After canceling trip, Pope Francis sending Cardinal Parolin to visit Africa

CNA Staff   By CNA Staff

June 27, 2022 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

Cardinal Pietro Parolin. / Claude Truong-Ngoc via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2022 / 12:57 pm (CNA).

After reluctantly bowing out of his own scheduled trip to Africa in July, Pope Francis has decided to send the Vatican’s second-highest-ranking official in his place.

“Following the postponement of his Apostolic Journey to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to South Sudan, His Holiness Pope Francis has decided to send the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, to Kinshasa and Juba in order to show his closeness to the beloved peoples of the Congo and South Sudan,” the Holy See’s press office announced Monday.

Parolin’s visit will take place July 1-8.

The Vatican first announced June 10 that Pope Francis’ July trip would be postponed for health reasons, particularly his knee. The following Sunday, the pontiff apologized for postponing his trip because of his knee pain and vowed to reschedule it “as soon as possible.” In his recent public appearances this month, he has either used a wheelchair or relied on a cane.

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Pope prays for victims of massive earthquake that struck Iran, Iraq

November 13, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Nov 13, 2017 / 06:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After an earthquake along the border of Iraqi-Iranian border left some 340 people dead and another 4,000 injured, Pope Francis voiced his sorrow for the loss of life and offered prayer for the dead and for rescue efforts.

In identical telegrams signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and sent to leaders in both Iran and Iraq, Pope Francis said he was “deeply saddened” by news of the quake, and assured all those affected of his “prayerful solidarity.”

Voicing sorrow to the families of the victims, the Pope offered prayer for the deceased and entrusted them to God’s mercy. He also prayed for the injured and the emergency personnel and civil authorities engaged in rescue efforts.

He closed the telegram asking God for the “divine blessings of consolation and strength.”

The Pope’s telegram came just one day after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the border region between Iran and Iraq, with aftershocks felt in Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey.

According to CNN, most of the deaths are from Iran. The agency reports that so far 336 deaths have been confirmed in Iran, with another 3,950 injured, while in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq seven deaths have been reported along with 300 injuries.

Rescue operations are underway in both countries, and Iran has already declared a 3-day period of mourning.

The quake is the strongest to hit the region in recent years, though not the most deadly. Iran, which sits along a major fault line between the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates, has experienced a number of earthquakes, with the most deadly being a 6.6 quake in 2003 that struck the city of Bam and killed some 26,000 people.

A decade earlier, in June 1990, roughly 37,000 people were killed in a major quake that leveled the cities of Rudbar, Manjil and Lushan.

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