Boy asks Pope Francis: ‘Can you come to Ukraine to save all the children?’

Andrés Manuel López Obrador / Credit: Ministry of Culture of Mexico City (CC BY 2.0)

ACI Prensa Staff, May 21, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The bishops of Mexico called on all Mexicans to join this Sunday, May 21, in a day of prayer for the strengthe… […]

Vatican City, Mar 18, 2020 / 04:36 am (CNA).- Pope Francis offered Mass Wednesday for all the people who have died from the coronavirus, including medical staff who have lost their lives after helping the sick.

“Today we pray for the deceased, those who have lost their lives because of the virus,” Pope Francis said before his morning Mass in the chapel of the Santa Marta guesthouse March 18.

“In a special way,” he added, “I would like us to pray for healthcare workers who have died during these days. They gave their life in service to the sick.”

The pope’s daily Mass, which he offers for those affected by coronavirus, is being livestreamed every day during the emergency.

His homily was on the gift of divine law, which God gave to his people “as an attitude of closeness,” he said.

“Our God is close and asks us to be close to each other, not to move away from each other,” he urged.

Francis said during this time of crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Catholics are called to show even greater closeness to each other.

“We cannot, perhaps, get physically closer because of the fear of contagion,” he noted, “but yes, we can awaken in ourselves an attitude of closeness among us: with prayer, with help, [there are] many ways to be close.”

He said people be close to each other “because our God is close, he wanted to accompany us in life.”

“For this reason, we are not isolated people,” he emphasized.

Speaking about divine law, Francis explained that God does not hand down rules like a far-off leader or dictator.

“We know by revelation that it is a fatherly, fatherly closeness that accompanies his people by giving them the gift of the Law,” he said.

He explained that God wrote the laws on the stone with his own hands, and after giving the stone tablets to Moses, he does not go away.

God walks with his people, he said, but in the first few pages of the Bible, people respond with the opposite, by trying to “get away from God.”

“He gets close and we get away,” he stated.

Adam and Eve hide from God because they are ashamed, because they have sinned, the pope explained: “Sin leads us to hide, not wanting closeness.”

The second attitude of running away from God is demonstrated by when Cane killed his brother Abel, saying “I am not my brother’s keeper.”

“We ask the Lord for the grace to be close to each other; do not hide from each other; do not wash your hands, as Cain did, of the problem of others,” the pope urged.

“Neighbors, proximity, nearness,” he said. “‘Indeed, what great nation has the gods so close to him, as the Lord our God is close to us, every time we invoke Him?’”

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Vatican City, Jul 3, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- The president of the European bishops’ commission has promised persecuted Christians in Nigeria that he will advocate for increased support from the European Union. 

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who leads the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), wrote a letter to the Nigerian bishops stating that the commission will advocate for EU assistance and cooperation with the Nigerian authorities to combat violence and persecution. 

The cardinal expressed solidarity with Nigerian Christian communities, who, he wrote, are “living a situation of continuous attacks by terrorists, insurgents and militias, that in some cases reaches levels of genuine criminal persecution,” according to a European commission statement July 2.

An estimated 6,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed since 2015, mostly by Boko Haram and militant Fulani herders, the European commission reported.

More than 600 Christians have been killed so far in 2020, according to a International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) report on May 15. Christians have been beheaded and set on fire, farms set ablaze, and priests and seminarians have been targeted for kidnapping and ransom.

A Boko Haram attack on a village in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno left at least 81 people dead June 9. The attack was the latest in an ongoing Islamist group against the country’s Christian population. Earlier in June a Christian pastor and his pregnant wife were killed on their farm in the northeastern region of the country.

In January, militants kidnapped four Catholic seminarians from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, killing one of them, Michael Nnadi. On March 1, Nigerian priest Fr. David Echioda was kidnapped by gunmen after offering Sunday Mass, but was released days afterward.

The European bishops’ conferences commission has been vocal in calling on EU member states to “increase their efforts in order to stop the violence in Nigeria, bring criminals to justice, support the victims and promote dialogue and peace,” according to the COMECE statement.

In May 2020, the bishops “urged the international community to use diplomatic, political and financial instruments to assist Nigerian authorities to stop the violence, bringing the criminals to justice, supporting the victims and fully including Christians (47% of the national population) in all state structures and levels of administrations — including the police and armed forces.”

Leaders within the United States have also called for further support of Nigeria’s Christians. On June 25, former Rep. Frank Wolf said that the U.S. should send a special envoy to Nigeria to coordinate the protection of the Christian population and prevent further destabilization of the area.

In February, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that Nigeria was one of the countries of highest concern when it came to violations of religious freedom. 

Brownback said he was concerned that the situation in Nigeria would spread to nearby countries if nothing was done to crack down on religious persecution. 

“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”

Cardinal Hollerich said that he was particularly concerned for the people who are forced from their homes by the increased violence in Nigeria. He said it was important that Europe welcomes and protects them.

“My thoughts and my heart are with the many young people who are forced to leave the country because of violence and lack of socio-economic prospects,” Hollerich said.

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