Santiaguito Church in Mexico sustained fire damage, according to a May 15, 2023, statement by the Diocese of Irapuato in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. / Credit: Facebook of Bishop Enrique Díaz Díaz of Irapuato
ACI Prensa Staff, May 16, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Irapuato in the Mexican state of Guanajuato expressed its “profound consternation” over a fire deliberately set at Santiaguito (St. James) Church and called it a “sacrilege.”
In a statement published May 15, Father Efrén Silva Plascencia, spokesman for the diocese, said that the fire “was set on the exterior by a male person who arrived outside the church at 1:04 a.m. and left at 1:26 a.m.”
Silva pointed out that the Church of Santiaguito, whose origins date back to the 17th century, is one of the “most emblematic and iconic” in the region.
The bishop of Irapuato, Enrique Díaz Díaz, shared on Facebook the first images of the scorched church.
According to the diocese, a criminal complaint has already been filed with the authorities.
“The diocesan Church of Irapuato vigorously condemns this sacrilege, and we ask the corresponding authorities to find those responsible,” Silva said.
The priest lamented that this arson attack occurred shortly after the completion of restoration work paid for “with the effort and cooperation of many people.”
The church “has been totally damaged by smoke throughout its complex,” the priest reported.
At the end of his statement, the diocesan spokesman assured that, despite the attack, “the Church will tirelessly continue in this mission of building peace.”
“Violence always begets violence in any of its expressions,” he concluded.
In another sacrilege, the Eucharist was stolen from the tabernacle of the Lord of the Harvest chapel, administered by St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in the Progreso neighborhood of the town of Jiutepec, about 60 miles south of Mexico City.
Bishop Ramón Castro Castro of the Diocese of Cuernavaca in a May 13 statement said that “the pertinent investigations are already being carried out.”
Canon 1367 of the Code of Canon Law states: “A person who throws away the consecrated species or takes or retains them for a sacrilegious purpose incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.”
In his statement, Castro “strongly” urged the faithful to “celebrate the Eucharist in their communities and perform other liturgical and pious acts they deem appropriate in reparation for this unfortunate incident.”
He also expressed his “prayer and solidarity” with the pastor of St. Luke’s, Father Roberto Carrasco Ruiz, “and the community of the Lord of the Harvest, Progreso.”
“May our Most Holy Mother continue to sustain and encourage your communities,” he concluded.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA. David Ramos contributed to this story.
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Raphael, “St. Michael Vanquishing Satan,” 1518 / Public Domain
Kyiv, Ukraine, Mar 4, 2022 / 10:10 am (CNA).
A statue of Saint Michael the Archangel stands in the center of Kyiv with a shield and a sword and as the protector of the capital of Uk… […]
Pope Francis meets with Cesar Landa, Peru’s foreign minister, at the Vatican, Oct. 17, 2022. / Vatican Media
Denver Newsroom, Oct 19, 2022 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
The Vatican on Monday returned three pre-Columbian mummies to Peru, which had been loaned for the 1925 Universal Vatican Exposition and have since been kept in its Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum.
The repatriation of the remains was made official through the signing of an agreement Oct. 17 by the president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, Cardinal Fernando Vergéz, and the minister of foreign affairs of Peru, César Landa.
“Thanks to the good disposition of the Vatican and Pope Francis, it has been possible to carry out the return, as is appropriate. I came to sign that document. In the coming weeks they will arrive in Lima,” the Peruvian foreign minister told the local press.
According to Vatican News, the Vatican Museums will study the skeletal remains to determine their period of origin.
The mummies were found at an altitude of 9,800 feet in the Peruvian Andes.
En la ceremonia desarrollada en las intalaciones del Museo Etnológico Vaticano, el Canciller ratificó el compromiso de nuestro país con la protección del patrimonio cultural en todas sus formas. (Fotos: Vatican Media) pic.twitter.com/loFbV9UxOG
“The feeling shared with Pope Francis is that these mummies, more than objects, are human beings. Human remains that must be buried with dignity in the place where they come from, that is, in Peru,”Landa said.
At the Vatican, the Peruvian foreign minister met with Pope Francis and then with Secretary of State of the Holy See Cardinal Pietro Parolin and with Cardinal Paul Richard Gallagher, the secretary for relations with states.
The Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum has more than 80,000 objects and works of art.
According to the museum’s website, the collection holds “thousands of prehistoric artifacts from all over the world and dating from over two million years ago, to the gifts given to the current pontiff; from evidence of the great Asian spiritual traditions, to those of the pre-Columbian and Islamic civilizations; from the work of African populations to that of the inhabitants of Oceania and Australia, and the indigenous peoples of America.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Four men carry a statue of St. Bonaventure during a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, his birthplace, on the vigil of the saint’s feast day. / Patrick Leonard/CNA
Bagnoregio, Italy, Jul 15, 2023 / 12:15 pm (CNA).
The birthplace of St. Bonaventure, a 13th-century intellectual giant now revered as a doctor of the Church and the “second founder” of the Franciscans, paid homage to its patron Friday night on the vigil of his feast day with music, prayers, and a candlelight procession.
For the citizens of Bagnoregio, an idyllic town nestled in Italy’s Lazio region about a 1½ drive north of Rome, the July 15 feast is both a solemn holy day and a wellspring of civic pride. Bonaventure’s “braccio santo,” or holy arm — the only surviving relic of the saint — is kept in a silver, arm-shaped reliquary housed in a side chapel of Bagnoregio’s Cathedral of San Nicola and San Donato.
