 6-year-old Prajla from Albania if he liked to dance as a child, the Pope said he liked it “a lot! I liked to be together with other children, playing...dancing our typical dances from Argentina. I had a lot of fun.”
He told Prajla that as a teenager he liked to dance tango, and that for him, to dance “is to experience joy and happiness.”
“When someone is sad they can't dance. Generally kids have a big asset: being happy. And because of this when they are young they dance and express the joy in their heart,” he said, noting that “the people who can't experience joy in their heart are always serious.”
Because of this, the Pope told children to dance, “so that you aren't too serious when you are older!”
This is just one of the answers Pope Francis gave to the 30 children around the world who wrote to him with questions and drawings.
On March 1 Jesuit-run Loyola Press will release the book “Dear Pope Francis: The Pope Answers Letters from Children Around the World,” alongside Jesuit publishing houses in 11 other countries.
Eight children whose letters appear in the book, plus a few siblings, met with Pope Francis in a private audience at the Vatican Feb. 22 to present him with the Italian translation of the book, as well as all 259 letters collected for the project.
The Italian translation, “L'Amore Prima del Mondo,” is already available in bookstores.
A collection of 30 letters and drawings from children around the world aged 6-13, the book contains both questions from the youth, as well as Pope Francis' answers.
Pope Francis gave the project the official thumbs-up last May, when executives from Loyola Press traveled to Rome to pop the question on whether he would ever consider writing a children’s book.
Due to the Pope’s time constraints, he couldn't respond to all 259 letters, but was advised on which ones to select with the help of a special group of parents, grandparents, teachers, Jesuits, writers and children.
Letters included in the book come from across the globe, including countries such as Albania, Russia, China, Nigeria, Kenya, the Philippines and a school for displaced children in Syria.
In the book Pope Francis answers questions simple, fun questions from the youth, as well as heart-wrenching questions from children in warring countries.
When asked by Mohamed, 10, from Syria if the world will ever be beautiful again like it was before, the Pope responded by pointing out how after he died and ascended into heaven, Jesus promised that he would return, and that when he does, “everything will be new: a new heaven, a new earth.”
Because of this, “the world now will not be like it was in the past,” Francis said. He lamented that there are “evil people” who produce and sell arms in order to make war, people who hate, and people who are so attached to money that they will “even sell other people” to get more.
Although “this is terrible,” the Pope stressed that “this suffering is destined to end, you know? It’s not forever. Suffering is lived with hope, despite everything.”
Similarly, when asked by Michael, 9, from Nigeria asked how to end the world’s conflicts, Francis said that war “is only the fruit of egoism and greed.”
While he acknowledged that he can’t solve all the world’s problems, Pope Francis told the youth that “you and I can try to make this land a better world.”
“You know conflict, I understand. But there is not a magic wand. Everyone must be convinced that the best way of winning a war is not to do it. It’s not easy. But I will try. You try too.”
On a more lighthearted note, the Pope answered questions surrounding his “tall hat” (his miter), miracles, Sunday school, how Jesus walked on water and what he would like to do to make the world a better place.
Ana Maria, 10, from Brazil asked the Pope why children needed to go to catechism classes. In response, Francis said simply: “Go to catechism to know Jesus better!”
“If you have a friend you like to be with them in order to know them better. You like to be with a friend to play together, to get to know their family, their life, where they were born, where they live.”
Catechism, he said, “helps you in this, to know your friend Jesus better and to know his big family which is the Church.”
When William, 7, from the U.S. asked him what miracle he would perform if he could, Pope Francis said he would “heal children,” and that he still hasn’t been able to understand why children suffer.
“I pray about this question: why do children suffer? It’s my heart that asks me the question,” he said, noting how Jesus himself cried, “and in crying he understood our dramas.”
“If I could do a miracle, I would heal all children,” he added, and told William that “I’m not afraid to cry. You shouldn’t be either.”
On a fun note, when Natasha, 8, from Kenya asked him how Jesus walked on water, the Pope jested, saying that Jesus “didn’t fly or do somersaults swimming,” but walked normally like he was on the ground.
Jesus walked “one foot after the other, also seeing the fish under his feet partying and swimming fast,” the Pope explained, adding that since Jesus is God, “he can do everything. He can also walk calmly on water. God doesn’t sink, you know?”
