Mexico’s bishops pray for the scores killed by pipeline blast

January 21, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Tula de Allende, Mexico, Jan 21, 2019 / 03:46 pm (ACI Prensa).- The bishops of Mexico have offered prayers and condolences following Friday’s explosion of a fuel pipeline which killed at least 79 people in Hidalgo state.

The Jan. 18 blast occurred after a pipeline in Tlahuelilpan municipality, about 10 miles northeast of Tula, was punctured by suspected fuel thieves. As many as 800 people were converged around the gushing gasoline to fill containers when the blaze took place.

“We are offering all our prayers and Masses, as well as our solidarity with the families of the victims, the injured and those missing,” the president and secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference said in a Jan. 19 statement.

“We appreciate and encourage the the company and consolation” offered by Bishop Juan Pedro Juárez Meléndez of Tula and his priests, “in hospitals and funeral chapels, to the relatives of all those affected by this accident.”

The bishops prayed for the eternal rest of the deceased and the health of those injured or missing.

The scramble to collect the gasoline came amid a shortage at the pumps produced by the government’s fight against the theft and adulteration of fuel, which costs the country around $3 billion a year.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has charged that fuel theft has occurred with complicity within the government and Pemex, the state-owned oil company.

He recently began shutting down pipelines, using trucks and trains to transport fuel instead.

The Tula-Tuxpan pipeline which exploded in Tlahuelilpan had been closed since late December, and was reopened Jan. 16.

Both  López Obrador and the governor of Hidalgo have urged citizens not to engage in fuel theft.

“Besides being illegal, it puts at risk your life and those of your families. What happened today in Tlahuelilpan should not be repeated,” governor Omar Fayad said on Twitter.

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Why is St. Francis Xavier’s arm flying across Canada?

December 5, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Ottawa, Canada, Dec 5, 2017 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- While he was alive, St. Francis Xavier never got to ride in an airplane. They would not be invented for 400 more years after his death.

But now, his severed arm will get to take a trip across Canada in its very own seat.

The relic of the Jesuit missionary, ordinarily kept in the Church of the Gesù in Rome, will be making a cross-country trip through Canada this winter, as part of an initiative from the university group Catholic Christian Outreach.

The arm of St. Francis Xavier, on display for veneration in Rome.

Angèle Regnier, co-founder of Catholic Christian Outreach, told CBC radio that travelling with the saint’s arm will be “like doing a road trip with a friend.”

“I mean, I know it’s bones, but connected to that is a living friendship with St. Francis Xavier,” she said.

In the Catholic Church, relics are physical objects that have a direct association with the saints or with Jesus. The arm of St. Francis Xavier is considered a first class relic, which is the body or fragments of the body of a saint. The practice of venerating relics has been a Scripture-based tradition in the Church for centuries.

Regnier will be accompanying the saint’s arm on its trip from Rome to Canada, where the relic will make a month-long tour through much of the country.

The fragility of the relic, which is encased in a gold and glass reliquary and has its own padded duffle bag, necessitated that it travel in its own seat on Air Canada.

“We can’t put it underneath. We can’t even put it in the overhead bins. Like, he has to have his own seat,” she told CBC radio.

“You’re trying to explain this to Air Canada. We need to book a seat. He is a person in a way, but it’s not a person, it’s an arm.”

The saint’s arm is a significant relic. With that arm, it is estimated that St. Francis Xavier baptized hundreds of thousands of people during his time as a missionary in Asia. The relic is also considered to be partially incorrupt, which means that it has not decayed in an ordinary way.

Regnier said that the group wanted to bring the saint’s relic to Canada because he is one of their patron saints. While a university student, Francis Xavier was known for being athletic and the “cool guy,” Regnier said. But it was also during time that he underwent a conversion, and his roommate, St. Ignatius of Loyola, became his spiritual mentor.

St. Francis Xavier would become one of the founding members of the Jesuit order, along with St. Ignatius of Loyola and Blessed Peter Faber.

“So for us, as a university student movement, we want university students to come alive in their faith, so we find a lot in common with St. Francis Xavier’s history,” Regnier said.

The saint’s arm will be traveling throughout Canada from Jan. 3 – Feb. 2, during which time the faithful are invited to venerate the relic.

“It’s quite a production,” Regnier said. “We want to touch most of Canada with it.”

The schedule for the relic tour is as follows:
* Jan. 3: Quebec City
* Jan. 5: St John’s
* Jan. 7: Halifax
* Jan. 8: Antigonish, N.S.
* Jan. 10: Kingston, Ont.
* Jan. 12-14: Toronto
* Jan. 16: Winnipeg
* Jan. 18: Saskatoon
* Jan. 20: Regina
* Jan. 21-22: Calgary
* Jan. 24-25: Vancouver
* Jan. 27: Victoria
* Jan. 29-30: Montreal
* Feb. 2: Ottawa

 

 

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