WWII martyr Titus Brandsma to be canonized with Charles de Foucauld

Vatican City, Apr 28, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed that Christians would respond to the lifting of lockdown restrictions with “prudence and obedience” as he celebrated Mass Tuesday.

Speaking from the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence, April 28, he said: “At this time, when indications have been given to exit out of quarantine, we pray the Lord will grant to His people, all of us, the grace of prudence and obedience to these indications, so that the pandemic does not return.”

The pope was speaking two days after Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte unveiled plans for a gradual easing of lockdown measures. The Italian bishops strongly criticized Conte for not setting a date for the resumption of public Masses. 

In his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the martyrdom of St. Stephen, described in the Acts of the Apostles (Act 7:51-8:1). He noted that, like Jesus, Stephen was falsely accused of blasphemy as a pretext for his execution. 

There is a pattern, he said, seen in the Bible and down to our present age, which begins with false testimony in order to arrive at “doing justice.” 

He recalled the case of Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother of five who was sentenced to death for blasphemy before the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her in 2018.  

“Let’s think of Asia Bibi, for example, that we have seen: 10 years in prison because she was judged by a slander and a people who want her death,” the pope said. “Faced with this avalanche of false news that creates opinion, many times nothing can be done: nothing can be done.”

He offered the Shoah, the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, as another instance of the same pattern. 

“Opinion was created against a people and then it was normal: ‘Yes, yes: they must be killed, they must be killed’,” he said. 

It is easy to recognize that this is wrong, the pope observed. But we overlook the “small daily lynchings” that take place when we gossip about others. 

“Let’s think about our tongues: many times with our comments we start such lynching. Even in our Christian institutions we have seen so many daily lynchings born out of gossip,” he said.

“May the Lord help us to be righteous in our judgments, not to begin to follow this mass condemnation that provokes gossip.”

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion.

Reciting the words of Spanish Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val (1865-1930), he said: “At Thy feet, O my Jesus, I prostrate myself and I offer Thee repentance of my contrite heart, which is humbled in its nothingness and in Thy holy presence. I adore Thee in the Sacrament of Thy love, the ineffable Eucharist. I desire to receive Thee into the poor dwelling that my heart offers Thee.” 

“While waiting for the happiness of sacramental communion, I wish to possess Thee in spirit. Come to me, O my Jesus, since I, for my part, am coming to Thee! May Thy love embrace my whole being in life and in death. I believe in Thee, I hope in Thee, I love Thee.”

Finally, the congregation sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli”.

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Vatican City, Nov 9, 2018 / 10:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic journalists should be guided not by despair and negativity, but by a commitment to sharing the beauty of the human person, Pope Francis told a group of media students Friday.

How easy it … […]

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appoints judges to Miami’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, March 27, 2019. / Hunter Crenian/Shutterstock.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 8, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).

An ad released by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign is being mocked for its religious content, which some have criticized as “blasphemous.” 

The black-and-white ad, tweeted out by DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, shows a series of images from the governor’s public and private life narrated by a man who invokes God 10 times in the minute-and-a-half-long video. 

“On the eighth day,” the narrator opens, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”

Critics mocked the ad for being the “gospel of the Ron DeSantis re-election campaign.”

A day before the election, DeSantis is enjoying a comfortable lead over his opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist. RealClearPolitics shows him with a12% lead, based on the average of recent polls. 

The new ad, some speculate, may be intended for a possible run for the White House in 2024. 

Former President Donald Trump, too, seemed to see DeSantis as a potential rival. At a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday, Trump named him as a possible candidate for president. 

Declaring himself the front-runner, Trump said: “There it is, Trump at 71 [percent], Ron DeSanctimonious at 10 percent.”

Former RNC chairman Michael Steele issued a scathing condemnation of the ad on MSNBC’s Morning Show, calling it “ass-backwards blasphemy.” 

“I don’t need Ron DeSantis to be Christ. I just need him to be governor, and that’s the problem,” Steele said.

Steele, who in 2020 joined the The Lincoln Project PAC, a group of Republicans who sought to defeat Trump, also endorsed Joe Biden for president the same year. 

An MSNBC op-ed slamming the ad said: “Even if it is just a tease, like many far-right and authoritarian ‘jokes,’ DeSantis is not kidding around. The ad is dangerous and anti-democratic, and was meant that way.”

A spinoff ‘So God Made a Farmer’

As Axios first reported, the ad is a spinoff from the popular and beloved “So God Made a Farmer” speech delivered in 1978 by radio broadcaster Paul Harvey to Future Farmers of America in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Harvey’s ad began: “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So God made a farmer.’” 

By contrast, DeSantis’ ad says: “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, kiss his family goodbye, travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people. To save their jobs, their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness. So God made a fighter.” 

In addition to mentioning God 10 times, the ad describes DeSantis as someone who will “advocate truth in the midst of hysteria” and “isn’t afraid to defend what he knows to be right and just.” 

“God said: I need somebody who will take the arrows, stand firm in the face of unrelenting attacks, look a mother in the eyes and tell her that her child will be in school,” the ad continues — referring to the governor’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic when most state lockdown restrictions sent children home from school for the long term. 

The ad continues to focus on the anonymous mother living during the pandemic. 

“She can keep her job, go to church, eat dinner with friends, and hold the hand of an aging parent taking their breath for the last time,” the narrator says, referring to hospital rules that prevented families from being near their loved ones’ sides while they died. 

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