19-year-old Catholic woman dies attempting to flee Gaza with her mother

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. / Instytut Prymasowski

Rome Newsroom, May 28, 2021 / 04:30 am (CNA).
Events are taking place across Poland Friday marking the 40th anniversary of the death of a cardinal who led the Church defiantly during the darkest … […]

Pope Francis addresses the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at their headquarters in Rome on Nov. 20, 2014. / FAO Giulio Napolitano.

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Monday that the world must do more to help small food producers.

In a message to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the pope said that the coronavirus crisis should spur efforts to create a global food system capable of withstanding future shocks.

“I appreciate and encourage the efforts of the international community to enable each country to implement the necessary mechanisms to achieve food autonomy, whether through new models of development and consumption or through forms of community organization that preserve local ecosystems and biodiversity,” the pope wrote in Spanish.

“It could be of great benefit to draw on the potential of innovation to support small producers and help them improve their capacities and resilience. In this regard, your work is of particular importance in the current time of crisis.”

The pope’s message was addressed to Michał Kurtyka, Poland’s climate minister and president of the 42nd Session of the FAO Conference, taking place in Rome on June 14-18.

The FAO, founded in 1945, has more than 194 member states and works in over 130 countries.

In addition to the papal message, the conference’s first day featured an address by the Italian President Sergio Mattarella and opening remarks by the FAO’s Chinese Director-General Qu Dongyu, who described the pandemic as “a powerful wake-up call on the fragility and shortcomings of our agrifood systems.”

In his message, the pope noted that in 2020 the number of people at risk of acute food insecurity and in need of immediate subsistence support reached its highest level in five years.

“This situation could worsen in the future. Conflicts, extreme weather events, economic crises, together with the current health crisis, are a source of famine and hunger for millions of people,” he wrote.

“Therefore, in order to address these growing vulnerabilities, it is essential to adopt policies capable of tackling the structural causes that give rise to them.”

The pope continued: “To provide a solution to these needs, it is important, above all, to ensure that food systems are resilient, inclusive, sustainable, and able to provide healthy and affordable diets for all.”

“In this perspective, the development of a circular economy, which guarantees resources for all, including future generations, and promotes the use of renewable energies, is beneficial.”

“The fundamental factor for recovering from the crisis that is striking us is an economy tailored to man, not subject only to profit, but anchored in the common good, friendly to ethics and respectful of the environment.”

The FAO’s 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic would cause 130 million more people worldwide to suffer chronic hunger by the end of last year.

The pope said: “The reconstruction of post-pandemic economies offers us the opportunity to reverse the course followed so far and invest in a global food system capable of withstanding future crises.”

“This includes the promotion of sustainable and diversified agriculture that takes into account the valuable role of family farming and rural communities.”

“Indeed, it is paradoxical to note that it is precisely those who produce food that suffer from the lack or scarcity of food. Three-quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas and depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihoods.”

“However, due to lack of access to markets, land ownership, financial resources, infrastructure and technologies, these brothers and sisters of ours are the most vulnerable to food insecurity.”

Concluding his message, the pope said that it was not enough merely to outline programs.

“Tangible gestures are needed that have as their point of reference the common belonging to the human family and the fostering of fraternity,” he wrote, assuring the conference of the Catholic Church’s support for its work.

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Pope Benedict XVI arrives in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the Oct. 21, 2012, canonization ceremony for Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Caterina (Kateri) Tekakwitha, and Anna Schaffer. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 870 people and canonized a total of 45 saints. Though his papacy was relatively short, spanning from 2005 to 2013, the 45 people whom he declared saints are models of faith and holiness, celebrated by Catholics all over the world.

Here are seven of the best-known saints Pope Benedict XVI canonized:

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American saint to be canonized. Born in what is today New York state, she was the daughter of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. She was baptized at age 21 and fled persecution to St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada, joining a community of Native American women who had also converted to Christianity. She is remembered for her suffering, devout faith, courage, and her purity. St. Kateri died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.

She was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. He said: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life despite the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.”

St. Hildegard of Bingen

St. Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian from Germany. Born in 1098, in her late teens she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. From the age of 3, she experienced visions of God and was asked by her confessor to write them down in what became the influential illustrated book “Scivias.” She founded two monasteries and was a prolific writer of poetry, theology, and sacred music. She died on Sept. 17, 1179.

St. Hildegard was canonized on May 10, 2012, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI on Oct. 7, 2012. He said: “In Hildegard are expressed the most noble values of womanhood: hence the presence of women in the Church and in society is also illumined by her presence, both from the perspective of scientific research and that of pastoral activity.”

St. Damien of Molokai

Joseph de Veuster, later to become St. Damien of Molokai, was born in 1840 in rural Belgium. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school to work on a farm but later decided to pursue a religious vocation with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As a priest, he served victims of leprosy quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. He eventually contracted the disease, losing his eyesight, speech, and mobility. St. Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. Benedict XVI said of St. Damien, whom he canonized on Oct. 11, 2009: “Following in St. Paul’s footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division, but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.”

St. Marianne Cope

St. Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838 and entered religious life with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, New York, in 1862. Mother Marianne served as an educator and opened two of central New York’s first hospitals. She was sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii at age 45 to care for leprosy patients and established an education and health care system for them in the years she was there.

Benedict XVI canonized St. Marianne Cope on Oct. 21, 2012. Of her legacy, he said: “At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage, and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis.”

St. Jeanne Jugan

St. Jeanne Jugan was born on Oct. 25, 1792, during the French Revolution. At age 25, she joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons. After some time serving as a nurse caring for elderly women, she acquired an unused convent building that would hold 40 people and established the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, 2,400 members were serving internationally.

At St. Jeanne Jugan’s canonization on Oct. 11, 2009, Benedict said: “Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”

St. Pedro Calungsod

St. Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Philippines. In 1668, at the age of 14, he was among the young catechists chosen to accompany Spanish Jesuit missionaries — among them Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores — to the Marianas Islands to spread the Catholic faith. St. Pedro was responsible for converting many people, especially through the sacrament of baptism. On April 2, 1672, he was killed, along with San Vitores, while they were conducting a baptism. He is now recognized as a martyr.

He was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012. Of St. Pedro’s hardships, while visiting the Marianas Islands, Benedict said: “Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom.”

St. Alphonsa

St. Alphonsa was born in Kerala, India, on Aug. 19, 1910. As a young woman, she rejected all suitors who came her way, as she was determined to enter religious life. In 1923, she suffered an accident that left her burned, disabled, and partially disfigured. She joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and until her death suffered from physical ailments and problems associated with her disability. In her love for God, she embraced her sufferings until her death on July 28, 1946.

St. Alphonsa was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2008. She is the first Indian woman to become a saint. In a Vatican statement released on the day of her canonization, she is described as “a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips.”

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