Roe v. Wade overturned: The scene outside the Supreme Court

Washington D.C., Nov 23, 2017 / 05:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his Thanksgiving message, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he is grateful for the gifts and contributions of immigrants and refugees in the United States.

“As we do every year, we will pause this coming Thursday to thank God for the many blessings we enjoy in the United States,” DiNardo said.

“My brother bishops and I, gathered last week in Baltimore, were attentive in a special way to those who are often excluded from this great abundance—the poor, the sick, the addicted, the unborn, the unemployed, and especially migrants and refugees.”

Following the lead of Pope Francis, as well as the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. Bishops have been increasingly vocal about their concerns regarding immigration reform and policies, particularly those that harm families or endanger the safety of immigrants.

The U.S. bishops have expressed “a shared and ever-greater sense of alarm—and urgency to act—in the face of policies that seemed unthinkable only a short time ago,” DiNardo said.

These policies include the ending of DACA, which benefited hundreds of thousands of young people who entered the U.S. as migrants, as well as the ending of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people of several Central American countries, who have sought refuge from violence and natural disasters in the United States.

Earlier this month, the U.S. bishops recommended that the government extend TPS status for tens of thousands of Haitians, who came to the United States after a 2010 earthquake devastated their country.

The bishops, who sent a delegation to assess Haiti’s capability to accept returned nationals, found that the country would not be capable of supporting tens of thousands of people who would be forced to return home. Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that TPS status would end for Haitians in the United States by July 2019.

“One common feature of all these developments is their tendency to tear apart the family, the fundamental building block of our, or any, society,” DiNardo said.

“These threats to so many vulnerable immigrant and refugee families must end now. My brothers have urged me to speak out on their behalf to urge the immediate passage—and signature—of legislation that would alleviate these immediate threats to these families,” he added.

These current issues are symptomatic of a broken immigration system that has long been in need of comprehensive reform, a process which will take years but to which the bishops are committed, in order to ensure that the United States is “welcoming the most vulnerable, ensuring due process and humane treatment, protecting national security, and respecting the rule of law,” DiNardo said.

“So this year, I give thanks for the gift and contributions of immigrants and refugees to our great nation,” he said.

“I also pray that next year, families now under threat will not be broken and dispersed, but instead will be united in joy around their tables, giving thanks for all the blessings our nation has to offer.”

[…]

Pope Francis gives an extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica March 27, 2020. / Vatican Media.

Rome Newsroom, Mar 27, 2023 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Wednesday will bless a satellite that will launch his words into space on June 10.

The “Spes Satelles,” Latin for “Satellites of Hope,” will be launched on a rocket taking off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

According to the Vatican, the miniaturized satellite will hold a copy of a book documenting the pope’s urbi et orbi blessing of March 27, 2020, when, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he blessed the world from St. Peter’s Square with the words “Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies, and comfort our hearts.”

“You ask us not to be afraid,” the pope prayed. “Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm.”

The book, “Why Are You Afraid? Have You No Faith? The World Facing the Pandemic,” has been converted into a nanobook, a 2-millimeter by 2-millimeter by 0.2-millimeter silicon plate, for transport to space.

Pope Francis will bless the satellite and the nanobook after his weekly public audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29.

The Vatican said March 27 the CubeSat, the name for miniature satellites, will travel aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s partially reusable two-stage launch platform. It will be hosted on the ION SCV-011ION platform, a satellite carrier developed and built by the Italian company D-Orbit.

The Italian Space Agency will operate the satellite, which was built by the Polytechnic University of Turin.

“The satellite is equipped with a radio transmitter as well as onboard instruments to be maneuvered from the ground,” a press release stated.

While in orbit, the satellite will broadcast decipherable statements from Pope Francis on the theme of hope and peace in English, Italian, and Spanish.

The president of the Italian Space Agency, Giorgio Saccoccia, said the Holy See asked the agency to identify a way for Pope Francis’ words of hope “to cross the earth’s borders and reach from space the greatest possible number of women and men on our troubled planet.”

“For those of us who are used to seeing space as the privileged place from which to observe the world and communicate with it without borders, it was easy to imagine a quick, humble and effective solution to offer wings to the Holy Father’s message,” he added.

The secretary of the Dicastery for Communication, Father Lucio Adrian Ruiz, said “space has a fascination for everyone, especially for young people. Space has that mystery of the universal, the deep, the magnificent, and it makes us all dream.”

By launching Pope Francis’ words of the March 27, 2020, blessing into space, the Vatican hopes to signify that the pope’s prayer, blessing, and universal call to hope continue to be relevant for men and women of goodwill today, he said.

You can follow the launch and learn more at the Spei Satelles website.

[…]

Washington D.C., Jul 8, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, will head a new human rights advisory body to the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday.

“It’s a … […]