British court denies parents’ appeal to save toddler’s life support

Brussels, Belgium, Jun 27, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Despite European Union guidelines and the work of a special envoy for religious freedom and belief, the state of religious freedom inside and outside of Europe at times seems to be worsening, not impro… […]

Paris, France, Apr 26, 2019 / 09:49 am (CNA).- Sure, smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, low birth rates, strokes, and arthritis. But smoking didn’t cause the April 15 fire at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, at least according to construction workers who smoked on the site.

A spokesman for a scaffolding firm doing work on the cathedral told reporters last week that while his workers “sometimes” smoked on the oak roof of the building, cigarettes were not the cause of the conflagration.

“We condemn it. But the fire started inside the building… so for company Le Bras this is not a hypothesis, it was not a cigarette butt that set Notre-Dame de Paris on fire,” Le Bras Frères spokesman Marc Eskenazi told Reuters April 24.

Eskenazi’s remarks came after French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported that police had found seven cigarette butts in the burnt-out cathedral, and sources close to the investigation confirmed the report.

“If cigarette butts have survived the inferno, I do not know what material they were made of,” Eskenazi said, questioning how the butts could have survived the blaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral. The spokesman also said it is impossible for cigarette butts to set even dry wood on fire.

The company also said that the fire was not started by its own scaffolding elevators, noting that their electrical systems were well-maintained, and that power was not running to the elevators at the time the fire begin.

Still, French prosecutors say they have not ruled out any possibilities regarding the start of the fire, and that they continue to investigate all possible causes.

The fire began on the evening of April 15, and destroyed the cathedral’s roof, and spire. While the images of the cathedral’ exterior suggested nearly total devastation after the fire, the cathedral’s vaulted stone ceiling mostly held, and protected many of the cathedral’s religious and historical treasures from the flames.

There is no formal estimate yet for how long the cathedral restoration will take. While France’s President Emmanuel Macron has said that he would like to see restoration completed within five years, experts say that possibility is extremely unlikely.

Nearly one billion euro have been pledged to the restoration effort.

The cathedral’s famed rose windows, its bell towers and massive bells, and its organ were all intact after the fire. The Church’s most important religious items were spared from the fire: the Eucharist, and relics of Christ’s crown of thorns and cross were saved during the fire.

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Glasgow, Scotland, Feb 8, 2017 / 05:53 am (CNA).- A Glasgow priest says he firmly believes he survived a recent near-fatal health scare thanks to the miraculous intercession of Venerable Margaret Sinclair, the poor Edinburgh girl turned nun who died in 1925.

“For 32 years of priesthood, I’ve been preaching the resurrection of Christ and this is a sign for me that I am doing something which is true and not wasted,” said Monsignor Peter Smith, parish priest of St Paul’s in Whiteinch, during an exclusive interview with this month’s edition of Flourish, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

“I don’t want to be the center of attention, but if I’ve been granted this favor then I have to let it be known and allow the Church to judge it.”

Since being diagnosed with cancer last May, 58-year-old Monsignor Smith has been urging friends and family to pray to Venerable Margaret to aid him. His request was enthusiastically supported by his neighboring Glasgow priest, Father Joe McAuley, who is in charge of promoting Venerable Margaret’s cause for beatification.

Two months ago, though, Monsignor Smith’s health took a turn for the worse when medics discovered a blood clot on his lung and a deadly infection attacking body tissue from his hips to shoulders. Doctors decided not to operate as it would kill him. They suspected the Glasgow priest wouldn’t survive 48 hours.

Incredibly, he did, with his surgeon assuring him that there is “no medical explanation” for the remarkable recovery. Monsignor Smith, however, believes that it was the work of Venerable Margaret – something he now wants to tell the world about.

“When you ask someone for a favor and they grant it, it is only right to say thank you,” he said.

“We don’t expect miracles – and I’m not sure I expected one either – after all, my cancer hasn’t gone away – but I’ve been around long enough in ministry not to be surprised. I’ve seen it happen.”

“If this helps people, in the light of faith, grow closer to the Gospel, then I am doing my job. In illness I am able to live my priesthood and help other people.”

Venerable Margaret Sinclair was born in the Edinburgh’s Cowgate in 1900, one of six children who grew up in poverty in a two-room basement. Her father was a dustman and she left school at 14, whereupon she worked as a French polisher and became a trade union activist.

In 1923 she entered a Convent of the Order of Poor Clares in London, becoming Sister Mary Francis of the Five Wounds, where she helped the poor before dying of tuberculosis in 1925. She now lies in rest in her home parish of St Patrick’s in the Cowgate.

“Margaret Sinclair is a wonderful example of an ordinary Scottish woman, close to our time, who lived the Gospel in the everyday, in a poor family home in Edinburgh, at school, in St Patrick’s parish, the word of industry and into the convent,” said Monsignor Smith.

In 1978 Pope Paul VI declared Margaret Sinclair to be “Venerable”. If the Catholic Church now authenticates Monsignor Smith’s cure to be truly miraculous it could pave the way for Margaret to become “blessed,” just one step away from sainthood which would, normally, require a further miracle.

“Firstly, I am delighted to learn of Monsignor Smith’s dramatically improved health and assure him of my continued prayers in his ongoing battle with cancer,” said Archbishop Leo Cushley, “potentially, though, this could be a major landmark in the bid to beatify Margaret Sinclair, a great contemporary witness to the desirability and possibility of daily holiness.”

Read more at www.flourishnewspaper.co.uk

For more information on Venerable Margaret, go to:www.margaretsinclair.scot

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