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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (AP) -- Tim Tebow made his first rookie mistake even before stepping into the batter's box....
CHICAGO (AP) -- Even before President Donald Trump tweeted a threat to send "in the Feds" to curb Chicago's gun violence, he was saying on the campaign trail that there was a simple solution to the bloodshed: police should get tougher. Chicago should follow the lead of New York City, Trump's administration has said, and crack down on even the smallest offenses....
NEW YORK (AP) -- A new statue of a resolute young girl staring down Wall Street's famous Charging Bull was erected by a major asset managing firm for International Women's Day to make a point: There's a dearth of women on the boards of the largest U.S. corporations....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was fired from his prominent White House job last month, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for $530,000 worth of lobbying work before Election Day that may have aided the Turkish government....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks raised the prospect Wednesday of sharing sensitive details it uncovered about CIA hacking tools with leading technology companies whose flagship products and services were targeted by the government's hacker-spies....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican leaders labored to rally a divided party behind their high-stakes drive to overhaul the nation's health care system Wednesday, but faced opposition from pivotal industry groups. House Speaker Paul Ryan praised the proposal as "what good, conservative health care reform looks like" as lawmakers cast Congress' first votes on the GOP legislation....
Cochabamba, Bolivia, Mar 8, 2017 / 11:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The newest member of St. Francis Monastery in Cochabamba, Bolivia, is furry and has four legs.His name is Friar Carmelo, but they’ve nicknamed him Friar Bigotón (Spanish for mustache).The friars found the stray schnauzer on the streets and decided to adopt him as one of their own, even going so far as to outfit the pup with his own Franciscan habit."Sometimes we brothers have a laugh among ourselves and there is a brother here that is also called Carmelo, who has a moustache, so that was sort of the inspiration [behind his name]," one of the friars told local television channel ATB.In Facebook photos posted by Franciscan friar Kasper Mariusz Kapron which have been shared hundreds of times, Friar Carmelo can be seen running and playing throughout the monastery grounds, and even “preaching to the fish” in the monastery pond."His life is all about playing and running," friar Jorge...
Cochabamba, Bolivia, Mar 8, 2017 / 11:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The newest member of St. Francis Monastery in Cochabamba, Bolivia, is furry and has four legs.
His name is Friar Carmelo, but they’ve nicknamed him Friar Bigotón (Spanish for mustache).
The friars found the stray schnauzer on the streets and decided to adopt him as one of their own, even going so far as to outfit the pup with his own Franciscan habit.
"Sometimes we brothers have a laugh among ourselves and there is a brother here that is also called Carmelo, who has a moustache, so that was sort of the inspiration [behind his name]," one of the friars told local television channel ATB.
In Facebook photos posted by Franciscan friar Kasper Mariusz Kapron which have been shared hundreds of times, Friar Carmelo can be seen running and playing throughout the monastery grounds, and even “preaching to the fish” in the monastery pond.
"His life is all about playing and running," friar Jorge Fernandez told The Dodo. "Here, all of the brothers love him very much. He is a creature of God."
The adoption was made possible by animal rescue group Proyecto Narices Frías (Cold Nose Project). The animal group stated in a post on Facebook that they hoped more religious groups would be inspired by the story to adopt animals in need.
"If only all the churches of our country adopt a dog and care for him like Friar Bigotón," the group wrote in a post on Facebook, "we are sure that the parishioners would follow his example."
The friars told local media that the dog has a bit of a naughty side, and has been known to chew things or hide them in the monastery garden. Still, he remains a beloved part of monastery life.
Vatican City, Mar 8, 2017 / 12:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a newly-released interview Pope Francis discussed the shortage of vocations to the priesthood, saying the first response must be prayer. He also mentioned working with youth, the low birthrate, and the ordination of married men.“The first [response] – because I speak as a believer – the Lord told us to pray. Prayer, prayer is missing,” Pope Francis said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit published March 8.He called the lack of priests, to the point that some parishes are cared for by female “community leaders” in Switzerland, “a problem that the Church must resolve.”After prayer, he recommended working “with youth who are seeking orientation. And this is very difficult, the work with youth, but it must be done because they ask for this: the youth are the great discarded ones in modern society, because they have no work in many countries.”“For voc...
