Catholic News 2

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Yaounde, Cameroon, Jun 2, 2017 / 02:45 pm (CNA).- The body of Cameroon Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Balla, who has reportedly committed suicide, has been found, African sources have reported.

The Bishop of Bafia in Cameroon had been declared missing earlier this week when his car was spotted on Wednesday near the Sanaha river, near the nation’s capital, Yaoundé.

A note was reportedly found in his car, which read: “Do not look for me! I am in the water.”

While many believe this was the bishop’s suicide note, others believe he may have been murdered, due to other unsolved murders of priests in the country. Boko Haram has been accused of kidnapping priests and nuns in the country.

The La Croix newspaper in its edition for Africa reported that the Cameroonian Bishops' Conference had issued a communique asking for prayers to find the Bishop, in whose car "the police have not found any sign of violence or blood."

2 Days ago Catholic Bishop of Bafia Cameroon ????????- Msgr Jean Marie Benoit BALLA was reported missing
2/7 pic.twitter.com/bWgL1suq7G

— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) June 2, 2017 Obianuju Ekeocha, founder of Culture of Life Africa, posted a series of photos of the Bishop’s car and pleas for prayers early in the morning on Friday, June 2.

Yesterday, fishermen discovered the body of the bishop underneath a bridge. He was 58 years old.

Investigations into his death are ongoing.

Bishop Balla was born on May 10, 1959. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Yaoundé on June 20, 1987.

He was appointed Bishop of Bafia on May 3, 2003 and consecrated on July 12 of that same year. The Diocese of Bafia has more than 200,000 Catholics.

Full Article

Lima, Peru, Jun 2, 2017 / 04:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Italian priest and exorcist Fr. Sante Babolin said that “the devil, Satan, exists” and that “evil is not an abstraction,” in response to recent comments from Fr. Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Society of Jesus.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Fr. Arturo Sosa said that "we have made symbolic figures, like the devil, to express evil."

“Social conditioning can also represent this figure, since there are people who act [in an evil way] because they are in an environment where it is difficult to act to the contrary,” Fr. Sosa added.

Speaking to ACI Prensa June 2, Fr. Babolin recalled several places in documents and statements of the Church that show the true existence of the devil.

Fr. Babolin recalled the documents of the IV Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1215, state that Christians "firmly believe and simply confess" that God created "from nothing...the spiritual and the corporal, that is, the angelic and the mundane, and then the human. "

"(T)he devil and other demons were created by God good in nature, but they themselves through themselves have become wicked,” notes the text of the council.

Fr. Babolin, known as the “exorcist of Padua,” also recalled two speeches of Pope Paul VI in 1972, which also confirm the existence of the devil "to the faithful, who tend to doubt the existence of Satan...his presence and action. "

On June 29, 1972, Paul VI, alluding to the contemporary situation of the Church, said in his homily that it seemed “the smoke of Satan” entered the temple of God. That same year, on November 15, Paul VI warned that "one of the major needs of the Church" is to defend ourselves "from that evil that we call the Devil."

Fr. Babolin also noted that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the devil exists in reality, not in the abstract. In the section of the Catechism regarding the "deliver us from evil" petition of the Our Father, in para. 2851, it states that "in this petition, evil is not an abstraction, A person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The 'devil' (dia-bolos) is the one who 'crosses' in the design of God and his work of salvation fulfilled in Christ."

Fr. Babolin said that the faithful should see the statement of the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council, the assertions of Paul VI and what is recorded in the Catechism as "three irrefutable points" about the existence of the devil.

Full Article

Florence, Italy, Jun 2, 2017 / 04:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Sister Candida Bellotti, thought to be the oldest nun in the world, died Saturday at the age of 110.

Sister Bellotti had celebrated her 110th birthday on Feb. 20, 2017 and received a special birthday greeting from Pope Francis.

“To the Reverend Sister Candida Bellotti, Sister Minister of the Sick, who with gratitude to God is celebrating her 110th birthday, the Holy Father Francis spiritually participates in the joy we all share for this happy occasion and sends warm congratulations and heartfelt wishes,” said the pontiff in his message at the time.

The Italian nun was 30 years older than Pope Francis. Her life spanned ten pontiffs: Pius X (1903-1914), Benedict XV (1914-1922), Pius XI (1922-1939), Pius XII (1939-1958), John XXIII (1958-1963), Paul VI (1963-1978), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II (1978-2005), Benedict XVI (2005-2013), and Pope Francis (2013- ).

Sister Bellotti was born in 1907 in the province of Verona in Italy. She belonged to the Congregation of San Camillus de Lellis, which observed the 150th anniversary of the death of its founder, Blessed Maria Domenica Brun Barbantini, in May.

“Love, love and love still more, with joy,” is the advice she gave everyone, especially the new generations. She had a special invitation for young people: “Have confidence in the future, and strive to the utmost to accomplish your desires.”

 

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS photo/Rhina Guidos

By Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In his youth, Jesuit Father Patrick J. Conroy pictured himself as a lawyer and a senator, working in the deep recesses of Washington's U.S. Capitol building. In a way, he's doing just that but not in the way he imagined.

