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Ez 37:12-14; Rom 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed in Communist Russia: she made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all made a gesture suggesting that her husband had been wrong. She hoped that there was another way of life – a life best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that this same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband and raise him up on the Day of the Judgment....
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday greeted participants in a conference promoted by the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, entitled “Luther: 500 Years Later”.The Pope expressed his gratitude to God for the event, calling it a “working of the Holy Spirit”.Listen to Devin Watkins’ report: Gratitude to God and surprise, Pope Francis said, were his first responses upon hearing of the conference on the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther presenting his 95 theses.He called the initiative promoted by the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences “praiseworthy” and said, “not long ago a meeting like this would have been unthinkable.”“Truly we are experiencing the results of the working of the Holy Spirit,” the Pope said, “who overcomes every obstacle and turns conflicts into occasions for growth in communion.”He notes that the title of the joint document commemorating the fifth centenary o...
(Vatican Radio) Ratzinger Prize-winning theologian Anne-Marie Pelletier is authoring the meditations for this year’s Good Friday Via crucis at the Colosseum here in Rome.Pelletier is a laywoman, born in 1946, who is married and has three children.She has spent her entire life in academia, compiling an impressive array of accolades, including the 2014 Ratzinger Prize in Theology – the first woman to receive the award.Click below to hear our report An expert in hermeneutics and biblical exegesis, Pelletier has dedicated most of her research to the theme of women in Christianity.Motivating the choice of Pelletier as one of two persons to receive the Prize in 2014, the Cardinal-vicar-emeritus of Rome and then-President of the Scientific Committee of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, Camillo Ruini described her as, “a distinguished figure in contemporary French Catholicism,” one, “with deserved scientific prestige, a great and versatile...
Jerusalem, Mar 31, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Having just undergone an extensive restoration, the site of Jesus' tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is at risk for significant structural failure if nothing is done to reinforce its foundations, scientists have said."When it fails, the failure will not be a slow process, but catastrophic," Antonia Moropoulou, chief scientific supervisor with the National Technical University of Athens, told National Geographic in an exclusive interview.A team of scientists with NTUA just recently completed a year-long restoration of the site believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. National Geographic has been extensively covering the restoration process. During the restoration process, the team of scientists determined that The Edicule (Latin for "little house"), a small shrine within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that encloses Jesus’ tomb, was resting on an unstable foundation of tunnel...
Chilpancingo, Mexico, Mar 31, 2017 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A bishop in Mexico's Guerrero state, which suffers the most from drug- and gang-related violence, recently met with gang leaders in order to protect priests who were receiving death threats.Bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza of Chilpancingo-Chilapa told Radio Fórmula March 27 that since he came to the diocese in June 2015 his great concern has been to “promote peace, harmony, dialogue.”“When I saw that some priests had been threatened by them, including one quite seriously, I took up the task of going to go see these people (the gang leaders) and talking with them,” he said.Bishop Rangel related that he made the contact through third persons, and in his meetings he told the leaders of these gangs that “with the death (of a priest) we're not going to be able to settle anything,” and that the situation in Guerrero will only deteriorate.“As a bishop I must seek dialogue ...
BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) -- Rain-fed wildflowers have been sprouting from California's desert sands after lying dormant for years - producing a spectacular display that has drawn record crowds and traffic jams to tiny towns like Borrego Springs....
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- For a person whose life always seemed to revolve around South Korea's huge presidential palace, the next several months will be lived on a much smaller scale....
TOKYO (AP) -- There might well have been some corks popping in Pyongyang on Friday....
(Vatican Radio) The president of European Union leaders is to issue draft guidelines on how the EU intends to negotiate Britain's divorce from the bloc amid concerns that populist parties will try to trigger similar departures in other member states. European Council President Donald Tusk was due to send the proposals to the governments of the other 27 remaining EU members Friday morning, after British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered Britain's departure from the block, known as Brexit, by sending the Article 50 notification.Listen to Stefan Bos' report: Tusk's negotiating guidelines of some six or seven pages will set the tone for two years of tough talks to come.Possibly the toughest phase of talks on a totally new relationship in the future will be the 60 billion 'divorce' bill Brussels plans topresent to London. Another issue is securing the rights of both millions of mainly East European EU citizens in Britain and British people livin...
Mosul, Iraq, Mar 31, 2017 / 12:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The desolation of a burned Iraqi church left Argentine-born missionary Father Luis Montes with the firm conviction that Satan is at the root of the attacks, and Christians must pray for the conversion of ISIS.“The one who is behind everything is the devil, behind ISIS and the rest of the jihadist groups, and behind the people who support them, some by a similar fanaticism and others for various interests,” the priest said upon visiting the heavily damaged Church of Saint George in Bartella, recently freed from the Islamic State group.Fr. Montes said that these forces are in reality attacking Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race. “But since they cannot harm him, they attack his churches, his faithful, in memory of him,” he said.“It really shakes you up to see a sacred place burned, vandalized, desecrated,” he said on his Facebook page March 24. “You’re left speechless seeing...
