At least one massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut Tuesday afternoon, which ignited fires and destroyed buildings in the city’s port area, caused damage across the city, and has reportedly flooded hospitals with […]
CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2020 / 01:15 pm (CNA).-
A Lebanese Catholic priest has asked believers around the world to pray for the people of his country, after two explosions in Beirut injured hundreds of people and are reported to have left at least 10 people dead.
“We ask your nation to carry Lebanon in its hearts at this difficult stage and we place great trust in you and in your prayers, and that the Lord will protect Lebanon from evil through your prayers,” Fr. Miled el-Skayyem of the Chapel of St. John Paul II in Keserwan, Lebanon, said in a statement to EWTN News Aug. 4.
“We are currently going through a difficult phase in Lebanon, as you can see on TV and on the news,” the priest added.
Raymond Nader, a Maronite Catholic living in Lebanon, echoed the priest’s call.
“I just ask for prayers now from everyone around the world. We badly need prayers,” Nader told CNA Tuesday.
Explosions in the port area of Lebanon’s capital overturned cars, shattered windows, set fires, and damaged buildings across Beirut, a city of more than 350,000, with a metro area of more than 2 million people.
“It was a huge disaster over here and the whole city was almost ruined because of this explosion and they’re saying it’s kind of a combination of elements that made this explosion,” Antoine Tannous, a Lebanese journalist, told CNA Tuesday.
Officials have not yet determined the cause of the explosions, but investigators believe they may have started with a fire in a warehouse that stored explosive materials. Lebanon’s security service warned against speculations of terrorism before investigators could assess the situation.
According to Lebanon’s state-run media, hundreds of injured people have flooded hospital emergency rooms in the city.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab has declared that Wednesday will be a national day of mourning. The country is almost evenly divided between Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and Chrsitians, most of whom are Maronite Catholics. Lebanon also has a small Jewish population, as well as Druze and other religious communities.
CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2020 / 12:11 pm (CNA).- The 138th annual convention of the Knights of Columbus begins today— the first in the organization’s history to not be held in-person.
The New Haven, Connecticut-based fraternal and charitable organization is encouraging its members to tune in to the convention online. Due to coronavirus restrictions, the gathering is being held virtually. Last year’s convention took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The convention comes a few months after the Vatican announced that Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, will be beatified following Pope Francis’ approval of a miracle attributed to his intercession.
Founded in New Haven in 1882, the Knights of Columbus was originally intended to assist widows and their families upon the deaths of their husbands. It has grown into a worldwide Catholic fraternal order, with more than 2 million members carrying out works of charity and evangelization across the globe. The Knights also offer life insurance policies to their members.
Fr. McGivney, the Knights’ founder, will be beatified on October 31, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints announced in late July.
During the past year, Knights around the world donated more than 77 million service hours and $187 million for worthy causes in their communities, including millions of dollars for persecuted Christians around the world, the organization says.
The 2020 convention will begin with an opening Mass at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, celebrated by Archbishop Leonard Blair of the Archdiocese of Hartford. This will be followed by Supreme Knight Carl Anderson’s annual report, highlighting the group’s achievements and announcing new initiatives, at 8 p.m. Eastern.
The Mass is set to feature a message from Pope Francis, which the Vatican Secretariat of State delivered to the Knights in mid-July.
“His Holiness is grateful for these and for the many other countless ways in which the Knights of Columbus continue to bear prophetic witness to God’s dream for a more fraternal, just and equitable world in which all are recognized as neighbors and no one is left behind,” the letter reads in part.
An annual memorial Mass will be offered for all deceased Knights of Columbus and their families on August 5 at 2 p.m. Eastern.
Among the Knights who died in the past year was former Supreme Knight Virgil Dechant, who passed away on Feb. 15, 2020, and was the Order’s longest-serving supreme knight, holding office from 1977 to 2000, the organization said.
After the memorial Mass, the Knights will hold an awards ceremony to honor the members’ service. This will take place at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on August 5.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 4, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The authors of a 2019 study which claimed so-called gender-transition surgery may improve the long-term mental health of recipients have issued a correction, nearly a year after publication.&nbs… […]
Rome Newsroom, Aug 4, 2020 / 11:58 am (CNA).- Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, was in Ars Tuesday for the feast of St. John Vianney, the patron of priests.
Parolin offered Mass at the Ars shrine, where St. John Vianney is buried, Aug. 4. He later gave a speech on the saint.
The Curé of Ars, as St. John Vianney was known, is “very relevant,” Parolin said in his homily. “In these difficult times, he teaches us to transmit joy and hope through the witness of our personal life.”
The cardinal also called the saint an example of holiness for all Catholics, because he “teaches us that intimate personal union with Christ helps to conform our desires to the will of God, fills us with joy and happiness, helps us to be salt and light of the world.”
St. John Vianney, Parolin said, is an example of a priest “who comes close to all with tenderness and does not reject those who are wounded in their existence and sinners in their spiritual life.”
