Scottish government may face legal challenge over redefinition of ‘woman’

Pope Francis at Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on March 24, 2024. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Mar 24, 2024 / 11:52 am (CNA).

Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims of the “vile terrorist attack” in Moscow at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass at the Vatican.

At least 130 people died after gunmen opened fire at a musical performance in a Moscow concert hall on Friday night, according to the Associated Press.

The Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack in Russia — a claim that U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed.

Speaking in St. Peter’s Square on March 24, Pope Francis prayed for the families of the victims as well as for the conversion of the perpetrators of the attack.

“May the Lord receive them in his peace and comfort their families. May he convert the hearts of those who plan, organize, and carry out these inhuman actions, which offend God, who commanded, ‘You shall not kill,’” the pope said.

After offering prayers for the victims in Moscow, Pope Francis made a long appeal for peace in Ukraine, asking people to pray in particular for those in Ukraine who do not have electricity.

“Let us pray for all our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of war,” the pope said. 

“In a special way, I am thinking of martyred Ukraine, where so many people find themselves without electricity because of the intense attacks against infrastructure that, in addition to causing death and suffering, carry the risk of an even larger humanitarian catastrophe.”

Pope Francis added: “Please, do not forget the tormented Ukraine. And let us think about Gaza, which suffers so much, and so many other places of war.”

The pope gave his peace appeal at the end of Palm Sunday Mass, where he opted not to give a homily at the last minute without explanation. 

Before praying the Angelus with the crowd at the end of Mass, Francis gave a brief reflection on the Gospel account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey.

“Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus entered Jerusalem as a humble and peaceful King. Let us open our hearts to Him. Only He can deliver us from enmity, hatred, violence, for He is the mercy and forgiveness of sins,” Pope Francis said.

The 87-year-old pope, who arrived at the Mass in a wheelchair, has a busy week ahead as he is scheduled to preside over liturgies each day of the Easter Triduum.

“And now we turn in prayer to the Virgin Mary. Let us learn from her to stay close to Jesus during the days of Holy Week, in order to arrive at the joy of the Resurrection,” Pope Francis said.

[…]

CNA Staff, Jun 27, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- An Italian prisoner, sentenced to 30 years for murder, will make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on Saturday, in the presence of his bishop.

Luigi*, 40, wanted to be a priest when he was young, according to Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference. Kids called him “Father Luigi” when he was growing up. But alcohol, drugs, and violence changed the path of his life. In fact, he was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine when, getting into a fist fight, he took a life.

He was sentenced to prison. There, he became a lector for Mass. He began to study. He started to pray again. He prayed, especially, “for the salvation of the man I killed,” he wrote in a letter.

That letter was to Bishop Massimo Camisasca of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla. The two began a correspondence last year. By then, Luigi had grown close with two priests who acted as chaplains to the prison in Reggio Emilia- Fr. Matteo Mioni and Fr. Daniele Simonazzi.

Bishop Camisasca told Avvenire that in 2016 he decided to spend time in prison ministry. “I didn’t know much about the reality of prison, I confess. But since then a path of presence, celebration and sharing has started that has enriched me greatly,” the bishop said.

Through that ministry, his correspondence with Luigi began. Speaking of his letters, the bishop said that “a passage that greatly touched me is the one in which Luidi says that ‘real life imprisonment is not lived inside a prison but outside, when the light of Christ is missing.” Luigi’s June 26 vows will not be part of joining a religious order or other organization. They are instead a promise to God to live poverty, chastity, and obedience, commonly called the evangelical counsels, exactly where he is — in prison.

The idea emerged from his conversation with prison chaplains.

“Initially he wanted to wait for his release from prison. It was Fr Daniele who suggested a different path, which would allow him to make these solemn vows now,” Camisasca told Avvenire.

“None of us are masters of our own future, the bishops said, “and this is all the more true for a person deprived of his freedom. This is why I wanted Luigi to think first of all what these vows mean in his present condition.” “In the end I convinced myself that in his gesture of self-giving there is something luminous for him, for the other prisoners and for the Church itself,” the bishop said.

In reflections on his vows, Luigi wrote that chastity will allow him to “mortify what is external, so that what is most important about us may emerge.”