Venice, Fla., Feb 26, 2016 / 05:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis marked the 10th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” by telling participants in a conference commemorating the document that not only is love God’s identity, but it’s also the very heart and life of the Church.“God does not simply have the desire or capacity to love; God is love: charity is his essence, it is his nature,” the Pope said Feb. 26.He said that while God is unique, he’s “not solitary; he cannot be alone, he cannot be closed in on himself because he is communion, he is charity; and charity by its nature is communicated and shared.”Pope Francis spoke to participants in a Feb. 25-26 conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the publication of retired pontiff Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” meaning “God is love.”The document, Francis said, touches on a theme that retrace...
Venice, Fla., Feb 26, 2016 / 05:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis marked the 10th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” by telling participants in a conference commemorating the document that not only is love God’s identity, but it’s also the very heart and life of the Church.
“God does not simply have the desire or capacity to love; God is love: charity is his essence, it is his nature,” the Pope said Feb. 26.
He said that while God is unique, he’s “not solitary; he cannot be alone, he cannot be closed in on himself because he is communion, he is charity; and charity by its nature is communicated and shared.”
Pope Francis spoke to participants in a Feb. 25-26 conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the publication of retired pontiff Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” meaning “God is love.”
The document, Francis said, touches on a theme that retraces “the entire history of the Church, which is also a history of charity. It is a story of the love received from God, to be carried to the world.”
Charity doesn’t mean “simply almsgiving to ease one’s conscience,” he said, but rather consists of “loving attentiveness towards the other which considers the other as one with himself and desires to share friendship with God.”
He said that the current Jubilee of Mercy is an opportune time “to return to this beating heart of our life and our witness, to the center of the proclamation of faith: God is love.”
Benedict’s encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” was published Dec. 25, 2005, just eight months after his election as Bishop of Rome.
Entitled “Love Never Fails: Perspectives 10 years after the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est,” the conference drew participants from all over the world to discuss the encyclical from theological and charitable perspectives, as well as the perspective of other religions such as Judaism and Islam.
It was organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which was founded by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1971 to oversee the Holy See’s charitable initiatives, including aid to the poor and humanitarian relief.
In his speech to the conference participants, Pope Francis said that one of the first things Benedict’s encyclical draws us to “is the face of God: who is the God we can encounter in Christ? How faithful and unsurpassable is his love?”
Every expression of love, solidarity and mutual sharing are only “a reflection” of the love which is God, he said, explaining that God never tires of pouring his love onto us, so we are therefore called to be witnesses to this love throughout the world.
“We should look to divine charity as to the compass which orients our lives, before embarking on any activity: there we find direction; from charity we learn how to see our brothers and sisters and the world,” Francis observed.
He said the encyclical also serves as a reminder that charity needs to be increasingly reflected in the life and activities of the Church.
“How I wish that everyone in the Church, every institution, every activity would show that God loves man!” he said, explaining that the mission of the Church’s charitable organizations is crucial, because they provide the impoverished with a more dignified life.
This mission “is of utmost importance because, not with words, but with concrete love it can make every person feel loved by the Father,” he said, and thanked all those to all those who are committed to this mission, “which challenges every Christian.”
Pope Francis said that his goal for the Holy Year of Mercy is that everyone can experience the grace of the jubilee by practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
To really live the works of mercy, he said, “means to conjugate the verb ‘to love’ according to Jesus. In this way then, all of us together can contribute concretely to the great mission of the Church: to communicate the love of God which is meant to be spread.”
Francis closed his speech by pointing the timeliness of the encyclical’s message, which indicates “the ever relevant prospect for the Church’s journey.”
“The more we live in this spirit, the more authentic we all are as Christians,” he said.
Portland, Ore., Feb 26, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Requests for physician-assisted suicide in Oregon have almost doubled annually since 2013, records for the state’s public health authority show.“What’s happened in America – and particularly in Oregon – is that we are changing absolute values, and then replacing it with personal choice,” Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, told CNA of the rise in requests for lethal prescriptions.According to data published by the Oregon Public Health Division earlier in February, there were 218 lethal prescriptions written there in 2015, a sharp increase from 155 in the previous year, and 121 in 2013.Although the average yearly increase in prescriptions was 12 percent, in 2014-15 it was 24 percent.These prescriptions are legal for terminally-ill patients who request them, as long as they find a physician willing to issue them. There are some regulations – two physicians have ...
Portland, Ore., Feb 26, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Requests for physician-assisted suicide in Oregon have almost doubled annually since 2013, records for the state’s public health authority show.
“What’s happened in America – and particularly in Oregon – is that we are changing absolute values, and then replacing it with personal choice,” Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, told CNA of the rise in requests for lethal prescriptions.