"I'm not in the Senate, I'm in the House," he said inside the Capitol, where his law degree from St. Louis University is perched on the wall of his spacious office, along with a lifetime of memories that include a photo of him blessing Pope Francis during his visit to Congress, and one of him next to the Dalai Lama, as well as souvenirs from the American Indian reservation in Washington state where he once offered his legal services. Photos with students from his 10-year campus ministry stint at Georgetown University also are sprinkled throughout.

While the dreams of his youth, becoming a lawyer and working at the Capitol, have been fulfilled, he didn't initially expect them to come true while wearing an all-black outfit and a Roman collar. In the halls of Congress, just as in the halls of high schools and other places where the Jesuit has worked, he's known as Father Pat and he entered, not as a congressman or senator, but as the 60th chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives May 25, 2011.

How did he get there?

"There's a few answers to that question," said Father Conroy, who loves to tell a story.

"The religious answer that I give ' it was an answer to prayer," he said.

"Something political would come on the radio, I would turn into an angry, argumentative ' I'd be screaming at the radio and get totally upset, totally upset," he repeated for emphasis. "And after a while, I'm by myself, I'd say 'I have no serenity in the area of politics ' I can't do anything about it but I'm all upset about it, and that's not helping me and that's not helping politics any.' So, I started to pray for serenity, and well, I end up in the one job in the United States where I absolutely have to abstain from politics."

The other, and more simple, explanation is that the House speaker at that time, John Boehner, was looking for a chaplain and wanted a Jesuit for the spot. Father Daniel Coughlin, the first Catholic to occupy the position, was looking to retire from the post in 2010 and Boehner had been in talks with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Catholic, about finding a Jesuit they could both support.

Father Conroy was then working with ninth-graders in Portland, Oregon, yelling at the news on his car radio, as he frequently did, when a Jesuit superior asked to meet with him. He told him about Speaker Boehner's request.

"The Jesuits didn't come looking for this job, for this position, but it was a natural," he told Catholic News Service. "It's in our DNA, and sure, if having a Jesuit would be of assistance to the men and women of Congress and the work that they're doing, by all means."

Jesuits, he explained, were once spiritual directors and sometimes advisers to princes and kings in Europe, so it's not an unusual role.

"Our modus operandi is to want to be engaged in the world and engaged in a way that we can influence the most good for the most people," he said.

With his background as a lawyer and having lived in Washington during previous posts, Father Conroy, who also holds several degrees in theology, seemed like a natural fit.

As the House chaplain, he is responsible for offering a prayer at the beginning of each day when Congress is in session. The nondenominational prayer in the House chamber is broadcast live on HouseLive.gov and on C-Span. It's also archived in the Congressional Record and is part of the official rules of the House to get the day started.

When the weather is nice and he gets to work early, he said, he sometimes goes to the balcony of the U.S. Capitol for morning prayer. While overlooking the monuments and iconic buildings that line the National Mall along Pennsylvania Avenue, he occasionally asks: "Why am I here?"

The answer?

"Well, I'm here to pray for the president and I'm here to pray for the members of Congress, the leaders, and so I do a litany that I pray for and ask God to bless them," and that means leaving personal political views out of it, he said.

"Most of the people that are acquaintances or friends with me here (at the Capitol) are people that I wouldn't be friends with otherwise, or I wouldn't hang around with otherwise, or I would only know politically and be inclined not to like, or not to take an interest in," he said, but because of the unique nature of his job, "I realize that those relationships are more important than my engaging in a political argument or discussion that I was accustomed to doing with my radio."

Instead, he listens to the concerns of his unusual spiritual flock and in some cases, he helps politicians discern.

"I think it's why the chaplain's office is important, there's that person in this place, who can actually be honest and actually be human, not political, because everything else here is political, everything," he told CNS.

And that can get ugly.

"It's not attractive to watch law being made, debated, being argued about and all that stuff, it's just not attractive," he said.

Sometimes, as was the case during the heated debate that took place in early May, after the House voted to repeal and replace chunks of the Affordable Care Act, he tries to inject humor. 

When the Democrats started singing, "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye" to Republicans who voted to repeal the health care act (implying they would lose their next election), he told those who were angry at the Democrats' singing: "Oh, c'mon ' they're singing to you!" as he was passing by.

"A guy laughed," he remembered. "They're people, too, and I try to either be neutral or make light of stuff."

He still has opinions about politics but he's laser-focused on his role to help all members of Congress without paying attention to political stripes.

"I can think anything I want," he said. "But I can't say it. Some people say, 'You're there, why don't you say prophetic things?' If I did, a week from now, there would be a different person here and nothing would have changed."

At 66, he now realizes that he didn't give up any dreams when he joined the Society of Jesus in 1973.

"It's fascinating to me that God remembered my bucket list," he said. "I mean, I'm not in the Senate, I'm in the House, but, you know, when I joined the Jesuits, I thought, well, that's the end of that," meaning giving up politics and law school.

"There's only one thing left that I'd really like to do," he said, "to be in a feature-length motion picture. I was a drama guy."

When reminded that there's still time, he answered: "Oh, I know. Well, heck, I'm on TV, I'm on C-Span."

- - -

Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.

- - -

Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

Full Article

Full Article