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DALLAS (AP) -- At 5, the girl identified as S.A. entered the Texas foster care system. Within months, she reported being raped by an older child. She was moved more than 45 times, including to psychiatric hospitals, and missed several chances for adoption because of paperwork delays. At 18, after aging out of the system, she walked into traffic and was hit by a car. At last report, she was living in a homeless shelter....
In a Pentecost message, the leader of the Catholic Church in Singapore has urged his faithful to be proud of Christ and renew their commitment to society. "We cannot afford to remain as spectators on the sidelines when our faith is challenged, denigrated and ridiculed,” Archbishop William Goh wrote in a pastoral letter for the occasion of Pentecost, on Sunday, May 15. “If the call to be proud to be Singaporean means to stand up for Singapore, so too, is the call to stand up for Jesus if we are proud to be Catholic,” the letter said.. He urged Catholics to make Jesus known and loved by being united in love and truth. And “the Christian answer to true unity is the Holy Spirit who leads us to Jesus who is the fullness of truth.” Hence, “being proud to be Catholic means that we should be even more patriotic as citizens.” He said Catholics “must be ready to individually speak up and stand up for our faith and Catholic val...
India's Maharashtra state has become the first in the country to ban village councils from imposing "social boycotts" that ostracise individuals or families for defying tradition. Women and lower caste Dalits often bear the brunt of such judgments, passed as punishment for perceived misdeeds such as marrying between castes or dressing immodestly. The western Indian state last month passed the law against a decades-old practice of village panchayats, or councils, ordering social boycottsUnder village council orders, individuals and families have been banished from the community, and denied access to temples, wells, markets and celebrations. In some cases, panchayats have even branded women as witches, and ordered gang rapes or killings as punishment.Maharashtra's new law declares social boycotts a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, a fine of 500,000 ($7,500), or both. . "The Act was required against the backdrop of ...
Pakistan’s Lahore District Government has provided more than US$ 30,000 to repair the dome of Lahore’s Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral. An earthquake last November had damaged the over 50-metre tall dome and brought down the cross on top. The dome, which engineers until recently were reluctant to work on at that height, will regain its former glory thanks to Muhammad Ishtiaq, a Muslim who is a town planning officer. Archbishop Sebastian Shah on Wednesday came to view the work that started a couple of months ago. Masons have begun to remove the bricks that fell from the damaged parts. The Rector Fr Joseph Shehzad thanked Ishtiaq and his family at a ceremony in his honour. Ishtiaq told AsiaNews, “The cathedral is a national heritage.” “There are personal clashes between Christians and Muslims in Pakistan. The leaders of both religions should stop anyone who spread hatred between the two communities," I...
Vatican City, May 14, 2016 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Economic worldviews based only on material well-being cannot contribute to dignified labor and new models of economic progress are needed, Pope Francis told a gathering of business experts on Friday.“An economic vision geared to profit and material well-being alone is – as experience is daily showing us – incapable of contributing in a positive way to a globalization that favours the integral development of the world’s peoples, a just distribution of the earth’s resources, the guarantee of dignified labour and the encouragement of private initiative and local enterprise,” Pope Francis said May 13 to the members of the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation.The foundation is in the midst of its international conference on “Business initiative in the fight against poverty: the refugee emergency, our challenge.” The foundation was founded in 1993 by St. John Paul II to study and p...
Vatican City, May 14, 2016 / 06:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his catechesis for this Saturday's Jubilee of Mercy audience, Pope Francis addressed the theme of piety, and how it manifests God's mercy through compassion for the suffering and afflicted.“The piety of which we speak is a manifestation of God's mercy,” the Pope told the rain-soaked crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.The pontiff explained that piety, or “pietà” – which in Italian can also be translated as compassion, pity, or mercy – should not “be confused with compassion which we feel for the animals who live with us.”“It happens, in fact, that at times one feels this sentiment toward animals, and remains indifferent to the suffering of their brothers and sisters.”He added in off-the-cuff remarks: “How often do we see people greatly attached to cats, to dogs,” he said, but fail to “help their neighbor, their neighb...
CANNES, France (AP) -- Steven Spielberg has premiered his Roald Dahl adaptation "The BFG" at the Cannes Film Festival, where he said the film is "the closest I've ever come to a love story."...
SOMERS, Conn. (AP) -- Just before his 100th birthday, ice cream magnate S. Prestley Blake gave himself a $7.7 million gift - a house built to replicate Monticello, the famed Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson....
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Vermont is poised to become the first state requiring drug companies to explain their price increases, and Bob and Deborah Messing think that's a good idea....
NEW YORK (AP) -- For days, the charred school bus sat in front of a Jewish girls' school in Brooklyn, its ruined hulk posing a troubling question: Has the quarter-century of peace between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights begun to fray?...