Vatican City, Mar 8, 2017 / 12:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a newly-released interview Pope Francis discussed the shortage of vocations to the priesthood, saying the first response must be prayer. He also mentioned working with youth, the low birthrate, and the ordination of married men.
“The first [response] – because I speak as a believer – the Lord told us to pray. Prayer, prayer is missing,” Pope Francis said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit published March 8.
He called the lack of priests, to the point that some parishes are cared for by female “community leaders” in Switzerland, “a problem that the Church must resolve.”
After prayer, he recommended working “with youth who are seeking orientation. And this is very difficult, the work with youth, but it must be done because they ask for this: the youth are the great discarded ones in modern society, because they have no work in many countries.”
“For vocations, there is also another problem,” he said, “the problem of the birthrate. If there are no young men there can be no priests.”
He repeated his caution against “proselytism,” saying, “You can’t gain vocations with proselytism. 'Proselytism' – as if it were a charity society that makes you a partner.”
Without priestly vocations “the Church is weakened, because a Church without the Eucharist doesn’t have strength: the Church makes the Eucharist, but the Eucharist also makes the Church. The problem of vocations is a serious problem.”
Turning to the question of relaxing permissions for the ordination of married men and the requirement of priestly celibacy, he said that “optional celibacy is discussed, above all where priests are needed. But optional celibacy is not the solution.”
His interviewer asked if the permission for the ordination of viri probati – older married men – to the diaconate could be expanded to the priesthood.
While saying making celibacy optional for priests is not the solution, Pope Francis also signalled an openness to discussing the possibility.
“We must think yes, viri probati are a possibility. But then we must also consider what tasks they could perform, for example in isolated communities.”
The interview opened with a discussion of Pope Francis' devotion to Our Lady, Untier of Knots, and also touched on faith, populism, the Roman Curia, and his international trips.
Regarding faith, he said that “one can’t grow without crisis … crisis is part of the life of faith; a faith which doesn’t enter into crisis to grow, remains juvenile.”
Turning to populism, he expressed his concern over the movement's expansion in Europe. “Populism is evil and ends badly, as the past century has shown … Behind populism there is always a messianism: always.”
He reminded people that he is imperfect, saying: “I am a sinner, I am limited. We must not forget that the idealization of a person is a subtle form of aggression, it’s a way to subtly attack a person. And when I am idealized, I feel attacked.”
Pope Francis also discussed international trips he hopes to take, and mentioned that he won't plan to go to Germany this year, or the next.
“I can’t go to Russia because I would also have to go to Ukraine,” he added.
“The important one would be to go to South Sudan, which I don’t think I’ll be able to do – it was in the schedule to go to the two Congos: with Kabila [president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo] things aren’t going well, I don’t think I’ll be able to go; but I will go to India and Bangladesh, for sure, to Colombia, and then a day in Portugal, in Fatima, and then I think that there’s another trip being studied, to Egypt: it seems like a full calendar, no?”
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mar 8, 2017 / 01:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Church in Ethiopia is mourning the deaths of four religious sisters who died in a car accident that critically injured three other sisters.The accident involved members of the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Anne. Eight sisters were driving to the city of Hawassa for a funeral of one sister’s relative.Near the east-central Ethiopian town of Meki, a truck overtook them on the road, causing the accident.“The news of the traffic death of four sisters in Ethiopia, the Daughters of St. Anne, touches our hearts and souls very deeply,” said Monsignor John E. Kozar, president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). “I know the Church of Ethiopia has lost some very devoted servants.”Three of the four dead have been identified as Sister Weinshet Gebru, the provincial superior and head of a formation house; Sister Motu Baba, former administrator of Guder Girls’ Orphanage;...
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mar 8, 2017 / 01:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Church in Ethiopia is mourning the deaths of four religious sisters who died in a car accident that critically injured three other sisters.
The accident involved members of the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Anne. Eight sisters were driving to the city of Hawassa for a funeral of one sister’s relative.
