Catholic News 2
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Trump administration is moving beyond rhetoric in its effort to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities....
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Tearful family members are pleading for information that could help solve the massacre of eight people in Ohio a year ago, in a video released Friday....
BERLIN (AP) -- A 28-year-old German-Russian citizen took out a five-figure loan to bet that Borussia Dortmund shares would drop, then bombed the soccer team's bus in an attack he tried to disguise as Islamic terrorism in a scheme to net millions, German officials said Friday....
DETROIT (AP) -- A judge on Friday ordered Volkswagen to pay a $2.8 billion criminal penalty in the United States for cheating on diesel emissions tests, blessing a deal negotiated by the government for a "massive fraud" orchestrated by the German automaker....
PARIS (AP) -- Marine Le Pen, whose passion for politics and far-right values were forged in the cradle, is making her second bid for the French presidency, hoping this time to break through the ceiling of fear that stopped her father from winning in 2002....
PARIS (AP) -- The Champs-Elysees gunman who shot and killed a police officer just days before France's presidential election was detained in February for threatening police but then freed, two officials told The Associated Press on Friday. He was also convicted in 2003 of attempted homicide in the shootings of two police officers....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is taking the unusual step of weighing in publicly ahead of a foreign presidential election, predicting that the latest attack in Paris will have a "big effect" on voters there....
(Vatican Radio) The so-called Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a shooting in Paris that has killed one policeman, and injured two other officers as well as a bystander on the central boulevard of the Champs-Elysées. France President Francois Hollande linked the attack to terrorism and confirmed that the shooter was also killed. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: The center of Paris appeared a war zone with special security forces pushing people away from several areas, and rushing to the streets to step up a security. Thursday's shooting came just before the French presidential elections. The shooter, who killed, was known to France’s security sources, French media reported, quoting police. French President Hollande quickly appeared on national television to share more details with a worried nation. "This evening at nine a clock police people in a car were attacked at the Champs-Elysée," said Hollande who w...
(Vatican Radio) The so-called Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a shooting in Paris that has killed one policeman, and injured two other officers as well as a bystander on the central boulevard of the Champs-Elysées. France President Francois Hollande linked the attack to terrorism and confirmed that the shooter was also killed.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
The center of Paris appeared a war zone with special security forces pushing people away from several areas, and rushing to the streets to step up a security.
Thursday's shooting came just before the French presidential elections. The shooter, who killed, was known to France’s security sources, French media reported, quoting police.
French President Hollande quickly appeared on national television to share more details with a worried nation. "This evening at nine a clock police people in a car were attacked at the Champs-Elysée," said Hollande who was due to meet top security, defence and intelligence officials on Friday.
"One policeman was killed, two others were injured. A woman who walked there was also injured," he explained.
"The attacker has been neutralized. We are convinced that the path the investigation is on will reveal that this event is of a terrorist nature," Hollande stressed, adding that his thoughts go out to the victims and their loved ones.
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The choice of one of the world’s most famous avenues is seen as symbolic. Islamic State state said one of its “fighters” carried out the attack, naming him as “The Belgian”.
Other reports, unconfirmed but quoting sources close to the inquiry, have suggested the suspect may be a French national.
The Paris prosecutor François Molins says the gunman has been identified, but his name will not be revealed until investigators determine whether he had accomplices.
It came as a shock for people in Paris as the city is still recovering of several attack including those in November 2015, which was the bloodiest attack in the Western world in years. In a coordinated string of attacks — bombings and mass shootings — some 130 people were massacred and scores more were injured.
A Catholic bishop has expressed concern over alleged conversion of more than 52 Christian families by Hindu nationalists in eastern India’s Jharkhand state. Local media reported that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation that aims at making India a Hindu state, made the conversions in Khunti district. "It is a matter of concern. But we are not threatened as we don't believe in the forced conversion of people," said Bishop Binay Kandulna of Khuti told UCAN, reacting to the report. The state, ruled by the pro-Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), considered the political wing of the RSS, has witnessed a series of violent actions against Christians, including beatings and banning of pastoral activities and prayer services.RSS official Laxman Singh Munda, who is also deputy president of the BJP in Khunti district, told media that Christian missionaries have been lu...
A Catholic bishop has expressed concern over alleged conversion of more than 52 Christian families by Hindu nationalists in eastern India’s Jharkhand state. Local media reported that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation that aims at making India a Hindu state, made the conversions in Khunti district. "It is a matter of concern. But we are not threatened as we don't believe in the forced conversion of people," said Bishop Binay Kandulna of Khuti told UCAN, reacting to the report. The state, ruled by the pro-Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), considered the political wing of the RSS, has witnessed a series of violent actions against Christians, including beatings and banning of pastoral activities and prayer services.
RSS official Laxman Singh Munda, who is also deputy president of the BJP in Khunti district, told media that Christian missionaries have been luring tribal people to their religion over several decades in the garb of social service. He said the campaign to return tribal Christians into the Hindu fold will continue throughout April. "You cannot call it conversion. We are only bringing our lost brothers and sisters back to their religion," he told the media. "We want a Christianity-free block [and] the villagers will soon return to their roots," he said.
