Pilgrims of hope amid crisis: Archbishop Fisichella on the 2025 Jubilee

Archbishop Rino Fisichella sat down with EWTN News on April 10, 2024, in Rome. / Credit: Screenshot / EWTN YouTubeNational Catholic Register, Jun 2, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Archbishop Rino Fisichella is the pro-prefect for the Section of New Evangelization of the Dicastery for Evangelization.He recently discussed in an interview with Andreas Thonhauser, EWTN's Rome bureau chief, the preparations for Jubilee 2025 and why it is important to prepare for the jubilee in prayer as a pilgrim of hope.Fisichella, 72, also explained the challenges amid a decline of Christianity and a crisis of faith in the West and the hope that is springing from the Catholic Church in Africa and Asia.Thonhauser: Your Excellency, you are responsible for preparing and organizing Jubilee 2025. How are things progressing?Fisichella: Things are well. We have a few weeks to wait for the first official event of the jubilee, but I should say that the preparation is at a good stage. It's complicated because I woul...

Puerto Rico bishops conference issues 2024 election reflection

Scene of the walled city of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. The oldest Governor's Mansion under the American flag, La Fortaleza, is top right. / Credit: Wikimedia CommonsACI Prensa Staff, Jun 2, 2024 / 05:50 am (CNA).The bishops of Puerto Rico have published a pastoral message ahead of this year's Nov. 5 elections, in which they call on the citizens of the U.S. territory to "decide correctly" through "discernment, contemplating in depth the reality and the history" of the island.This year, Puerto Rico's voters will choose their governor, resident commissioner (sole non-voting member of the U.S. Congress), all members of the Puerto Rico Senate and House of Representatives, as well as all 78 mayors of the island's municipalities. In addition, for the first time, this Nov. 5 Puerto Rico's voters will cast a symbolic vote for President and Vice President of the United States. Those ballots will not be tabulated in the official U.S. presidential election, however, which is limi...

Pope Francis: In the Eucharist, Jesus offers himself for the world

On the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Pope Francis explained that just as Jesus "did not keep his life for himself, but gave it to us," so too are Christians called to make their lives a gift for others. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, Jun 2, 2024 / 08:59 am (CNA).In the Eucharist, Jesus offers himself for the life of the world, Pope Francis proclaimed from the window of the Apostolic Palace on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. Speaking to a crowd huddled together under colorful umbrellas on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Rome, the pope underlined that the body and blood of Christ offered at every Mass is a gift from God. "It is He who gives Himself for all humanity, and offers Himself for the life of the world," Pope Francis said on June 2."Let us remember this: Jesus made a gift of all His life," he added.Pope Francis explained that just as Jesus "did not keep his life for himself, but gave it to us," so too are Christians called to make their lives a gift for other...

Jersey Shore children encounter Jesus at stop on National Eucharistic Pilgrimage

School children from St. Mary Academy watch the Eucharistic Procession on the campus of their home parish, St. Maryof the Pines Church, Manahawkin, New Jersey, May 29, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey BrunoCNA Staff, Jun 2, 2024 / 08:15 am (CNA).With school uniforms pressed, matching hair ribbons, and hands folded in prayer, hundreds of school children from the Diocese of Trenton greeted the most special guest imaginable: Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Fresh off a trek across New Jersey, Jesus in the Eucharist arrived May 29 at St. Mary of the Pines Church in Manahawkin on the New Jersey shore as part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage for a day of adoration, a eucharistic procession and holy Mass celebrated by Bishop David O'Connell of the Diocese of Trenton. The diocesan event was designed especially to bring awareness to school children about the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus arrived accompanied by clergy, seminarians, and religious sister...

Pope Francis joins in Corpus Christi celebration in Rome for first time in years

This year Pope Francis did not walk in the Eucharistic procession, but joined at the end for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and to offer the Eucharistic blessing. / Credit: Elizabeth Alva/EWTN NewsRome, Italy, Jun 2, 2024 / 16:44 pm (CNA).Pope Francis gave a solemn blessing with the Blessed Sacrament from the steps of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major on Sunday in the culmination of a Eucharistic procession through the streets of Rome.Holding the monstrance in his hands, the pope offered the blessing on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi on June 2 following prayers of adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Crowds lined the streets as the Eucharist was carried under a canopy from the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major along the Via Merulana, following the historic route Pope Gregory XIII created for religious processions between the two basilicas during the Jubilee of 1575.Cardinals, bishops, priests, religious sisters, and families wal...

