Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis remembered the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter during his final blessing at his weekly General Audience on Wednesday.

“Today we celebrate the feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle, the day of the special communion of believers with the Successor of St Peter and the Holy See,” the Pope said.

“Dear young people, I encourage you to intensify your prayers for of my Petrine ministry; dear sick people, I thank you for the witness of life given in suffering for the building up of ecclesial community; and you, dear newlyweds, build your family on the same love that binds the Lord Jesus to His Church,” he continued.

On this feast day, the statue of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica is dressed in Papal vestments, and venerated by the faithful.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday greeted members of the Rony Roller Circus, which presented a short performance for the crowd during his General Audience. 

Acrobats, fire-breathers, dancers, and other performers entertained the Holy Father and all those present in St. Peter's Square. Speaking of the cuff, the Holy Father thanked them, saying “You make something beautiful!”

“Beauty carries us to God,” – the Pope continued – “It is a path which arrives at God. Continue to make beautiful things! Continue to make good things for all of us! Thank you!”

In 2016, Pope Francis arranged for the Rony Roller Circus to perform for the poor and needy during their stay in Rome.

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As Pope  Francis appealed Wednesday to the international community to come to the aid of South Sudan, United Nations’ (UN) aid agencies point to war and a collapsing economy as the main causes of the famine in South Sudan.

The news agency, AP, reported Tuesday that South Sudan's President Salva Kiir promised that his government would ensure “unimpeded access” for all aid organisations, a day after famine was declared for more than 100,000 people in the country’s Unity state. 

The United Nations and others have long accused the government of blocking or restricting aid delivery in the East African nation.

President Salva Kiir's remarks to the transitional national assembly came after the famine was declared in parts of oil-rich Unity state. More than 100,000 people are affected, according to South Sudan's government and UN agencies. They say another 1 million people are on the brink of starvation.

South Sudan has repeatedly promised to allow full humanitarian access across the country, but with little effect. Some in Kiir's government have expressed hostility toward the international community, accusing it of meddling in the country's affairs.

The U.S. State Department said it was gravely concerned by the declaration of famine, calling the crisis “the direct consequence of a conflict prolonged by South Sudanese leaders who are unwilling to put aside political ambitions for the good of their people.”

“We call on President Kiir to expeditiously make good on his promise that humanitarian and developmental organisations will have unimpeded access to populations in need across the country,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. 

Also Tuesday, the European Commission announced an 82 million euro (U.S.$ 87 million) emergency aid package for South Sudan, saying this is the first famine is declared in the country since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011.

Tens of thousands have died in the civil war that began in December 2013 and has continued despite a peace agreement in 2015. More than 1.5 million people have fled the country.

South Sudan is also experiencing severe inflation, which has made food unaffordable for many families. 

In the meantime, the UN refugee agency UNHCR was reported by the agencies as saying it is concerned about the current refugee crisis in Uganda, describing it as the largest refugee crisis in Africa.

This follows the displacement of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, who have been forced to flee their country due to the ongoing conflict.
this is according to Jesse Kamstra, representative of the Lutheran World Federation in Uganda,

“This is currently the largest refugee crisis in Africa and the third largest in the world, and there is complete lack of international attention on this crisis that is unfolding and I don’t know how many more thousands have to come and flee or die before the international community wakes up and realises what is happening here on the ground,” Kamstra said.

Just last week, the UN agency said more than 1.5 million asylum seekers had taken refuge in Uganda, since the civil war that erupted in South Sudan in December 2013. Uganda's capacity to host the refugees has been severly stretched.

The International Federation of the Red Cross says 11 million people in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia also need help as a result of the drought that has hit Eastern Africa.

(Sources: Vatican Radio, AP, Reuters, Africanews)

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday recalled this year marks the centenary of the apparitions at Fatima.

Speaking to German pilgrims during his General Audience, the Holy Father said “let us entrust ourselves to Mary, Mother of hope, who invites us to turn our gaze towards salvation, towards a new world and a new humanity. God bless you all.”

On May 13, 1917, Lúcia Santos and her cousins Bl. Jacinta and Bl. Francisco Marto began seeing apparitions of Our Lady, which continued  for months.

Last December, the Vatican confirmed Pope Francis will go on pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima from 12-13 May of this year.

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Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Through its annual rice bowl initiative, Catholic Relief Services has announced it will be promoting a “culture of encounter” in its Lenten operation.

“At a time when there is so much conflict in the world, this Lenten program gives people of all ages a way to respond to human suffering with compassion and action,” Joan Rosenhauer, executive vice president of U.S. operations for Catholic Relief Services, stated.