Near the east-central Ethiopian town of Meki, a truck overtook them on the road, causing the accident.
“The news of the traffic death of four sisters in Ethiopia, the Daughters of St. Anne, touches our hearts and souls very deeply,” said Monsignor John E. Kozar, president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). “I know the Church of Ethiopia has lost some very devoted servants.”
Three of the four dead have been identified as Sister Weinshet Gebru, the provincial superior and head of a formation house; Sister Motu Baba, former administrator of Guder Girls’ Orphanage; and Sister Hanna Bekute, former director of Guder Catholic School.
The sisters are involved in pastoral and human formation. They run schools, health facilities, sewing schools, vocational training centers, orphanages, and a school for the visually impaired. They have partnered with CNEWA for several initiatives.
Regional CNEWA director Argaw Fantu hailed the sisters as “jewels of the Church.”
Fantu requested prayers for the consolation of their religious community, praying that “God may bless them with the grace to keep on serving the people.”
The Daughters of St. Anne have been in Ethiopia since 1968. The congregation celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.
IMAGE: CNS photo/Rhina GuidosBy Rhina GuidosSAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (CNS) -- El Salvador's Catholic Churchcircles swirl these days with news about a possible miracle attributed to theintercession of Blessed Oscar Romero, one that many hope will lead to hiscanonization. But in the not-so-quiet whispers of hope, there's also theyearning that the momentum will help the beatification cause of his martyred Jesuitfriend, Father Rutilio Grande.Father Grande was killed 40 years ago -- March 12, 1977-- while on his way to a novena. More than a dozen bullets went through his body,killing him and parishioners Manuel Solorzano, 70, and 16-year-old NelsonRutilio Lemus."We're waiting" for word that will make Father Grande ElSalvador's next saint-in-waiting, said Andrea Perla, of the Archdiocese of SanSalvador's canonization department. Perla, a 20-something charged with using socialmedia to teach others about Father Grande, said there's a lot to learn from thepriest's exemplary life: humility,...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Rhina Guidos
By Rhina Guidos
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (CNS) -- El Salvador's Catholic Church circles swirl these days with news about a possible miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Oscar Romero, one that many hope will lead to his canonization.
But in the not-so-quiet whispers of hope, there's also the yearning that the momentum will help the beatification cause of his martyred Jesuit friend, Father Rutilio Grande.
Father Grande was killed 40 years ago -- March 12, 1977 -- while on his way to a novena. More than a dozen bullets went through his body, killing him and parishioners Manuel Solorzano, 70, and 16-year-old Nelson Rutilio Lemus.
"We're waiting" for word that will make Father Grande El Salvador's next saint-in-waiting, said Andrea Perla, of the Archdiocese of San Salvador's canonization department.
Perla, a 20-something charged with using social media to teach others about Father Grande, said there's a lot to learn from the priest's exemplary life: humility, generosity, and caring for those who need help the most. Like many young Catholic Salvadorans, she said she didn't know a lot about Father Grande, other than his association with Romero until she started reading about his life.
"And I really fell in love," she said.
Father Grande, a Salvadoran from the countryside, was educated mostly in Spain and Belgium and other parts of Latin America, but returned to work among his country's poor and rural masses. The mission teams he organized taught peasants to read using the Bible, but also helped the rural masses organize as workers to speak against a rich and powerful minority that paid them meager salaries and against the social maladies that befell them just because they were poor.
Jesuit Father Salvador Carranza worked with the team of missionaries Father Grande organized, which included Jesuit priests and lay ministers. They evangelized a wide rural area in El Salvador from 1972 until Father Grande's assassination, forming small communities that would read and discuss the Bible and subsequently other goings-on in their lives.
"Gathering as a community helped them grow tremendously," Father Carranza said in an interview with Catholic News Service. It started slowly. They began fixing a person's home, a street, and then they organized a food co-op that helped those who didn't have enough to eat, Father Carranza said.
"He always told the community," Perla said, that "he didn't want to bring the church to them, he wanted them to become the church."
As the Jesuit publicly advocated for the poor and disadvantaged, others quickly moved in to silence him.
