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Vatican City, May 21, 2017 / 04:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coliseum, the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal; are just some of the universal monuments that a Colombian teacher makes to scale out of little wooden sticks (toothpicks).

One of his recent works is Saint Peter's Square and he dreams of showing it to Pope Francis during the visit the pontiff will make to this country in September.

Alberto Antonio Cruz Serna has been building models with toothpicks since he was 12.

He currently resides in the town of Puerto Berrio, in the Antioquia district teaches natural science to high school students at the Antonio Nariño Educational Institution, and has built more than 200 artistic creations with his own unique style.

Among his works there are also small-scale replicas of Catholic buildings such as Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Puerto Berrio and Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican.

Cruz, who is the father of five children, has displayed his works in a number of cities in Colombia, such as Medellín and Barrancabermeja. He has also won several awards.

“What motivates me to build these works of art in toothpicks is the challenge of it. The structure is spectacular. It's not like the wood you cut and set in place. Here it's about joining stick to stick, seeing the lengths and making shapes. The degree of difficulty makes it more interesting,” the 59-year-old teacher told CNA.

Cruz revealed that he has never visited the monuments he has reproduced with toothpicks. Nor has he studied architecture or design. He just does research on the Internet and in books on every detail of the artwork he wants to reproduce.

His tools? A nail clipper and special wood glue.

Cruz commented that his motivation for building the replica of Saint Peter's Square was that in late 2015, he learned that Pope Francis might be visiting Colombia. The Vatican would later confirm the trip, which is scheduled for this September.

The construction of the artwork took 17 months. Cruz spent about five hours a day on the project. On weekends, he worked almost all day. 

The Saint Peter's Square model was made of more than 36,000 toothpicks. It measures about 6 feet long by 3 feet wide.

Cruz said that one of the most beautiful characteristics of St. Peter's Square are the columns because “they are like arms that welcome Catholics from all parts of the world each time that the Pope celebrates a Mass or appears. The shape of the plaza is like a hug.”

While he was working on this structure, Cruz also made a reproduction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Roman Coliseum.

Regarding the pontiff's visit to his country, Cruz said that “we Colombians are waiting for the moment when the pope visits. It is critical to the process we are going through (as a nation).”

He added that the Pope is important to him because “I'm Catholic, my family is too. And so, who would not want to meet the Pope? If he is the closest representative of God that we have on Earth? For Catholics, who would not want to be at his side?

Cruz said that he would like to display the model of St. Peter's Square and the other works of art in Medellin during Pope Francis' apostolic visit.

“My dream is that wherever the Holy Father is, I'd be nearby with my artwork and so he could take a look at them…That is the dream I want to fulfill. So he would be with me for just a few seconds.”

The teacher hopes that the Antioquia political and religious authorities will take an interest in his work and he will have the opportunity to display them. “I'll keep on persevering and knocking on doors,” he said.

Cruz said that the governor of Antioquia will soon be visiting the school where he teaches, and he will take advantage of the occasion to show him the Saint Peter's Square, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Roman Coliseum.

His upcoming projects include the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Las Lajas, and Notre Dame Cathedral.
 

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(Vatican Radio) Day 50 of the protests against the Venezuelan Government was marked by more huge demonstrations and violence.  

More than 150,000 people protesting in Venezuela's Capitol Caracas, led by former Presidential Candidate and opposition leader Henrique Capriles.  Before it all started, he said: "The more the repression, the more we resist and fight for Venezuela."  After his passport was seized by officials who  barred  from leaving the country, to deliver a report to the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights, one of Capriles' lawyers has fulfilled the commitment.

The demonstrators tried to reach the Ministry of Interior building, but were held back by riot police firing umpteen rounds of tear gas. On the other side of town a small pro government protesters danced and cheered President Nicolas Maduro, who reportedly wasn't able to receive them. 

An estimated 50,000 protested in the city of San Cristobal. 2,600 government troops were sent there earlier this week to try and prevent night time looting.  The crisis in Venezuela deepens. 

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(Vatican Radio) For the first time in nearly 1,000 years bone fragments of Saint Nicholas, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most revered figures, have been moved from an Italian church to Russia where huge crowds of Orthodox faithful were expected to visit the relics. The historic move follows talks between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill.

After reaching Moscow's Vnukovo airport, a glass-topped metallic ark bearing the relics was visited by a long stream of Russian pilgrims who bowed and kissed the container.

It was to be taken to Christ the Savior Cathedral, the enormous Moscow church that is a reconstruction of a cathedral dynamited in 1931 by officially atheistic Soviet authorities.

