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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican leaders' frustration with Donald Trump mounted Wednesday following a series of startling statements from the GOP nominee, including his refusal to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan's re-election. But there was no evidence GOP officials were backing off their support of Trump in the White House race....
(Vatican Radio) The Chargé d’Affaires of the Holy See's Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, Msgr. Simon Kassas, urged the Security Council on Tuesday to 'affirm and support families of children who are victimized in armed conflict'.Msgr. Kassas said Catholic Church has constantly advocated the role of families in the prevention of child victimization in armed conflict zones and in the reintegration of children into society.He said families "must be assisted in overcoming prejudices against child survivors of armed conflicts, in particular against women and girls who are victims of rape, and in welcoming back children into the family fold". He added that while the reintegration of child survivors "into society requires that we recognize the atrocities they may have committed, we must also build pathways for counseling and reconciliation with a view to accomplishing fully that reinteg...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday remembered Italian journalist Anna Maria Jacobini, who was discovered having died in her bed in Krakow on Friday. The 58-year-old was covering World Youth Day for RAI, the Italian state broadcaster. She is believed to have died of natural causes.“ I cannot forget Anna Maria Jacobini, an Italian journalist who died suddenly [in Krakow],” Pope Francis said during his General Audience.He asked those at the Audience to pray for her, noting she passed away while in the service of her profession.Jacobini was an expert on the Vatican, and served as a correspondent for RAI’s “A sua immagine,” a weekly Catholic affairs programme.
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday invoked St. John Vianney – the famous "Curé d'Ars" – during his final blessing at the weekly general audience. The feast day of Saint John Vianney is celebrated on 4 August.“A special greeting to the young people; the sick and infirm; and newlyweds,” – Pope Francis said – “Tomorrow we celebrate the memorial of St. John Vianney, patron of priests, and especially parish priests.”He then asked for the saint's intercession for their special intentions.“May his great humility be an example to you, dear young people, to live life as a gift of God; may his trusting abandonment to Christ the Saviour sustain you, dear people suffering illness, in the hour of suffering; and may his Christian witness give courage to you, dear newlyweds, to profess your faith without shame,” the Holy Father said.St. John Vianney was born in France in 1786. He served as a parish priest...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for prayers for his upcoming trip to Assisi.The Holy Father will travel to the Umbrian town on Thursday, to mark the eight centenary of the “Pardon of Assisi.” This is an indulgence granted to those who on 2 August visit the “Porziuncola,” the small church located within the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (“St. Mary of the Angels”) which is where is where St. Francis of Assisi began the Franciscan Order.The “Pardon of Assisi” was established by Pope Honorius III at the request of St. Francis in 1216.It will be a very simple pilgrimage, but very significant in this Holy Year of Mercy,” – Pope Francis said – “I ask everyone to accompany me with prayer, invoking the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit and the heavenly intercession of Saint Francis.”Pope Francis visited Assisi in 2013, a few months after his election to the See of Peter.
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis this week embarks on a short pilgrimage to mark the 8th centenary of the “Pardon of Assisi,” a feast which commemorates the establishment of a plenary indulgence for all who pass through the chapel where the Franciscan order was founded.During his Aug. 4 pilgrimage, the Pope will visit the Porziuncola – a small chapel, located inside the larger Basilica of St Mary of the Angels.In an interview with Vatican Radio, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, Fr Michael Anthony Perry, who will meet with the Holy Father during the pilgrimage, explained the meaning behind this feast.Listen to Blandine Hugonnet’s interview with Fr Michael Perry, OFM: “It was his own discovery of God forgiving him for his own sins,” he said. “And as he began to forgive himself and allowed God to forgive him, he found himself wanting to forgive others, and wanting to extend that to all people, even to his enemies.”This message...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis renewed his condemnation of the holocaust on Wednesday, and decried once again the persistent violence in the world as a “piecemeal” world war. The Holy Father’s remarks came during the course of the General Audience on Wednesday – the first since suspending the weekly appointment with pilgrims and tourists for the month of July, and the first since his return from Poland and the 2016 edition of World Youth Day.While in Poland, Pope Francis visited the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where German National Socialists murdered a million European Jews (one in every six victims of Shoah perished at Auschwitz) as part of their programme of Jewish extermination.“The great silence of the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau,” said Pope Francis, “was more eloquent than any word spoken could have been. In that silence I listened: I felt the presence of all the souls who passed through that place; I felt the compas...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis took a moment during his General Audience on Wednesday to remember Susanna Rufi, a 19-year-old girl from Rome who died of meningitis on her way home from World Youth Day.She was taken to the hospital in Vienna on Sunday evening, and died the next morning.“We remember with affection Susanna, the Roman girl of this diocese, who died soon after taking part in World Youth Day, while she was in Vienna,” – Pope Francis said – “May the Lord, who certainly welcomed her into Heaven, comfort her family and friends.”Susanna had been active in the youth programme at St. Polycarp Parish in Rome, and been preparing for over a year for her trip to Krakow.The Italian Bishops Conference has asked Italian pilgrims to World Youth Day to seek medical attention if they suffer any symptoms associated with meningitis.
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis met with a group of 65 child refugees from Syria and Eritrea on Wednesday during his General Audience.The children are staying in the small town of Castelnuovo di Porto, located 25 kilometres north of Rome.The children were wearing shirts saying “Grazie Papa Francesco” [Thank you, Pope Francis], and gave the Holy Father a large teddy bear. They also held up a sign saying “Our house is where peace resides.”Pope Francis washed the feet of refugees from the Centre for Asylum Seekers at Castelnuovo di Porto on Holy Thursday in March.
New York City, N.Y., Aug 3, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA).- “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.”So wrote Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Demons, one of four of his greatest novels. The Russian Orthodox novelist would find himself in agreement with a Polish Roman Catholic Pope, who more than a century later wrote of the Catholic Church’s need for beauty, and artists who could create that beauty. “Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savour life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God…” wrote Pope John Paul II in his 1999 Letter to Artists.Himself an artist as an accomplished actor and poet, Pope John Paul II saw the need to appeal to artists ...