Bishop Kandulna refuted the Hindu group's claim that Christians use allurement to convert tribal people. “The Church does not believe in or support forced conversion," he said. The bishop, from the Oraon tribe, also doubted the claims of the group. "Nobody can convert a person to any other religion, especially to Catholicism, using force as they are very strong in their faith. Unless one is ready mentally and spiritually, it is not possible" the prelate said.
Khuti is considered a Christian-stronghold district as some 25 percent of its 532,000 people are Christians. Hindus form another 25 percent while the rest follow the tribal Sarna religion. The district's demography contrasts with the national scenario where Christians only number 2.3 percent and Hindus make up 80 percent of India's 1.2 billion people. Jharkhand has some 9 million tribal people, who form 26 percent of the state's 33 million population. About 1.5 million people in the state are Christians, at least half of them Catholics, almost all of them tribal.
Local media reports said in the first week of April at least seven Christian families underwent a ceremony in a village. Called a "purification ceremony" Hindu priests smear sandalwood paste on the foreheads of the Christians and wash their feet symbolizing their return to the Hindu community.
Gladson Dungdung, a tribal activist in the state said the claims, whether right or wrong, "is a matter of concern because it can provoke larger movements for Christian-free areas within the state and elsewhere creating division among people, especially among tribal people in the name of religion." The BJP state government "does not want tribal people to excel in their socio-cultural lives. Their only aim is to divide the tribal people in the name of religion and creed," he added.
Mukti Prakash Tirkey, editor of a weekly on tribal affairs published in New Delhi, said the government's tactic "is very clear and their political agenda was to loot the tribal people's land and resources in the name of development." "It is unfortunate that poor tribal people don't understand the hidden agenda of the pro-Hindu BJP government in the state which wants to destroy the basic rights of the people," said Tirkey.
Last year, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das accused Christians of creating trouble by encouraging tribal people to oppose the government's amending of two laws that removed their land rights. Opposition parties and tribal rights activists said the highly contentious amendments got the legislative nod have paved the way for the state's largely poor tribal people to lose their small land holdings to industrial, commercial and welfare projects. (Source: UCAN)
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will celebrate a Liturgy of the Word in memory of the martyrs of the 20th and 21st centuries on Easter Saturday.The commemoration is to take place in the Rome Basilica of St. Bartholomew together with members of the Community of Sant’Egidio who look after the Basilica’s Shrine to the memory of modern martyrs. In a statement Sant’Egidio remarked that the event takes on a very special significance in times marked by the suffering of so many Christians in the world, and in the light of Easter.Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni: St. Bartholomew is not a parish Church but, as per the request of Saint Pope John Paul II in 1999, it serves as a shrine to men and women who died in defense of their faith during totalitarian regimes and Latin American dictatorships as well as more recent martyrs of terrorism.During the course of the liturgy friends and relatives of some modern martyrs will give testimonies. They include Karl Schneider, ...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will celebrate a Liturgy of the Word in memory of the martyrs of the 20th and 21st centuries on Easter Saturday.
The commemoration is to take place in the Rome Basilica of St. Bartholomew together with members of the Community of Sant’Egidio who look after the Basilica’s Shrine to the memory of modern martyrs.
In a statement Sant’Egidio remarked that the event takes on a very special significance in times marked by the suffering of so many Christians in the world, and in the light of Easter.
Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni:
St. Bartholomew is not a parish Church but, as per the request of Saint Pope John Paul II in 1999, it serves as a shrine to men and women who died in defense of their faith during totalitarian regimes and Latin American dictatorships as well as more recent martyrs of terrorism.
During the course of the liturgy friends and relatives of some modern martyrs will give testimonies. They include Karl Schneider, son of Paul, the Reformed Church Pastor killed in the nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in 1939 for having described the objectives of nazi Germany as “irreconcilable with the words of the Bible”; Roselyne, sister of Father Jacques Hamel, assassinated in Rouen, France, on 26 July last year while celebrating Holy Mass, and Francisco Hernandez Guevara, friend of William Quijano, a young member of the Sant’Egidio Community in Salvador who was killed in 2009 while working to keep young people away from criminal rings.
After the homily, Pope Francis will pay tribute to the six chapels in the Basilica where the relics of the martyrs are kept. During the liturgy a candle will be lit for every prayer recited in their memory. These include Armenians and other Christians who were victims of massacres perpetrated during World War I, martyrs of peace and dialogue like the Trappist monks of Notre Dame de l’Atlas in Algeria, Don Andrea Santoro who was gunned down in Turkey, Don Pino Puglisi who was killed by the Mafia and many many missionaries who lost their lives in defense of their faith.
Well-known names like that of San Salvador bishop Oscar Romero will resonate together with many less famous ones and a special prayer will be said for Mar Gregorios Ibrahim, Paul Yazigi and father Paolo Dall’Oglio, all of them abducted in Syria and of whom all traces have been lost.
After the liturgy Pope Francis will meet with a group of refugees who have found welcome in Rome thanks to the “humanitarian corridors” project promoted by Sant’Egidio, with women victims of human trafficking and with young migrants who have travelled to Italy unaccompanied.
