Pope Francis visits Benedict XVI on Aug. 27th, 2022 | Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2022 / 02:16 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for prayers for a “very ill” Benedict XVI.
Francis made the appeal for the 95-year-old pope emeritus at the end of his weekly public audience on Dec. 28 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.
“I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church,” he said.
“Remember him — he is very ill — asking the Lord to console him and to sustain him in this testimony of love for the Church until the end.”
Benedict XVI, who reigned as pope from 2005 until his resignation on Feb. 28, 2013, lives in a former monastery in the gardens of Vatican City.
🔴 Benedetto XVI con padre Michel Fédou e Joseph Weiler (Premi Ratzinger 2022), mons. Georg Gänswein, padre Federico Lombardi e Pierluca Azzaro (1° dicembre 2022)
On Dec. 1, Pope Francis praised Benedict XVI for his role as pope emeritus and his contributions to the field of theology.
Speaking at the 2022 Ratzinger Prize award ceremony at the Vatican, Pope Francis said: “We all feel his spiritual presence and his accompaniment in prayer for the whole Church.”
“But this occasion is important to reaffirm that the contribution of his theological work and, more generally, of his thought continues to be fruitful and effective,” he said.
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Vatican City, Mar 27, 2019 / 10:24 am (CNA).- The crisis facing the Church today calls Catholic journalists not only to “relentless and fair reporting” but also to spreading the gopsel, Archbishop Georg Gänswein said in a Mass said in memory of Mother Angelica.
The March 27 Mass at Santa Maria della Pieta in Camposanto dei Teutonici in Vatican City marked the third anniversary of the death of Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, foundress of EWTN Global Catholic Network. EWTN is the publisher of Catholic News Agency.
In attendance at the Mass celebrated by the prefect of the papal household were employees of the EWTN Vatican bureau, various embassies to the Holy See, the Holy See press office, and a variety of ecclesial organizations.
Archbishop Gänswein reflected in his homily on Divine Providence, noting that Mother Angelica founded EWTN on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
He said the faith is brought to us through witnesses, and reflected that Mother Angelica “with visionary genius understood the role you have to play in the new Information Age even the Catholic Church has now entered, whether she wants it or not. And that’s why you are now all called to be witnesses in a completely new and very special way.”
“This role is not necessarily undramatic,” he said, adding that “you as Catholic media professionals are challenged to be better and more professional than your colleagues from non-Catholic media.”
“God, for every need of the Church, calls men and women who will give us special assistance in all sorts of danger,” the archbishop said.
“Thus, in the great confusion caused by presbyter Arius in the early Church, he called Athanasius the Great; in the chaos of the migrations of peoples, St. Columban; after the French Revolution, the holy parish priest of Ars – and so on. Only in this way can we understand what Mother Angelica from the ‘Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration’ really set in motion, when she began to build the spiritual channel EWTN in a garage of her monastery in Alabama, without any means and against all odds.”
Archbishop Gänswein said that “by doing so, she implanted in the Catholic Church of America at that time a media power that did not depend on the bishops: a ‘fourth power’ so to say, in which faithful journalists disclose any sort of abuse just as intrepidly as they indicate dangerous wrong ways, on which some shepherds today seem to get lost just as they did in all times of history.”
In light of the clerical and, indeed, episcopal abuse scandals, the archbishop exhorted, “as Catholic journalists you are not only responsible for the ‘hard news’ and a relentless and fair reporting, but more than ever for the core of all good news: the Gospel.”
“That means that today you are called to follow Mother Angelica and spread the most important news of all time in a completely new way, and with the most modern means, in freedom and together with the Magisterium of the Church: the news of the Incarnation of God as the greatest news that the world has ever heard and seen.”
“In Saint Francis de Sales, we already have a long-established patron of journalists. In Mother Angelica, however, the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has received the gift of a prophetess and apostle for the digital future, from whom we can learn anew that we can always trust in a miracle, especially in the darkest hours of history,” Archbishop Gänswein concluded.
A Catholic pregnancy center called “Aid for Women” in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood was vandalized with red paint and the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” at 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 23, just hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Mary FioRito, a spokesperson for the center, said that vandals also cemented the doors shut, forcing the nonprofit to cancel appointments for around 12 women. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 23, 2024 / 18:37 pm (CNA).
A Catholic pregnancy center in Chicago called “Aid for Women” was vandalized in the early morning hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention.
