Italian actor Roberto Benigni to join Pope Francis for World Children's Day

Pope Francis meets with Italian actor Roberto Benigni on Dec. 7, 2022. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, May 16, 2024 / 11:49 am (CNA).Pope Francis will be joined by Italian actor Roberto Benigni and soccer star Gianluigi Buffon as the pontiff celebrates World Children's Day over the last weekend in May.The Vatican announced on Thursday that World Children's Day will "kick off" on Saturday, May 25, at 3:30 p.m. with a soccer match between kids and professional soccer players in Rome's Olympic Stadium led by Buffon, the goalie who helped Italy achieve victory in the 2006 World Cup.On the second day of the event, Benigni, best known for his Oscar-winning film "Life Is Beautiful," will give a short speech at the end of Pope Francis' Mass and Angelus address in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, May 26. World Children's Day is a new initiative by Pope Francis sponsored by the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education in collaboration with the Catholic community of Sant'Egid...

Chiara Corbella's beatification cause to take a step forward in June

Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo. / Credit: Christian Gennari/chiaracorbellapetrillo.itRome Newsroom, May 16, 2024 / 10:08 am (CNA).Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo, the joyful young mother who died of cancer in 2012, will be one step closer next month to being declared a saint.The Diocese of Rome announced Wednesday that it will hold the closing session of the diocesan phase of her cause for beatification on Friday, June 21, at noon in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.Since her death at the age of 28, Corbella has inspired many by her witness to faith and joy amid suffering and loss.Corbella met her husband, Enrico Petrillo, at the age of 18 while on a pilgrimage to Medugorje. They married six years later in Assisi on Sept. 21, 2008. Within the first two years of their marriage, Chiara and Enrico suffered the death of two children, both of whom died less than an hour after birth.Their first child, Maria Grazia Letizia, was diagnosed in utero with anencep...

Thomas Aquinas College goes off the grid with green power plan

Mark Kretschmer, vice president for operations at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), pictured with Thomas Kaiser, a biologist and researcher, and Lawerence Youngblood, an electrical engineer and director of Brompton Energy. / Credit: Thomas Aquinas CollegeCNA Staff, May 16, 2024 / 15:24 pm (CNA).A sequestered Catholic college in the foothills of California launched an energy program that has nearly eliminated the college's carbon footprint while saving $600,000 a year, giving the school more reliable energy than the state power grid. Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a campus of more than 500 students, sits northwest of Los Angeles but offers something very different than the bustle and traffic of city life. Sitting on 845 acres, TAC's discussion-based model of education is designed for a small, tight-knit community of students and "tutors," who gather for class around round tables rather than desks."We are in the business of analytical thinking, of asking questions, of learning fr...

Pro-lifers imprisoned under FACE Act speak out

Washington Surgi-Clinic on F St. NW in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2022. / Credit: Katie Yoder/CNAWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 16, 2024 / 14:48 pm (CNA).After seven pro-life activists were sentenced to years in prison for a "rescue" attempt at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic, some of the activists are now speaking out. Joan Andrews Bell, a 76-year-old Catholic and pro-life activist who was sentenced to two years and three months in prison, shared a statement in which she vowed to continue advocating for the unborn and called on others to join her in prayer. "The rougher it gets for us the more we can rejoice that we are succeeding; no longer are we being treated so much as the privileged born, but as the discriminated against conceived child," Bell said in a statement obtained by CNA. "We do not expect justice in the courts. Furthermore, we do not seek it for ourselves when it is being denied [to] our beloved brothers and sisters."She said that she views her p...

Cardinal Pizzaballa visits Gaza in show of support, solidarity with 'suffering population'

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa gives the homily at a Mass in which he took possession of his titular church, St. Onuphrius, in Rome on May 1, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/ACI PrensaRome Newsroom, May 16, 2024 / 13:48 pm (CNA).Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa on Wednesday visited Holy Family Parish in Gaza, with the prelate making the trip for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in a show of solidarity and support for the small but resilient community.Pizzaballa "entered Gaza and reached the Parish of the Holy Family for a pastoral visit," said a press release issued by the patriarchate on Thursday.Pizzaballa was joined by a small delegation composed of Fra' Alessandro de Franciscis, the grand hospitaller of the Sovereign Order of Malta, as well as Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of Holy Family Church. The clergy traveled to meet "the suffering population" and to bring a message of "hope, solidarity, and supp...