"Rutilio was assassinated for believing that the poor are worth a space at the table," said Jose Artiga, executive director of the San Francisco-based Salvadoran Human Aid, Research and Education Foundation, known as SHARE.
Artiga and his wife named one of their sons Rutilio to honor the priest, who is "a symbol of struggle, a symbol of accompanying the organized poor, a symbol of giving your life for the liberation" of others.
Today, the bullet-ridden shirt Father Grande wore when he was killed is one of the first items to greet visitors in a permanent exhibit at the Hall of Martyrs at San Salvador's Romero Center, a space devoted to telling the story of the country's wartime atrocities. The exhibit, on the campus of a Jesuit university, focuses on El Salvador's Catholic martyrs.
David Molina, a student at the university who gives tours at the Romero Center, said Father Grande's place at the start of the exhibit is deliberate because his death marked the beginning of a terrible moment for Catholics in the country. It set off a persecution of priests, religious women and men and laity killed because they advocated for the poor in the period that produced and included a 12-year civil war that claimed more than 70,000 lives, including Archbishop Romero's in 1980, and six of Father Grande's Jesuit colleagues in 1989.
"Walking with the poor, he suffered the same persecution they were suffering, including death," Artiga said.
For a time, little was said about Father Grande because of a "strategy of fear" that those who killed him -- and who were never identified or tried -- used to try to silence his message, said Salvadoran Father Luis Salazar. What Father Grande said wasn't popular but it was necessary, said Father Salazar, adding that "the Gospel challenges us" and is not meant just to hear nice things.
Salvadoran Bishop Jose Elias Rauda of San Vicente, who attributes his vocation to the Jesuit, said aside from teaching solidarity, sensibility and fraternity, Father Grande exemplified straightforwardness, which later Archbishop Romero emulated.
"These were people who didn't keep quiet" about what has happening to the poor, Bishop Rauda said.
Forty years after his death, Father Grande has powerful admirers in the church. Fellow Jesuit Pope Francis is said to have asked a member of the commission pushing for the beatification of Father Grande whether there was yet a documented miracle attributed to the Jesuit's intercession. When the answer was no, the pope said he knew of one: Archbishop Romero.
It is popularly believed something inside the archbishop changed when he saw the brutal manner in which Father Grande and his parishioners were killed. Before the killings, he hadn't publicly spoken about the deteriorating social situation in the country or abuses against the poor.
Witnesses said that as Father Grande's body was carried toward his parish, it practically came apart because of the many wounds. The incident, along with other cases Archbishop Romero knew about involving the killing of unarmed civilians, led the archbishop to take up Father Grande's voice in defending the poor.
The Vatican beatified Archbishop Romero in 2015 after determining he was killed out of hatred for his Catholic faith. Father Rutilio devotees are hoping that the Romero beatification, along with the 2013 election of a Jesuit to the papacy, can only help recognize a man they've long considered a saint.
Father Grande is buried in his home parish of St. Joseph in El Paisnal, a town north of San Salvador, which is increasingly receiving visitors from abroad wanting to know more about the life of the priest. They include the Vatican's Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, postulator of Archbishop Romero's sainthood cause, who in 2015 visited the spot where the priest and his parishioners were killed and celebrated Mass at the parish where the three are buried. During the visit he offered comments about Father Grande and Archbishop Romero.
"Father Rutilio and Archbishop Romero had one great piece of wealth: the Word," Archbishop Paglia said, according to a Diaro1.com article, adding that while some sought to "truncate" their message, with "weapons, power, fear," they failed.
Instead of silencing it, those efforts strengthened their message of solidarity, humility and caring for the poor, which still speaks to the challenges of extreme violence, poverty and inequality that remain in El Salvador, said Monica Fernandez, who is working to bring to fruition Rutilio Grande National University, a project that would educate the country's poor.
"They are models and examples that can guide the church and society in the country," Fernandez said. "Seeking that peace with justice, seeking that brotherhood that they preached, lived and incarnated, and for which they gave their lives as martyrs. They still have much to say in El Salvador, in the universal church and in Latin America."
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Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.
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