Pope decries cancer of corruption in Latin America
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&view=post&articleid=160468&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
(Vatican Radio) Corruption is “like a cancer” that consumes the daily life of people across Latin America, Pope Francis has told bishops.In a letter to the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) at the start of their general assembly, the Pope decried corruption as “one of the most serious sins that plagues our continent today”.The Pope reiterated his call to the bishops gathering in El Salvador to walk more closely with people, especially those on the peripheries, and to renew their hope.Pope Francis wrote: “Corruption devastates lives by submerging them in the most extreme poverty. It’s a corruption which destroys entire populations by subjecting them to precariousness. It’s a corruption that, like a cancer, consumes the daily life of our people.”The Pope used the story of Our Lady of Aparecida, the patroness of Brazil, as the basis of his message of hope. The statue was found 300 years ago by three poor fisherman who caught a...
(Vatican Radio) Corruption is “like a cancer” that consumes the daily life of people across Latin America, Pope Francis has told bishops.
In a letter to the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) at the start of their general assembly, the Pope decried corruption as “one of the most serious sins that plagues our continent today”.
The Pope reiterated his call to the bishops gathering in El Salvador to walk more closely with people, especially those on the peripheries, and to renew their hope.
Pope Francis wrote: “Corruption devastates lives by submerging them in the most extreme poverty. It’s a corruption which destroys entire populations by subjecting them to precariousness. It’s a corruption that, like a cancer, consumes the daily life of our people.”
The Pope used the story of Our Lady of Aparecida, the patroness of Brazil, as the basis of his message of hope. The statue was found 300 years ago by three poor fisherman who caught a miraculous amount of fish and grew in faith after asking for Mary’s intercession.
In his letter, Pope Francis said the story shows the accompaniment that Mary, an attentive mother, gives to her children. “In the story of Aparecida we meet her in the river covered in mud,” he said. “There she is waiting for her children, there she is with her children in the midst of their struggles and searches.”
The Pope further reflected that in their encounter with Mary, the fisherman’s nets filled up with a presence that filled their lives and gave them certainty that in their struggles they were not alone. Similarly, added the Pope, the community of believers “aware of their nets, their lives, are full of a presence that encourages them not to loose hope.”
Pope Francis added: “Aparecida does not bring us remedies but keys, criteria, a few big certainties to illumine us, above all, to spark the desire to get rid of all the superfluous things and return to the roots, to the essential, to the attitude that planted the faith in the primitive Church and then made our continent the land of hope. Aparecida asks to renew our hope in the midst of so many severities.”
The conference, entitled “A poor Church for the poor”, which runs until May 13, brings together representatives from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as the United States and Canada.
(Richard Paul Marsden)
Full Article
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275586&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domainCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.Wh...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275585&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by "explicitly communist" outside forces. "There is an instrumentalization of what's going on in Gaza to advance an agenda," he said. "And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order."Speaking on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other "outside agitators." While he said he believes that many of the protesters we...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275582&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Father Greg Boyle gives an address at "We ? LA: An Urban Retreat for LA's Passionate Leaders" in 2010. / Credit: durfeefoundation, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and le...