Slovak bishops call for peace after assassination attempt on prime minister

Archbishop Bernard Bober of Košice, chairman of the Slovak Bishops' Conference, expressed deep regret over the violent incident and condemned what authorities are now treating as an act of attempted murder. / Credit: Marek Mucha/Slovakian Bishops' ConferenceCNA Newsroom, May 16, 2024 / 13:24 pm (CNA).Following the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico on Wednesday, Slovakian bishops have called for peace and unity."We must actively work for peace," Archbishop Bernard Bober of Košice, chairman of the Slovak Bishops' Conference, said in a statement on May 15."It is important that we respect each other and strengthen the good in each of us," he said, calling on the public to reject all forms of violence and promote the good in people instead.Bober expressed his deep regret over the violent incident and condemned what authorities are now treating as an act of attempted murder.The gunman was described as a "lone wolf" who acted out of political hatred against Fico, Slo...

Court says Maryland parents have no right to opt out of LGBTQ curriculum

Parental and religious freedom rights advocates, including a group of Muslim parents, on June 6, 2023, protest a Maryland school system policy that removes parents' authority to opt their children out of homosexual and transgender coursework. / Credit: The Religious Freedom InstituteCNA Staff, May 16, 2024 / 12:49 pm (CNA).A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that parents in Maryland have no right to be informed when their children are being instructed with LGBTQ materials or to opt their children out of that instruction. The legal advocacy group Becket Law, which is representing the parents challenging the Montgomery County Board of Education, said on Wednesday that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling.The firms said the ruling means that parents of children enrolled at Montgomery County Public Schools "have no right to be notified or opt their kids out of" materials that teach transgenderism and other sexual ideologies.Becket, wh...

Lawmakers renew calls to repeal the FACE Act

PAAU activists hold a rally outside Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C., May 4, 2022. / Credit: Katie Yoder/CNAWashington D.C., May 16, 2024 / 12:19 pm (CNA).As seven pro-lifers were sentenced to years in prison for their efforts to rescue unborn babies from a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic, several lawmakers renewed their calls to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Lawmakers are claiming that the FACE Act, which was used to convict and sentence the pro-life activists, is being abused by the Biden Department of Justice to target and punish pro-lifers. Here is what's going on in the pro-life fight this week. 'Biden's two-tiered justice system' After pro-life activist Lauren Handy and several other pro-lifers were sentenced to years in prison this week under the FACE Act, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, called for the measure to be repealed, saying: "It's time to pull the plug on Biden's two-tiered justice system." Signed by P...

Catholic bishops warn of polarization in Church, urge more dialogue 

Gloria Purvis, Cardinal Robert McElroy, Bishop Daniel Flores, and Bishop Robert Barron discuss polarization in the Catholic Church during a panel discussion hosted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA, Glenmary Home Missioners, and the Jesuit Conference on May 14, 2024. / Credit: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Live Stream YouTube channelWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).Three Catholic bishops warned of a growing ideological polarization within the Church and the need for civil dialogue among those with disagreements during a livestreamed panel discussion on Tuesday afternoon."Politics is almost a religion and sometimes it's a sport, [but] it's not supposed to be either," Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, said during the discussion. "It's supposed to be a civil conversation … to seek what is good and make the priority how to achieve it and how to avoid what is evil...

An oasis in the European Church: World's oldest Cistercian abbey has more than 100 monks

Easter Vigil at the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) in Austria. / Credit: Stift HeiligenkreuzACI Prensa Staff, May 15, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).The Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) in Austria is the oldest in the world, dating back almost 1,000 years, and currently has more than 100 monks living there. It has never had "interruptions" in its history and is now an oasis of the Catholic Church in Europe, with love for God and others at the center of its work and with the beloved Pope Benedict XVI as an "ally."Heiligenkreuz is located about 18 miles from Vienna, the capital of Austria. The monks, explained the Italian newspaper Avvenire, have an average age of 49, which means they are "young" in current Church terms, especially in Europe where there has been a precipitous decline in vocations.Four or five men each year join the historic abbey, founded in 1135, almost a thousand years ago, making it the oldest Cistercian abbey in the world.Among the abbey'...