Filipino mall exhibits more than 50 images of the Virgin Mary to celebrate her nativity

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Cordoba, Spain, Sep 17, 2022 / 07:00 am (CNA).
In his weekly pastoral letter, Bishop Demetrio Fernández González of Córdoba, Spain, said that the desire for money, dreaming about a big checking account, and getting ou… […]

Pope Francis delivers the Angelus address in St. Peter’s Square, July 31, 2022. / Vatican Media

Denver Newsroom, Aug 4, 2022 / 15:12 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has asked the Catholic Church to pray for small businesses during the month of August. 

“As a consequence of the pandemic and the wars, the world is facing a grave socio-economic crisis,” the pope said in a video message released Aug. 2. “And among those most affected are small and medium-sized businesses.”

He added that “despite the difficulties, they create jobs, fulfilling their social responsibility.”

Among those hit the hardest, the pope mentions stores, workshops, cleaning businesses, transport businesses, and others “that don’t appear on the world’s richest and most powerful lists.”

The Holy Father applauded the dedication of small businesses to change things from the bottom up through “an immense creative capacity.”

“With courage, with effort, with sacrifice, they invest in life, creating wellbeing, opportunities, and work,” Pope Francis said. 

“Let us pray for small and medium-sized businesses, hard hit by the economic and social crisis, so that they may find ways to continue operating, and serving their communities,” he concluded. 

The video is part of a series created by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in collaboration with the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. 

The prayer intention follows prayer requests for the elderly in July and families in June. The July prayer intention coincided with the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly on July 24.

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Pope Francis greets pilgrims at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 3, 2023 / 05:30 am (CNA).

The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Francis will visit Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign country.

The pope is set to travel to Mongolia from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4. The trip will make Pope Francis the first pope to visit the Asian country that shares a 2,880-mile border with China, its most significant economic partner.

Mongolia has a population of about 1,300 Catholics in a country of more than 3 million people.

The first modern mission to Mongolia was in 1922 and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But under a communist government, religious expression was soon thereafter suppressed, until 1992. Mongolia’s first native priest was ordained in 2016.

Last year, Pope Francis named an Italian who had served as a missionary in Mongolia for nearly 20 years as the world’s youngest cardinal. Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, 48, is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which serves the entire country.

Roughly the size of Alaska, Mongolia has five people per square mile. About 30% of its population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Bordering Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is also the second-largest landlocked country in the world with the vast Gobi Desert covering one-third of its territory.

Pope Francis will also travel to Lisbon, Portugal, for World Youth Day this August with a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

The pope is also expected to travel to Marseille to preside over a Mass on Sept. 23 as part of a meeting of Mediterranean bishops in the port city in southern France.

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