“To learn the names and stories of our brothers and sisters, to include them in our prayers, to contribute our Lenten sacrifices so they can live better, healthier lives; this is the way we deepen our faith, building a culture of encounter and holding up the dignity of each and every one of us,” she added.

“CRS Rice Bowl” is the annual Lenten initiative of Catholic Relief Services. Participating Catholics pray, fast, and give alms to CRS in solidarity with each other and with other needy families throughout the world.

The theme is “encounter,” CRS insists. “Through prayer, we encounter Christ, present in the faces of every member of our human family, so often still walking that long road to Calvary,” they stated.

“Through fasting, we encounter our own obstacles, those things about ourselves that prevent us from loving God and neighbor,” they added. “Through almsgiving, we encounter our brothers and sisters around the world, asking what we can give up so that others might have life to the fullest.”

In addition to accepting donations from Catholics, Rice Bowl provides weekly prayer reflections and its website CRSRiceBowl.org features videos on how to practice Lent, from leaders like Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles.

The program also provides meatless recipes, and opportunities for Catholics to learn about other families around the world helped by CRS and the social teaching of the Church.

CRS claims that only one dollar donated per day of Lent could provide a month’s worth of food for another family in need. Donations could also provide medical care for children or clean drinking water.

“We want to meet people where they are in their day-to-day lives, in schools, in parishes, and on the go.  CRS Rice Bowl is an easy to use tool that helps people deepen their Lenten journey by participating in our Lenten traditions – prayer, fasting and almsgiving - in a time and way that suits them best,” Beth Martin, director for U.S. operations of the program, explained.

Participants can receive email updates from the program by signing up on the website, or they can download the Rice Bowl app onto their smartphones.

A quarter of donations go to local anti-poverty and food programs while three-quarters “goes to support CRS’ humanitarian and development programs overseas, providing life-saving assistance and hope to impoverished and vulnerable communities,” the group said.

Pope Francis, in his Lenten message, asked Catholics to participate in Lenten campaigns “promoted by many Church organizations in different parts of the world, and thus to favor the culture of encounter in our one human family.”

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Vatican City, Feb 22, 2017 / 04:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said creation has often suffered because of humanity’s sins and failings, stressing that we must take care of it because as Christians, we see signs of hope in Christ’s Resurrection in nature every day.

“We are still struggling with the consequences of our sin and everything around us still bears the mark of our efforts, of our shortcomings, our closures,” he said Feb. 22.

“At the same time, however, we know that they are saved by the Lord and already we are given to contemplate and anticipate in ourselves and in the world around us signs of the Resurrection, Easter, which operates a new creation.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims during his general audience, held in St. Peter’s Square for the first time since winter, continuing his catechesis on the theme of hope.

He reminded pilgrims that God has entrusted creation to us as a gift that can draw us closer to him, even if our selfishness and sin has contributed to its destruction.

“Creation is a wonderful gift that God has placed in our hands that we may enter into a relationship with him and we can recognize the imprint of his loving plan, the achievement of which we are all called to work toward together, day after day,” he said.

But when we get caught up in our selfishness, we ruin even the most beautiful things entrusted to us, he continued, “and so it happened for creation.”

“With the tragic experience of sin, broken fellowship with God, we have broken the original communion with everything around us and we ended up corrupting creation, thus making it a slave, submissive to our frailty.”

We see the consequence of this before us every day, he said, pointing to water as an example.

“Water is beautiful, water is important, water is life,” yet we have helped to destroy creation by contaminating water, the Pope observed. His reference comes a day ahead of the start of a two-day seminar on water and sustainable development hosted by the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences.

“But the Lord does not leave us alone,” he said, and turned to a passage from the letter of St. Paul to the Romans which says that “all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.”

If we pay attention to creation and to ourselves, Francis said, we will see that we are all groaning, just like a woman experiencing labor pains, and this is because the Holy Spirit is working within us.

These groans are the cries of those who suffer, who are waiting for the recreation of the world, the Pope said, adding that “this is the content of our hope: (that we are living in) the time of waiting, the time of longing that goes beyond the present, the time of fulfillment.”

Because we live in the world, we see “signs of evil, selfishness and sin” both in ourselves and in what surrounds us, he said. But at the same time, as Christians we also have learned to see the world “through the eyes of Easter, with the eyes of the Risen Christ.”