Poverty offers him the possibility of settling for “the perfection of Christ, who has become poor” by making poverty itself “go from misfortune to bliss,” he wrote.

Luigi wrote that poverty is also the ability to share life generously with other prisoners like him. Obedience, he said, is obedience is the willingness to listen, even while knowing that “God also speaks through the mouth of the ‘fools.'”

Bishop Camisasca told Avvenire that “with the [coronavirus] pandemic we are all experiencing a time of combat and sacrifice. Luigi’s experience can really be a collective sign of hope: not to escape difficulties but to face them with strength and conscience. I did not know prison, I repeat, and also for me the impact was very hard at the beginning.”

“It seemed to me a world of despair in which the prospect of resurrection was continually contradicted and denied. This story, like others I have known, shows that this is not the case,” said the bishop.

Bishop Camisasca stressed that the merit of this vocation is “of the action of the priests, the extraordinary work of the prison police and of all health personnel, without a doubt.”

“But on the other hand there is the mystery that I can’t help but think about when I look up at the crucifix in my study. It’s from the prison workshop, it prevents me from forgetting the prisoners. Their sufferings and hopes are always with me. And they concern each of us,” he concluded.

*A pseudonym has been used in the reporting of this story.

[…]

Rome Newsroom, Aug 19, 2020 / 11:10 am (CNA).- A Benedictine abbot who helped to revive traditional monasticism and Gregorian chant in France was buried Wednesday in the 11th-century Abbey of Fontgombault, the monastery he led for more than 30 years.

Dom Antoine Forgeot died Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption and the 65th anniversary of his profession of vows. He was 87.

At his funeral Aug. 19, Forgeot was remembered for his courage, simplicity, and paternal affection for his monks. He led the Abbey of Notre-Dame, Fontgombault, from 1977 to 2011.

“Despite being abbot during a period where the Church struggled to find young men willing to pursue the vocation to the priesthood, Dom Antoine received such a large number of vocations that he found it necessary to found no less than four new monasteries, all the while overseeing renovations and construction projects on an aging medieval monastery in the central west part of France,” Fr. Joseph Hudson, OSB told CNA.

Hudson is a Benedictine of Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, which was founded by Forgeot in 1999 with 50 monks.

He said that the surge in vocations for the Benedictine congregation of Solesmes can be traced back to when Forgeot was assistant to the novice master, nurturing at least 150 vocations from 1965 to 2011.

Forgeot oversaw the growth of the congregation, which led to the establishment of Benedictine abbeys in Triors and Gaussan, France and the founding of Clear Creek Abbey. 

Dom Forgeot reparti au Ciel en ce samedi 15 août. La Vierge Marie était là pour l’accueillir.

Qu’il repose en Paix. Il contemple dorénavant Jésus qu’il connaissait déja tant sur Terre. #DomForgeot #Fontgombault

??? pic.twitter.com/2ypWDjoKJS

— Samuel POTIER (@samuel_potier) August 16, 2020

Fontgombault Abbey is well known for its traditional liturgy and Gregorian chant.

“Though he adhered to and promoted the older form of liturgical worship, the usage of Latin and the so-called Tridentine Mass, he made a commitment to always do so under the direction of the Holy Father and the monastery was known far and wide for its orthodoxy and fidelity to the Holy See,” Hudson explained. 

The abbey was founded as a Benedictine monastery in 1091. It was plundered and damaged by Calvinists in 1569 and later sold during the French Revolution as “national property” in 1791.

The Benedictines did not return to Fontgombault until 1948, when monks from the Abbey of Solemes worked to restore the abbey following World War II. 

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the patronal feast of the monastery, and the date that Forgeot made his profession of vows in 1955.

Monks at the abbey noted that Forgeot had said that he wanted to die on the Marian feast day. He had been taken to the hospital on the morning of Aug. 13 with an accelerated heartbeat.

After his death Aug. 15, Forgeot’s body was brought to the monastery, where two monks continuously prayed the Divine Office at his side for the next three days. 

He was buried in a solemn ceremony with chants, incense, and prayers in the apse of the church of Our Lady of Fontgombault.

[…]