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ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 28, 2023 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Given the possibility that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) may prohibit Nativity scenes on public property, the Mexican Bishops’ Conferen… […]
Young people from Spain will make a pilgrimage for 40 days to World Youth Day in Lisbon on Aug. 1–6, 2023. / Credit: Archbishopric of Barcelona
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 28, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Nearly 100 young people from the parishes of St. Ma… […]
Bishop George Leo Thomas. / Diocese of Helena.
Rome Newsroom, Jun 28, 2023 / 12:48 pm (CNA).
“God, is this right?” Archbishop George Leo Thomas prayed when he was first appointed to lead the Church in Las Vegas in 2018.He was moving to the dese… […]
Sister Cyril Mooney, an Irish sister who changed education for impoverished children throughout India has died at age 86. / Photo credit: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Denver, Colo., Jun 28, 2023 / 11:55 am (CNA).
An Iri… […]
Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez Argoti, a missionary who was abducted in Mali in February 2017 and held for nearly five years. / Credit: ACN
ACI Africa, Jun 28, 2023 / 10:00 am (CNA).
Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez Argoti, a missionary who was abd… […]
Caritas Chile has launched a campaign in support of those affected by recent floods in the central-southern areas of the country. / Credit: Carabineros de Chile
ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 28, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Caritas Chile has launched a campa… […]
The Catholic Cathedral of Limburg in Hesse, Germany. / Mylius via Wikimedia (GFDL 1.2).
ACI Africa, Jun 28, 2023 / 08:22 am (CNA).
The Catholic Church in Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis, with more than half a million baptized Catholic… […]
Members of the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP) take control of the Women’s Social Adaptation Center (CEFAS) prison in Tamara, 25 km north of Tegucigalpa, on June 26, 2023. The government announced last week that military police would assume control of Honduras’s 21 prisons for a period of one year starting July 1, as well as train 2,000 new prison guards after a vicious battle between rival gangs left at least 46 women dead in a prison near the capital Tegucigalpa. / Credit: Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
CNA Newsroom, Jun 28, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).
On June 20, a confrontation broke out between rival gangs at the Women’s Center for Social Readaptation (CEFAS) in Tamara, a town near Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where dozens of inmates lost their lives.
The massacre was carried out by women belonging to the so-called “Barrio (neighborhood) 18” gang, who shot, stabbed, and set fire to the inmates of another criminal organization known as “Mara Salvatrucha.”
The Mexican newspaper El Universal explained the meaning behind the terms: “In Central America the word ‘mara’ is used colloquially for a gang; ‘salva’ refers to El Salvador; and ‘trucha’ (trout) is a slang term meaning ‘intelligent’ or ‘clever.’”
After what happened, the president of the country, Xiomara Castro, fired the minister of security, Ramón Sabillón, and assured that “drastic measures” will be taken.
The president tweeted she was “shocked by the monstrous murder of women in CEFAS, planned by gangs in full view and tolerance of security authorities. My solidarity with the relatives.”
The Mara Salvatrucha (also known as MS-13) and Barrio 18 are widespread criminal organizations mainly in countries such as Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras. Both gangs originated in Los Angeles.
Its members, often identified by full-body tattoos, commit crimes such as rape, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.
The number of women who died is yet to be fully determined.
In a June 20 statement, the public prosecutor’s office of Honduras said there were 41 dead. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras (OHCHR), there were 46.
The bishop emeritus of San Pedro de Sula in Honduras, Ángel Garachana Pérez, spoke of even higher numbers than those confirmed by officials.
The Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa’s prison ministry demanded that the authorities clarify “this cruel event” and that “answers be provided for what happened.”
In addition, the bishop demanded that security be reinforced in prisons so that “it works effectively and in an appropriate manner.”
In a June 25 tweet, Pope Francis said: “I have been very saddened by what happened a few days ago in the women’s penitentiary center in Honduras. I pray for the deceased and their families. May the Virgin of Suyapa help hearts to open up to reconciliation and fraternity, even within prisons.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
null / Goran Bogicevic/Shutterstock.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 28, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Although church attendance in the United States saw a slight uptick in 2023, fewer Americans are going to church than they did before the start of th… […]
Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 28, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Jun 28, 2023 / 05:03 am (CNA).
At his first general audience in three weeks, Pope Francis praised the evangelization efforts of St. Mary MacKillop, a religious sister who devoted her life to providing Catholic education to the poor in rural Australia.
“Mary MacKillop was convinced that the purpose of education is the integral development of the person both as an individual and as a member of the community; and that this requires wisdom, patience and charity on the part of every teacher,” the pope said in a hot St. Peter’s Square on June 28.
Commenting on the late June weather, Francis asked pilgrims at the start of the event “to be a little patient today in this heat.”
“Thank you for coming in this heat, with this sunshine, thank you so much for your visit,” he added.
Pope Francis held his usual weekly audience for the first time since June 7, the morning of the day he underwent a three-hour abdominal surgery under anesthesia to correct an incisional hernia.
Last week’s public audience was canceled to allow the pope more time to recover from surgery. In July the weekly audience is canceled for a summer break. It will resume on Aug. 9, after Pope Francis returns from a visit to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon.
Continuing a series of lessons on apostolic zeal, Pope Francis on Wednesday highlighted Australia’s first and only Catholic saint: Mary MacKillop.
MacKillop was the first of eight children born to Scottish immigrants in 1842, in what is now known as Melbourne. At the time, the European settlement in Australia had been established for a little over 50 years.
MacKillop, whose family had its own economic problems, dreamed of offering free education to Australia’s Catholic rural poor.
With the help of her spiritual director and mentor, she developed a plan for a congregation of sisters to aid those in need in Australia’s vast countryside. She took the religious name St. Mary of the Cross, and founded what would go on to be the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
MacKillop’s sisters established many schools and orphanages across Australia, including in the “bush.”
Pope Francis said MacKillop believed Catholic education was also “a great form of evangelization.”
“Indeed, education does not consist of filling the head with ideas, just this no,” he said. “In what does education consist? In accompanying and encouraging students on the path of human and spiritual growth, showing them how friendship with the Risen Jesus expands the heart and makes life more human.”
“To educate is to help to think well; to feel well — the language of the heart; and to do well — the language of the hands,” Francis continued. “This vision is fully relevant today…”
The pope noted that MacKillop did not, however, have an easy path to fulfilling her mission of sharing the Good News with those in need.
“You see: all the saints have found opposition, even within the Church,” he explained.
MacKillop “had to pay bills, negotiate with local bishops and priests, manage the schools and look after the professional and spiritual formation of her sisters; and, later, she suffered health problems. Yet, through it all, she remained calm, patiently carrying the cross that is an integral part of the mission,” he said.
“Mary,” Pope Francis emphasized, “had great faith in God’s Providence: she was always confident that in any situation God provides.”
The pope also underlined the saint’s great care for the poor and marginalized, which pushed her “to go where others would not or could not go.”
“This is very important,” he said. “On the road to holiness, which is the Christian road, the poor and the marginalized are protagonists, and a person cannot move forward in holiness unless he also devotes himself to them in one way or another. They, who need the Lord’s help, carry the presence of the Lord.”
Francis recalled being struck once by a line he read that said: “the protagonist of the story is the beggar: beggars are those who draw attention to injustice, which is the great poverty in the world.”
He also lamented that money is spent on making weapons instead of on producing food.
“Don’t forget: there is no holiness if, in one way or another, there is no care for the poor, for the needy, for those who are somewhat on the margins of society,” he said.
© Catholic World Report