Religious sisters participating in a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, in honor of the town’s patron saint and native son, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Friday’s procession, which commenced at the cathedral, was led by the town’s confraternities of the Most Blessed Sacrament, St. Francis, and St. Peter. Following them were a brass band, a statue of the saint adorned with flowers and carried by four men, and a priest carrying the holy arm. Then came Cardinal Fortunato Frezza, numerous priests, and this year’s first communicants, followed by other religious and residents.
As the participants made their way down the candlelit Via Roma, onlookers watched from windows, balconies, and restaurants bustling with patrons on a warm summer evening.
A resident of Bagnoregio, Italy, watches a candlelight procession through the streets of the town in honor of its patron saint, St. Bonaventure, on July 14, 2023. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Arriving at the piazza Sant’Agostino, Cardinal Frezza, standing beneath a monument of Bonaventure, offered a brief reflection on the importance of the saint and of procession as a form of popular devotion.
The relic “gives us strength to sustain our weakness … It is a relic that is alive and active,” observed the cardinal, a noted biblical scholar. It is “an arm that teaches,” he said, the very right arm that “wrote his works of great intellect and wisdom.”
The cardinal closed his brief catechesis by saying “our life is a holy procession, an itinerary of the mind towards God.” Here he was playing on the title of one of Bonaventure’s most important theological works, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, “The Journey of the Mind to God.” Following a benediction with the relic, the procession continued down Via Fidanza, looping around the main gate and then back up Via Roma to the cathedral. The faithful entered and Cardinal Frezza imparted the final blessing, again with the relic.
Cardinal Fortunato Frezza leads a prayer service on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, in honor of the town’s patron saint and native son, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
The Franciscans’ ‘second founder’
Born in 1217 (or 1221, according to some accounts) as Giovanni Fidanza in Civita di Bagnoregio (then in the territory of the Papal States), he displayed great acumen and intellectual curiosity. He was, however, plagued by ill health in his youth. His mother called upon the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi, and he was, according to the legend, miraculously cured.
The young Bonaventure studied at the nearby Franciscan convent. Given his great talent, at 18 he left Bagnoregio to study in Paris, then the intellectual capital of Europe.
He joined the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in 1243. At the University of Paris, he studied under the renowned Franciscan theologian Alexander de Hales; in 1257 he earned his teaching license (magister cathedratus) in theology there. Bonaventure was a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas, whom he met as they were both teaching at the university. The two future doctors of the Church were united in defending the then-nascent Franciscan and Dominican orders, whose orthodoxy was called into question by the secular clergy.
A statue of St. Bonaventure is shown during a candlelight procession on July 14, 2023, in Bagnoregio, Italy, his birthplace, on the vigil of the saint’s feast day. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Bonaventure’s teaching career was cut short; in 1257 when he was appointed minister general of the Franciscan order, which was then plagued by internal factionalism due to divergent understandings of Francis’ spirituality following his death.
To rectify this, Bonaventure spent much time traveling around Europe to help maintain the unity of the order. In 1260 went to Narbonne, France, to solidify the rule of the order and that same year he started writing (which was completed three years later in 1263) the Legenda Maior, “The Major Legend,” considered the definitive biography of St. Francis. For Bonaventure, the key to righting the order lie in Francis’ ideals of obedience, chastity, and poverty, which he re-established as the Franciscans’ guiding principles.
A woman venerates the “braccio santo,” or holy arm, of St. Bonaventure on July 14, 2023, the vigil of the saint’s feast day, at the Cathedral of San Nicola and San Donato in his hometown, Bagnoregio, Italy. Patrick Leonard/CNA
Enduring influence
In addition to his contributions as the “second founder” of the Franciscans, Bonaventure had a profound impact on the papacy. Following the chaos of the three-year conclave in Viterbo that elected Gregory X in 1271 (the longest papal election in the history of the Church), the new pontiff, also a Franciscan, entrusted Bonaventure with preparing many of the key documents for the Second Council of Lyon (1272-1274) which sought to unify the Latin and Greek Churches.
He was made a cardinal in the consistory of May 28, 1273. He did not, however, see the end of the council, as he died on July 15, 1274. He was canonized in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope Sixtus V in 1588.
A candlelight procession through the streets of Bagnoregio, Italy, on July 14, 2023, honors the town’s native son and patron saint, St. Bonaventure. Patrick Leonard/CNA
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI, who was a great admirer of Bonaventure, visited the saint’s birthplace to venerate the relic and address the faithful. In 2010 he dedicated three consecutive Wednesday audiences on the saint, outlining the importance of his governance of the Franciscans and his theological, philosophical, and mystical works. Bonaventure’s writings, Benedict observed, demonstrate that “Christ’s works do not go backwards, they do not fail but progress.”
“For St. Bonaventure, Christ was no longer the end of history, as he was for the Fathers of the Church, but rather its center; history does not end with Christ but begins a new period,” Benedict said.
“The following is another consequence: Until that moment the idea that the Fathers of the Church were the absolute summit of theology predominated, all successive generations could only be their disciples,” Pope Benedict explained.
“St. Bonaventure also recognized the Fathers as teachers forever, but the phenomenon of St. Francis assured him that the riches of Christ’s word are inexhaustible and that new light could also appear to the new generations,” he said. “The oneness of Christ also guarantees newness and renewal in all the periods of history.”
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