That’s why this is a time of waiting, a time of longing: we have hope in our knowledge that the Lord wants to permanently heal our wounded hearts with his mercy, and in this way, regenerate “a new world and a new humanity, finally reconciled in his love.”

We can often be tempted by pessimism, by disappointment, Pope Francis said. However, “we find solace the Holy Spirit, breath of our hope, which keeps alive the groaning and the expectation of our hearts.”

At the end of the audience, the Pope and those gathered in the square received a surprise performance by an Italian circus group, Rony Roller Circus. Francis said afterwards that “they make beauty, and beauty is the road that leads to God. Continue to make beauty!”

He also made an appeal for “the martyred South Sudan,” where millions of people are dying of hunger due to a food crisis brought on by the country’s drawn-out internal conflict.

Right now “a fratricidal conflict joins a severe food crisis that condemns to death by hunger millions of people, including many children,” the Pope observed, and called for action.

Just within the past few days a famine was declared in some areas of South Sudan as some 100,000 people face starvation and another 1 million are described as being on the brink of famine, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

According to both WFP and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) sources, the number of people facing hunger is expected to raise to 5.5 million by July if nothing is done to curb the food crisis.

However, the agencies report that if adequate food assistance is urgently delivered to the suffering areas, the situation can be improved and further crisis averted.

In his appeal, Pope Francis said that right now “it is more needed than ever” for everyone to commit to not stopping with declarations, “but to give real food aid and to allow that it reach the suffering populations.”

“May the Lord sustain these brothers of ours and those who work to help them,” he said, and gave his blessing before closing the audience.

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Paris, France, Feb 22, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An international group of Catholic physicians is protesting a law passed by France's parliament last week sanctioning pro-life websites that aim to dissuade women from abortion by using “misleading claims.”

The law constitutes “a clear violation of the freedom of expression and cannot be approved, especially when it comes from a country which prides herself on being tolerant, broad-minded, and always fighting in the defense of human rights,” the World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC) stated.

“In this instance, it would appear that the French government interprets 'human rights' as a kind of a privilege to be enjoyed only by women seeking a medical procedure that, from a health standpoint, is not in their or their unborn child’s best interest.”

It continued: “FIAMC protests this immoral law and its future consequences, and denounces the abuse it constitutes. Such a law contradicts the universal moral law and cannot be obeyed in conscience. It is hoped that a future French government will abolish it quickly in order to restore the now tarnished image of this great democratic nation.”

The lower house of the French parliament, which is dominated by the Socialist Party, passed the bill Feb. 16. It was also supported by most Union of Democrats and Independents members of parliament.

The Republicans, who dominate the French Senate, opposed the law. The party has said it will challenge the law in the courts.

The law provides for a penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euro ($31,800) against the directors of publication of websites which run afoul of the law.

 

#delitdentraveivg @laurossignol CELA PEUT SERVIR DE SYNTHESE A TOUT CE CIRQUE DELIRANT ; Prochaine étape : le conseil constitutionnel ! pic.twitter.com/g8N28Uw3y2

— IVG (@ivg_infos) February 16, 2017  

Laurence Rossingol, the French minister for women's rights, said the law targets pro-life organizations which operate “websites imitating the state websites”; infos ivg is reportedly the site targeted by the law.

Rossingol said pro-life activists can freely express themselves “under the condition they sincerely say who they are, what they do, and what they want.”

The French minister of health and social affairs, Marisol Touraine, said the law is aimed at “preventing these websites from disseminating disinformation.” She also denounced the “cultural climate that tends to make women feel guilty when they consider” abortion.

The bill was introduced in October 2016, and the Catholic Church in France quickly opposed it. Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille, president of the French bishops' conference, wrote Nov. 22 to President Francois Hollande registering the Church's concerns, saying the proposal “call into question the foundations of our liberties and most particularly the freedom of expression … Can the slightest encouragement to keep one's child be described as 'psychological and moral pressure'?”

Alliance Vita, a pro-life group, has denounced the law as an infringement on freedom of speech.

More than 50,000 pro-life supporters marched in Paris Jan. 22 to protest the bill.

“Obstruction to abortion” had been criminalized in 1993. That law prevented pro-life activists from physically blocking access to abortion clinics, and had an identical penalty for offenders, of up to two years in prison and a 30,000 euro fine. The new law had been proposed as an update the 1993 law for cyberspace.

In January 2016 France also abolished a one-week reflection period before a requested abortion could be carried out.

The AFP reports that 220,000 unborn children are aborted annually in France, where abortion was legalized in 1975. It added that approximately one-third of Frenchwomen undergo abortion.

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