No one was present at the center at the time of the incident. Police have been contacted and are investigating the incident as a violation of the Freedom of Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, according to Mary FioRito, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a spokesperson for Aid for Women.
Aid for Women is a non-profit which according to its website was “founded on the faith and teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The nonprofit operates five pregnancy centers and two maternity homes in the Chicago area. The group partners with the Archdiocese of Chicago and offers a range of services including ultrasounds, abortion pill reversal medications, counseling, and material aid.
FioRito, who has been a regular volunteer at Aid for Women for over two decades, told CNA that the incident occurred in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood at 3 a.m. Friday morning, hours after the DNC’s final closing.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, four vandals splattered red paint and painted the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” on the center’s entrance. FioRito said that the vandals also cemented the center’s doors shut, forcing staff to cancel all appointments on Friday — which she said were with about a dozen women.
The doors at “Aid for Women,” a Catholic pregnancy center in north Chicago, were cemented shut by vandals at 3 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2024, hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
As of Friday afternoon, the center’s doors were still cemented shut and there is no timeline on when it will be able to reopen. FioRito said that this means the Aid for Women pregnancy center may have to cancel its appointments or ask women to visit another location on Saturday, which FioRito said is their busiest day.
FioRito said that when she saw the pictures of the damage to the center she was “horrified.”
Addressing the vandals she said: “You’re not hurting us; you’re hurting these women.”
“These are working-class women. A lot of stuff for them is a struggle. Why would you do this to women who already are facing so many obstacles? It baffles me,” she said.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, there was an unusually low police presence in the neighborhood at the time of the incident due to the DNC which took place in another part of town.
FioRito lamented that pregnancy centers have borne the brunt of anti-abortion anger since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“It’s so strange to me that pregnancy centers are somehow the collateral damage of all this anger over Roe being overturned because the pregnancy centers didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “Pregnancy centers are largely apolitical … they are not political advocates, they are not legal advocates, they simply help women.”
Edgewater is an urban neighborhood as culturally diverse and “not a wealthy neighborhood.”
“Many of the women we serve are not women of means,” she said. “Pregnancy is hard enough. You don’t need something like this layered on top of it, making your life even harder.”
“If the people who did this were intending to hurt the pro-life movement or get back at the pro-life movement for Dobbs, all they’re really hurting is poor women when they do something like this,” said FioRito.
The DNC took place at Chicago’s United Center this week, Aug. 19-22. Several of the Democratic speakers, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, highlighted abortion as a central issue in the 2024 election and condemned pro-life attempts to restrict abortion.
A local Planned Parenthood operated a free mobile abortion clinic just outside the convention. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers reported on Thursday that the mobile clinic had provided nine vasectomies and eight chemical abortions.
Has truth ever been so spoken? “I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church,” he [Francis] said.
Not if you bear in mind that Francis harbored deep contempt for the actual theology of Benedict. A call to prayer if always good. I can not ignore self-evident hypocrisies.
The truth is “Benedict…sustaining the Church.” Many of us have a little more hope because Benedict has remained alive, suffering, in silence. [Although we still do not easily understand or accept his resignation. Some at times fault him because of that.]
My writing often lacks clarity and fails to explain what I really mean.
Yes, hypocrisy is prime in the primacy, and I accept, espouse, and proclaim that without saying. I also hypothesis the hypocrisy will increase in blatancy, frequency, and with less hesitation following the death of the emeritus. May God prove me wrong. Already we are near hell’s gates.
God bless Benedict XVI.
Has truth ever been so spoken? “I ask to all of you a special prayer for the pope emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church,” he [Francis] said.
Not if you bear in mind that Francis harbored deep contempt for the actual theology of Benedict. A call to prayer if always good. I can not ignore self-evident hypocrisies.
Hi Ed, My remark below is in reply to you here, but I somehow mistakenly put it below. Wishing you a blessed Christmas Season!
Popes don’t “reign”, they “serve.”
Prayers for Pope Benedict XVI.
The truth is “Benedict…sustaining the Church.” Many of us have a little more hope because Benedict has remained alive, suffering, in silence. [Although we still do not easily understand or accept his resignation. Some at times fault him because of that.]
My writing often lacks clarity and fails to explain what I really mean.
Yes, hypocrisy is prime in the primacy, and I accept, espouse, and proclaim that without saying. I also hypothesis the hypocrisy will increase in blatancy, frequency, and with less hesitation following the death of the emeritus. May God prove me wrong. Already we are near hell’s gates.