Catholic News 2
NEW YORK (AP) -- The sculptor of Wall Street's "Charging Bull" statue on Wednesday demanded the removal of the "Fearless Girl" statue that's faced off against the bull since last month....
DENVER (AP) -- It was one of the most exclusive tickets in town: Only 800 were made available, and those lucky enough to score one were told they would have to show photo ID at the gate, where they would be issued a wristband and a number. No signs bigger than a sheet of notebook paper allowed, so as not to obscure anyone's view....
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- North Dakota legislators are close to enacting new protections for drug informants, more than three years after a 20-year-old college student working undercover was found dead in a river with a bullet in his head and a backpack of rocks tied to his body....
INDEPENDENCE, Calif. (AP) -- We were trudging up the side of a mountain on skis to measure California's massive snowpack when a late blast of winter stopped us in our tracks....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a pair of interviews, President Donald Trump gave a skewed account of health care and auto jobs under his watch and flatly contradicted himself on how long he's known his right-hand strategist, Steve Bannon....
CHICAGO (AP) -- The chief executive of United Airlines said the carrier will no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights after the uproar over a man who was dragged off a plane by airport officers in Chicago....
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Latest on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow (all times local):...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will celebrate a special Liturgy of the Word in memory of the "New Martyrs" of the 20th and 21st centuries on Saturday, 22 April.A communique from the Holy See Press Office said the prayer will take place in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Tiberian Island, which is located in the heart of Rome on the Tiber River.The Liturgy of the Word celebration is organized by the Sant'Egidio Community and takes place at 5 PM.A separate communique released by the Sant'Egidio Community said the Basilica of St. Bartholomew held special significance:"The Pope's prayer in a place, which - since the Jubilee of 2000, at John Paul II's behest - contains the memoirs of contemporary martyrs, takes on a very special significance in these times marked by the suffering of so many Christians in the world and by the light of Easter."
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will celebrate a special Liturgy of the Word in memory of the "New Martyrs" of the 20th and 21st centuries on Saturday, 22 April.
A communique from the Holy See Press Office said the prayer will take place in the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Tiberian Island, which is located in the heart of Rome on the Tiber River.
The Liturgy of the Word celebration is organized by the Sant'Egidio Community and takes place at 5 PM.
A separate communique released by the Sant'Egidio Community said the Basilica of St. Bartholomew held special significance:
"The Pope's prayer in a place, which - since the Jubilee of 2000, at John Paul II's behest - contains the memoirs of contemporary martyrs, takes on a very special significance in these times marked by the suffering of so many Christians in the world and by the light of Easter."
The discovery of the body of a 12-year-old Indian girl who was trafficked to work as a maid in southern city of Bengaluru, has raised fresh concerns about other children trapped in domestic servitude, police said on Tuesday. Preliminary investigations suggest the girl had fallen to her death from the ninth floor apartment where she had worked for two years after being sent to work for a couple in Bengaluru by a New Delhi-based agency, police said.The child's death has prompted police to launch an investigation across the southern state of Karnataka to find other girls who may have been recruited by the same agency to work as maids, senior police officer Hemant Nimbalkar said. "She was trafficked and our probe suggests that the placement agency that sent her to Bengaluru also sent many other young girls," Nimbalkar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "There appears to be a big network operating." There are an estimated 50 million domestic w...
The discovery of the body of a 12-year-old Indian girl who was trafficked to work as a maid in southern city of Bengaluru, has raised fresh concerns about other children trapped in domestic servitude, police said on Tuesday. Preliminary investigations suggest the girl had fallen to her death from the ninth floor apartment where she had worked for two years after being sent to work for a couple in Bengaluru by a New Delhi-based agency, police said.
The child's death has prompted police to launch an investigation across the southern state of Karnataka to find other girls who may have been recruited by the same agency to work as maids, senior police officer Hemant Nimbalkar said. "She was trafficked and our probe suggests that the placement agency that sent her to Bengaluru also sent many other young girls," Nimbalkar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "There appears to be a big network operating."
There are an estimated 50 million domestic workers in India, most of them women and girls, who are often exploited in the absence of any legal protection, women's rights campaigners say. A bill to improve working conditions for domestic workers by introducing a minimum salary, social security cover and mandatory time off is still awaiting cabinet approval.
Nimbalkar said the dead girl had been trafficked from the eastern state of Assam and that her salary was paid directly to the agency by her employers, a chartered accountant and dentist. The couple said they thought she was 18 and an orphan, adding that they had not done any background checks but put their trust in the placement agency, the police said. "As it turns out, the girl's father was looking for her for nearly two years," said Geeta Menon of Stree Jagruti Samiti, a Bengaluru charity which works to promote the rights of domestic workers. "It took days to track him and when he came to take his daughter's body back home, he was just heart-broken," Menon said.
Rights activists say traffickers target poor villages in states such as West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, convincing vulnerable families to send their daughters away for employment. But the girls and young women are often passed on to unregulated placement agencies and transported in groups to cities where a growing middle class is looking for cheap live-in labour.
"With many northern states framing laws to regulate people being hired as domestic work, south India seems to have become a safe haven for agents," Menon said. "This case has come as a wake-up call and we hope other girls will be rescued before they die." (Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation)
More than 800 Catholics held palms and sang songs in a procession to the St. Columban's Church compound in Myiktyina, the capital city of Myanmar’s conflict-stricken Kachin State, marking Palm Sunday on April 9. Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina Diocese the Mass with priests and urged the faithful to reflect on the sins of pride and egocentricity before renewing themselves and their faith.Kachin State has been the scene of on-and-off civil wars since Myanmar gained independence from the British in 1948. Fighting resumed in 2011 in the Christian-majority region after a 17-year ceasefire broke down. Since then, more than 100,000 people have been forced into internally displaced people camps and many churches have been destroyed.State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi made a rare visit to Kachin State on March 28 to convince ethnic armed groups to sign a ceasefire ahead of the second Panglong peace conference in May. She also met with Christian leaders. "T...
More than 800 Catholics held palms and sang songs in a procession to the St. Columban's Church compound in Myiktyina, the capital city of Myanmar’s conflict-stricken Kachin State, marking Palm Sunday on April 9. Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina Diocese the Mass with priests and urged the faithful to reflect on the sins of pride and egocentricity before renewing themselves and their faith.
Kachin State has been the scene of on-and-off civil wars since Myanmar gained independence from the British in 1948. Fighting resumed in 2011 in the Christian-majority region after a 17-year ceasefire broke down. Since then, more than 100,000 people have been forced into internally displaced people camps and many churches have been destroyed.
State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi made a rare visit to Kachin State on March 28 to convince ethnic armed groups to sign a ceasefire ahead of the second Panglong peace conference in May. She also met with Christian leaders.
"Trust is the main factor for the Kachin Independence Army to sign the ceasefire agreement as they have experienced the broken promises of the military," said Bishop Francis Daw Tang who met Suu Kyi during her visit. (Source: UCAN)