According to data published by the Oregon Public Health Division earlier in February, there were 218 lethal prescriptions written there in 2015, a sharp increase from 155 in the previous year, and 121 in 2013.
Although the average yearly increase in prescriptions was 12 percent, in 2014-15 it was 24 percent.
These prescriptions are legal for terminally-ill patients who request them, as long as they find a physician willing to issue them. There are some regulations – two physicians have to confirm details such as a patient’s home address and their cogency to make the decision, for instance.
Physician-assisted suicide is also legal in Washington and Vermont, while a law has passed through California but has not yet gone into effect. The “Death With Dignity” movement has worked to have the practice legalized in all states.
The proliferation in cases of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon has brought with it evidence of troubling incentives for depressed patients to quickly kill themselves without a lengthy period of consideration.
For instance, only five of the 132 persons who took lethal dosages in 2015 in Oregon were referred for psychiatric evaluation. Some years no referrals are made, Atteberry noted.
“They’re not receiving any sort of help. It’s being ignored,” she said.
A much higher number than five could have been medically depressed. According to a study conducted a few years ago by researchers from Oregon Health and Science University and the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and published in the British Medical Journal, 58 adults who had requested a lethal prescription or had shown interest in doing so were surveyed. 26 percent of them had depression, the researchers determined.
Atteberry said that Compassion & Choices, a non-profit working to spread the availability of physician-assisted suicide, has been pressuring more doctors to honor the requests of patients for lethal prescription.
Sometimes little more than a phone call is needed for the prescription.
Although few doctors could originally be counted on to reliably hand out lethal prescriptions, the number is increasing.
“We have doctor-shopping, because if a patient’s own doctor says no, it’s not the least bit difficult to call up Compassion & Choices and find a doctor who will,” Atteberry added.
Thus doctors who allow a patient to make a life-ending decision may not even be their regular physician.
Among patients who ingested a lethal dose in Oregon in 2015, the median length of their relationship with their doctor was just 9 weeks.
And from the patient’s first request for a lethal prescription until their death, the median length of time was just 45 days in Oregon in 2015. Cases lasted as few as 15 days.
“That’s not your long-time physician and your long deep thought that you’ve had between,” Atteberry reflected.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranians across the Islamic Republic voted Friday in the country's first election since its landmark nuclear deal with world powers, deciding whether to further empower its moderate president or side with hard-liners long suspicious of the West....
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) -- Like a giant pen stroke in the sky, an unarmed Minuteman 3 nuclear missile roared out of its underground bunker on the California coastline Thursday and soared over the Pacific, inscribing the signature of American power amid growing worry about North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons capable of reaching U.S. soil....
HESSTON, Kan. (AP) -- The Latest on the attack at a central Kansas factory (all times local):...
HOUSTON (AP) -- Marco Rubio waged an all-out verbal assault on Donald Trump Friday morning as his allies prepared to spend millions on new attack ads in key states, promising an aggressive and well-funded takedown effort the morning after the Republican front-runner was knocked on his heels on the debate stage....
ZURICH (AP) -- Soccer leaders have started voting in Friday's election for a new FIFA president, with Asian confederation head Sheikh Salman of Bahrain the favorite to succeed Sepp Blatter....
 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others.""Even as Americans rema...
 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others."
"Even as Americans remain troubled by abortion," wrote Cardinal Dolan, a powerful and well-funded lobby holds "that abortion must be celebrated as a positive good for women and society, and those who cannot in conscience provide it are to be condemned for practicing substandard medicine and waging a 'war on women'." He said this trend was seen recently when President Obama and other Democratic leaders prevented passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, "a modest measure to provide for effective enforcement" of conscience laws.
"While this is disturbing," said Cardinal Dolan, "it is also an opportunity." Pro-life Americans should reach out to "the great majority of Americans" who are "open to hearing a message of reverence for life." He added that "we who present the pro-life message must always strive to be better messengers. A cause that teaches the inexpressibly great value of each and every human being cannot show disdain or disrespect for any fellow human being." He encouraged Catholics to take part, through prayer and action, in the upcoming "9 Days for Life" campaign, January 16-24. More information on the campaign is available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJwfcefUiU
He also cited the Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis as a time for women and men to find healing through the Church's Project Rachel post-abortion ministry.
The full text of Cardinal Dolan's message is available online.
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Keywords: Roe v. Wade, anniversary, Pro-Life, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, 9 Days for Life, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Year of Mercy, Project Rachel, Pope Francis
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