Earlier, the relics of Saint Nicholas were brought into the crypt of the Saint Nicholas Basilica in Bari, Italy, before their 3,000 kilometer-long journey to Moscow. It marks the first time in some 10 centuries that the bone fragments from the man who became the inspiration of the legendary figure of Santa Claus were moved from their resting place.

CHURCH BELLS

In Moscow churches rang their bells on Sunday to mark the relics arrival. They were sent to Russia after last year's agreement between ope Francis and Patriarch Kirill during the first meeting of the heads of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.   

The 4th-Century Saint Nicholas, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most respected men, was the Bishop of Myra, now the Turkish city of Demre. After his death, Italian merchants brought his body from Myra, in modern-day Turkey, to Italy.

The relics are to be displaced in Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral until mid-June. They are then moved to St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, before being returned to Bari on July 12. Both cities are expecting huge crowds of Orthodox faithful to visit the relics and the Moscow patriarchate has already described it as "an unprecedented event."

It is also appreciated by Russian President Vladimir Putin who keeps close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. He already visited the St. Nicholas relics in Bari in 2007.

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Vatican City, May 21, 2017 / 11:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During a visit to a Roman parish Sunday, Pope Francis repeated his frequent condemnation of gossip, telling the congregation instead to always treat others with gentleness and respect, as the Holy Spirit does.

“The language of Christians who cherish the Holy Spirit, who was given to us as a gift, is special: they don’t have to speak in Latin, no. It’s another language: it’s the language of gentleness and respect,” the Pope said May 21.

Reflecting on these two points can help each of us to reflect on our own attitude as Christians, he said, asking “is it an attitude of gentleness, or of wrath? Or bitterness?”

“It’s terrible to see people who say they are Christians, but who are full of bitterness,” Francis said, adding that the language of the Holy Spirit “is gentle...because he’s gentle. And respect. Always respect others. He teaches to respect others.”

Pope Francis made his comments during an off-the-cuff homily while celebrating Mass at Rome’s St. Peter Damiani parish in the Casal Bernocchi neighborhood in the south of Rome.

After leaving the Vatican around 3:45p.m., the Pope arrived at the parish around 4:15p.m. and was greeted by the Vicar of Rome Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the titular bishop of the parish, as well as the auxiliary bishop of Rome’s southern sector, Paolo Lojudice, and the pastor, Fr. Lucio Coppa.

Francis’ visit marked the third time a Pope has gone to the parish. The first was Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1972 for the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Peter Damiani, and the second was St. John Paul II in 1988.

Before celebrating Mass at 6p.m., Francis met with 80 children enrolled in First Communion classes and around 100 youth who attend post-Confirmation activities. During the discussion, he responded to two questions posed by the youth.

He then met with sick and elderly parishioners, families whose children have been baptized this year, members of the Neocatechumenal Way, employees of the parish and volunteers with the parish’s Caritas program. Four of the parishioners then went to confession with Pope Francis before Mass.

In his brief homily, the Pope noted that even though Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit as his advocate, which he promised to do in the day’s Gospel reading from John, “the devil knows how to weaken us.”

“He will do everything, so that our language is not respectful or gentle, even within the Christian community,” the Pope said.

He lamented the fact that many people come to a parish in the hope of finding a meek and respectful community, and instead find one with “internal bickering, gossip, chatter, competition.”

“They find that air that’s not of incense, but of gossip, and then what do they say?” the Pope asked. “(They say) ‘if these are Christians, I prefer to stay a Pagan,’ and they go away disillusioned.”

With the language focused only on ambition and jealousy, “we push people away and we don’t allow the Spirit to work,” Francis said, explaining that he returns to the topic of gossip so often because “this is the sin that’s the most common in our Christian communities.”

Jesting, Pope Francis said he once spoke to a priest who said some of his parishioners could receive communion standing at the back of the church, because their tongue reached all the way to the altar.

“We must cherish the Holy Spirit and not speak like the devil teaches us,” he said, adding that gossip “hurts my heart,” and is the sin “that destroys our communities the most.”

Francis closed his homily pointing to Mary, telling parishioners, when they go to pray in front of her, to look down at the serpent she is standing on and pray not to be like that: not to leave one’s tongue stuck out, but rather to cherish the Holy Spirit as she did.

“Let’s not throw stones at each other. The devil has fun, this is a carnival for him,” the Pope said. Instead, “let us ask for this grace: to cherish the Holy Spirit that is within us, not sadden him, and that our attitude be one of gentleness and respect.”

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