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(Vatican Radio) The magnitude 6.2 earthquake which struck central Italy on Wednesday morning left thousands of people homeless who are now in need of basic necessities such as food and a roof over their heads.The country’s Civil Protection Agency has set up camps with tents for those who lost everything and aid agencies have been providing food and counseling services to survivors.One of the agencies on the front line of relief efforts is Caritas Italy.Lydia O’Kane spoke to Caritas worker Antonina Ciabattoni who is in Ascoli Piceno, one of the dioceses worst hit by the earthquake.Listen: Relief effortsSpeaking about their relief efforts, she said, “we personally cannot go into the area where there was the earthquake. Now our volunteers are going and coming saying to us what they need. We provide for two days, when the camp was not ready we provided sandwiches, hot drinks, water, waiting for the other things that the people are sending.”Since the...
Vatican City, Aug 26, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Since he resigned from the papacy over three years ago, Benedict XVI rarely gives interviews. In a recent exception, however, the former pontiff took the time to chat not only about his successor, but the saints who've accompanied him throughout his life.In the interview, published Aug. 24 in Italian newspaper La Reppublica, Benedict said he has been serene and happy since his resignation, and that while there were “smaller and larger difficulties” in his pontificate, there were also “many graces” that came from the fact that he wasn’t alone.“From the beginning I was conscious of my limits and I accepted, as I have always sought to do in my life, in a spirit of obedience,” he said.“I realized that all I had to do I couldn’t do alone and so I was almost forced to put myself in the hands of God, to entrust myself to Jesus, to whom, as I gradually wrote my volume ...
Vatican City, Aug 26, 2016 / 05:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Announced Friday, the theme Pope Francis selected for the 2017 World Day of Peace focuses on nonviolence as a political solution to what he has frequently termed a “piecemeal World War III” being waged throughout the globe.“Violence and Peace are at the origin of two opposite ways to building society,” an Aug. 26 communique from the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace announcing the theme read.“The proliferation of hotbeds of violence produces most serious negative social consequences…Peace, by contrast, promotes social positive consequences and it allows the achievement of real progress.”Therefore, “we should act within what is possible, and negotiate ways of peace even where they seem tortuous and impractical,” the message attached to the theme said.By doing so, non-violence can take on “a more comprehensive and new meaning” composed not only of mere...
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Kurdish militants on Friday attacked a police checkpoint in southeast Turkey with an explosives-laden truck, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, officials and the state-run news agency said....
GENEVA (AP) -- The United States and Russia on Friday renewed efforts to secure a military and humanitarian cooperation agreement for war-torn Syria as conditions on the ground continued to deteriorate after months of hesitation, missed deadlines and failed attempts to forge a nationwide truce....
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump has unleashed the "radical fringe" within the Republican Party, including anti-Semites and white supremacists, dubbing the billionaire businessman's campaign as one that will "make America hate again."...
(Vatican Radio) In the wake of the deadly quake on Wednesday that killed at least 250 people, aftershocks continued to hamper relief efforts. Large aftershocks in the early hours of Friday brought down already cracked buildings, rattled residents and closed already clogged roads.Listen to Christopher Wells' report: Firefighters and rescue crews using sniffer dogs worked in teams around the hard-hit areas in central Italy, pulling chunks of cement, rock and metal from mounds of rubble where homes once stood. Rescuers refused to say when their work would shift from saving lives to recovering bodies, noting that one person was pulled alive from the rubble 72 hours after the 2009 quake in the nearby town of L'Aquila.As rescue efforts continue, Premier Matteo Renzi on Thursday pledged new money and measures to help rebuild the country. The Italian government has authorized a preliminary 50 million euros in emergency funding and ordered the cancellation of taxes for reside...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is accompanying the victims of Wednesday’s devastating earthquake with both prayer and concrete signs of solidarity.Having already sent Vatican firefighters to the area, Pope Francis on Thursday sent a group of Vatican gendarmes to assist in rescue and relief operations, in coordination with Italy’s Civilian Protection agency.Also on Thursday, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass at the Casa Santa Marta for all those who are suffering on account of the earthquake. The Pope was joined at the Sacred Liturgy by a group of Poor Clares from the monastery of Santa Maria di Vallegloria, in Spello, Umbria, who themselves had been affected by an earthquake in 1997. The Poor Clares subsequently had to reside for 14 years in temporary housing. Speaking at the Mass, Pope Francis invited the nuns to “sow hope”, to share Christ with others both through prayer and with their lives. Jesus, he said, “is true wealth, even when we have nothi...
Tororo, Uganda, Aug 26, 2016 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An archdiocese in southeastern Uganda aims to eliminate domestic violence.“It’s a concern for the family, it’s a concern for the society, above all, it’s a concern for the Church, and we cannot keep quiet,” Archbishop Emmanuel Obbo of Tororo told the Catholic News Agency of Africa Aug. 17.He said domestic violence is a major challenge present “in almost every family” in his diocese.The archbishop lamented violence between spouses as well as child beating and the defilement of children.“Young girls are not free to live in this society,” Archbishop Obbo said.Now the Archdiocese of Tororo is taking action. With clergy, vowed religious and catechists, the archbishop said, “we are trying to do what we can, from the grassroots to my office, to see that domestic violence is reduced to zero.”The archbishop has established a chaplaincy for domestic violence in each dean...
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Striking miners in Bolivia kidnapped and beat to death the country's deputy interior minister after he traveled to the area to mediate in the bitter conflict over mining laws, officials said....