Caribbean Cardinal Kelvin Felix dies at 91

Pope Francis offers a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the repose of the souls of cardinals and bishops who died the previous year. / Credit: Daniel Iba´n~ez/CNARome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2024 / 07:08 am (CNA).Cardinal Kelvin Edward Felix died in his home on the island nation of St. Lucia Thursday, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, at the age of 91.The Dominican cardinal led the Archdiocese of Castries in St. Lucia from 1981 until his retirement in 2008. In 2014, in his first-ever consistory, Pope Francis made Felix a cardinal, the first from the Antilles. After his retirement, Felix lived on the island nation of Dominica, where he assisted the local Church.The Archdiocese of Castries said the retired archbishop moved to the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of the Assumption on St. Lucia in 2023 to receive medical care for health problems which required him to withdraw from most public functions."Frail from age and medical complications he eventually succumbed after days of constan...

New Filipino bishop of the Pacific's Cook Islands hopes to 'spiritually nourish' his people

Bishop Reynaldo Bunyi Getalado was ordained bishop at St. Joseph's Cathedral in the Cook Islands' capital city, Avarua, on April 27, 2024, in the presence of Father Giosuè Busti, the first deputy-head of mission at the apostolic nunciature of the Holy See in Wellington and representative of Pope Francis, as well as hundreds of Catholic faithful. / Credit: St James the Less Roman Catholic Church Perris/YouTubeRome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).One month after his ordination as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, Bishop Reynaldo Bunyi Getalado expressed his aspiration to "spiritually nourish" the people of God in the Pacific Ocean nation and develop a "harmonious relationship" with the priests of the diocese.Getalado was ordained bishop at St. Joseph's Cathedral in the Cook Islands' capital city, Avarua, on April 27 in the presence of Father Giosuè Busti, the first deputy-head of mission at the apostolic nunciature of the Holy See in Welling...

U.S. ambassador to Holy See to step down in July

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly will leave his post in July, the embassy announced. The ambassador will step down from his role and return to his native Indiana on July 8, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See said in a post on X published May 30. "It has been an honor and a privilege to serve my country in this unique way," Donnelly was quoted as saying in the post. The former Indiana senator assumed his role in Rome in April 2022 when he presented his letters of credential to Pope Francis. His posting coincided with the 40th anniversary of the United States establishing formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984. Pope Francis greets Joe Donnelly, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, after his annual address to the diplomatic corps Jan. 8, 2024, in the Hall of Blessings at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)In a March interview with Catholic News Service, Donnelly said that when interacting with Vatican officials his job was "to try to make ...

Pope encourages young priests to rely on each other in times of crisis

ROME (CNS) -- The first years of priesthood are challenging, and the best way to survive and thrive is through closeness to God, to one's bishop, one's fellow priests and to one's parishioners, Pope Francis told priests who have been ordained less than 10 years."One never comes out of a crisis alone," the pope told them, according to the Vatican press office.Pope Francis held a closed-door meeting May 29 with about 90 priests working in the Diocese of Rome who have been ordained since 2014; they included priests who were ordained for the diocese in April.Earlier in May the pope had met with priests who have been in ministry for more than 40 years, and he is scheduled to meet June 11 with clerics ordained between 11 and 39 years ago.Meeting at a church complex owned and staffed by the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, a religious order of women, Pope Francis and the priests began with prayer and then moved into a private question-and-answer session. Pope Francis smiles as he lis...

Pope Francis: Building peace requires 'taking a risk'

Members of ACLI (Italian Christian Workers' Associations) hold a sign with the word "peace" in Italian, in St. Peter's Square on June 1, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, Jun 1, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).Being peacemakers in the style of Jesus Christ, while necessary and valuable, can also be risky, Pope Francis said on Saturday, as multiple conflicts continue to rage around the world.Speaking to members of Italian Christian Workers' Associations (ACLI) at the Vatican on June 1, the pontiff said, "interceding for peace is something that goes far beyond mere political compromise because it requires putting oneself on the line and taking a risk.""Our world, we know, is marked by conflict and division, and your witness as peacemakers, as intercessors for peace, is as necessary and valuable as ever," he underlined.Pope Francis spoke to members of Italian Christian Workers' Associations at the Vatican on June 1, 2024, about "interceding for peace.". Credit: ...