Thousands demonstrate outside Mexico’s Supreme Court to defend life, reject abortion

Pope Francis greets an elderly couple at a general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 22, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

“A Caress and a Smile” is the name of the event that will take place Saturday, April 27, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall where elderly people, grandparents, and grandchildren from Italy will meet Pope Francis.

A total of 6,000 grandparents and their grandchildren will arrive this week at the Vatican for a special gathering with the Holy Father, an initiative presented by the Holy See’s Press Office today.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, noted that Italy has the second-highest number of elderly people in the world and that for the first time in history, four generations are living together, which “had never happened before.”

He also lamented that currently “we are afraid to use” the word “old” and that old age “is not only a very beautiful time, but can mean a change of direction, within the culture, society, economy, and also of religion.”

The prelate noted the special affection that Pope Francis has for older people and recalled the catechetical series that he dedicated to them, teaching “how to live the last 30 years” of life in a Christian way.

“This event will be held to give a new vision of old age. Old age is a great age, not to be wasted or a burden. Old age is not disconnected from other ages of life,” Paglia continued.

The prelate also noted the demographic winter that Italy is going through and highlighted the “particular harmony” and special ties that exist between grandparents and their grandchildren, two generations “that cannot live without each other.”

The event, organized by the Italian Old Age Foundation, will begin at 8:30 a.m. Rome time with a reflection on old age.

About 40 minutes later, Pope Francis will arrive at the Paul VI Hall to hear the testimony of two grandparents (among them a 91-year-old woman) and three grandchildren.

Also participating in this morning’s press conference was Lino Banfi, a well-known Italian actor who maintains a friendship with Pope Francis, whom he referred to as “the grandfather of the world.”

In addition, Pope Francis has also established the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which this year will be celebrated on July 28.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Pope Francis delivers his Angelus address at the Vatican, June 6, 2021. / Screenshot from Vatican News YouTube channel.

Vatican City, Jun 6, 2021 / 06:20 am (CNA).
Pope Francis expressed sorrow on Sunday at the discovery of Indigenous children’s… […]

A screenshot from a video from Ukraine that went viral on March 12, 2022 during Russia’s attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. / YouTube

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 15, 2022 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

The scene in the video is solemn and inspirational, and has resonated with Catholics around the world.

As a vehicle carrying the Blessed Sacrament makes its way through the streets of Kyiv, people genuflect and bow their heads in a moving display of piety, reverence, and wartime solidarity.

The video, set to dramatic Ukrainian folk music, purports to show the transfer of the Eucharist from the Greek Catholic cathedral in Kyiv to a bunker for safekeeping from missile attacks and Russian forces closing in on the Ukrainian capital. But was that really the case?

A Twitter user identified as Krzysztof Wasilewski, a U.K.-based Catholic deacon and pharmacist, posted the video on March 12. The post was captioned: “Transfer of the Blessed Sacrament from Kiev Cathedral to a bunker the last time was in WWII Impressive People Kneeling in Adoration #PrayforUkraine.” The tweet has since garnered more than 2,800 retweets and more than 10,000 likes.

“I’m not even catholic, but I find this incredibly moving. The people of Ukraine are truly awe inspiring. Beautiful. #StandWithUkraine,” one tweet read.

But the now-viral video is not what it seems. No such transfer of the Blessed Sacrament has taken place, as far as CNA can establish. Instead, the video appears to show a Ukrainian military funeral procession that took place years ago, long before the current Russian invasion.

“This is not a procession with the Holy Gifts. It carries the body of slain soldiers who defended the homeland,” a Ukrainian journalist based in Kyiv told CNA. “The video features a song that Ukrainians sing when they say goodbye to folk heroes.” The journalist, who requested anonymity, has been providing daily dispatches about the war for St. Rita’s Radio, an EWTN radio affiliate in Norway.

Red flags
While the initial tweets about the video generated a groundswell of praise and prayers directed at the suffering people of Ukraine, the video also raised questions.

Why move the Eucharist from the Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv in the first place? The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, along with other church leaders, had taken refuge from Russian missile attacks on the city in a safe space beneath the cathedral — why not bring the Blessed Sacrament there?

And if it had been necessary to transfer it to another location, would the motorcade have met with such spontaneous reactions from passersby along the route — in a minority-Catholic city?

Even after other Twitter users began to sleuth out the answers to some of these questions, people continued to share the video. “Catholic or not, this is supposedly fake,” one tweet read. “Just shows how easily humans are swayed when preyed on their emotions.”

One Twitter user, apparently misreading a translated document, insisted that the video showed the funeral procession for a Ukrainian pilot killed in 2018. But it turns out out that the same video was posted to YouTube in 2015, as noted by Twitter user Colin Kreuzer on March 14. You can watch the full 2015 video below.

Wasilewski, whose tweet went viral, told CNA on March 15 that he had received the video, with the description about the transfer of the Blessed Sacrament, from fellow Catholic deacons in an online faith forum.

Was he disappointed or upset that the video wasn’t what he thought it was? The most important thing, he said, is to pray for Ukraine.

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