Vianney warned people away from the “traps and stratagems of the demon,” including acedia, “that sweet sadness which paralyzes the mind and prevents it from persevering in prayer and in the mission,” Parolin stated.
In his homily, he recalled Benedict XVI’s characterization of St. John Vianney in 2010 as “a model of priestly ministry in our world.”
Parolin pointed out that though there are priests who have been led astray, the examples of good priests “who, in a constant and transparent manner, devote themselves entirely to the good of others” outnumber them.
The cardinal urged people to pray for priests and for priestly vocations “as our first intention of prayer, which we all entrust to the particular intercession of the Holy Curé of Ars.”
Later, in his address titled “Pope Francis and priests on the way with the people of God,” Parolin gave a reflection on St. John Vianney and the “principles which can guide pastoral ministry in our 21st century.”
According to Parolin, the Curé of Ars was a priest who “went out” in search of lost sheep to rebuild the flock, despite the challenges of a post-revolution, de-Christianized France.
“It is not the first time that the Church is forced to renew her missionary commitment,” Parolin said.
“Faced with the novelty of the situations we are facing, the Holy Spirit stimulates creativity to find the best way to approach others,” he continued. “The Holy Father asks that creativity in the Spirit is also empathy in the same Spirit.”
The cardinal also stressed the intense prayer life of Vianney, his dedication to preparing his homilies well, and his charity to the poor.
The saint is best known for his giftedness as a confessor: “His art of listening, of advising, his mercy attracted more and more penitents,” Parolin noted.
Pope Francis “is inexhaustible on the theme of confession because it is the sacrament of mercy,” he added.
“You know that nowadays many faithful no longer go to confession or go very little,” requiring priests to have patience and to constantly teach about mercy and the essential nature of the sacrament, he said.
Parolin concluded his address with a prayer from Pope Francis: “Remember, Lord, your covenant of mercy with your children, the priests of your people. May we be, with Mary, the sign and sacrament of your mercy.”
CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Catholic Charities affiliates across the country have distributed more than double the amount of money they received from Payroll Protection Program loans in emergency assistance, to help those impacted by the … […]
Vatican City, Aug 4, 2020 / 09:59 am (CNA).- A Vatican foundation for Latin America will fund 168 projects in 23 countries, with most projects focusing on the effects the coronavirus pandemic has had in the area.
According to a press release, 138 of t… […]
Vatican City, Aug 4, 2020 / 05:28 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Tuesday appointed a Spanish layman with a long career in finance economics to the number two position in the Secretariat for the Economy.
Maximino Caballero Ledo, 60, is from Merida, Spain, but… […]
Ars, France, Aug 4, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- The patron saint of priests, St. John Vianney, died Aug. 4, 1859. A century later, Pope John XXIII reflected on the life of the saint, and what it means to be a holy priest.
In contemplating the life of St. … […]
CNA Staff, Aug 4, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-
Just days ahead of the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the president of the U.S. bishop’s conference mourned the loss of innocent lives in the attacks, lamented the long-term suffering caused by the bombs, and prayed for peace among nations.
“My brother bishops and I mourn with the Japanese people for the innocent lives that were taken and the generations that have continued to suffer the public health and environmental consequences of these tragic attacks,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a July 30 statement.
The world’s only wartime uses of nuclear weapons took place in 1945’s Aug. 6 U.S. attack on Hiroshima and Aug. 9 U.S. attack on Nagasaki.
The Hiroshima attack killed around 80,000 people instantly and may have caused about 130,000 deaths, mostly civilians. The attack on Nagasaki instantly killed about 40,000, and destroyed a third of the city.
Pope Francis has spoken out against the use of nuclear weapons multiple times, including during a November 2019 visit to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
“How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?” Pope Francis asked Nov. 24, 2019 in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. “May the abyss of pain endured here remind us of boundaries that must never be crossed. A true peace can only be an unarmed peace,” he added.
Since St. John Paul II’s visit to Japan in 1981, the Catholic Church in Japan has annually observed Ten Days of Prayer for Peace beginning Aug. 6.
The U.S. bishops’ conference Committee for International Justice and Peace issued a statement on July 13, encouraging Catholics in the United States to join Japan in prayer by offering intentions of peace at Mass on Sunday, Aug. 9. The committee has also compiled resources for further reflection, study and prayer for the occasion on its website.
In his July 30 statement, Gomez noted that the bishops of the U.S. “join our voice with Pope Francis and call on our national and world leaders to persevere in their efforts to abolish these weapons of mass destruction, which threaten the existence of the human race and our planet.”
“We ask our Blessed Mother Mary, the Queen of Peace, to pray for the human family, and for each one of us. Remembering the violence and injustice of the past, may we commit ourselves to being peacemakers as Jesus Christ calls us to be. Let us always seek the path of peace and seek alternatives to the use of war as a way to settle differences between nations and peoples.”
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