Vatican City, Mar 16, 2017 / 09:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has chosen Fr. Steven Biegler, a native of Rapid City, South Dakota, as the next bishop of the Diocese of Cheyenne, WY.
A March 16 message pose… […]
Vatican City, Mar 15, 2017 / 03:41 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Business is obliged to protect peoples’ dignity – and those who lay off employees solely for economic gain commit a serious sin, Pope Francis told employees of a TV platform in Italy.
“He who shuts factories and closes companies as a result of economic operations and unclear negotiations, depriving men and women from work, commits a very grave sin,” the Pope said in reference to Sky Italy’s recent cutbacks.
Sky Italy is a platform for digital satellite television. Partly owned by 21st Century Fox, they are also a major broadcaster for sports. Sky has recently announced plans to downsize and move 300 employees to Milan from Rome.
The Pope emphasized the dignity work gives to men and women and lamented employers who do not keep their responsibility to access to this dignity.
“Work gives dignity, and managers are obliged to do all possible so that every man and woman can work and so carry their heads high and look others in the eye with dignity.”
Pope Francis has spoken on the accountability of a business to its workers before. Addressing the Italian Christian Union of Business Executives in 2015, he encouraged the estimated 7,000 gathered at the Vatican to look at ethics as a necessity for economics and business.
“You are called to cooperate in order to grow an entrepreneurial spirit of subsidiarity, to deal with the ethical challenges of the market and, above all the challenge of creating good employment opportunities.”
The Pope ended his speech with hope for a quick resolution that “takes into account the respect for the rights of all, especially for families.”
Vatican City, Mar 15, 2017 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis greeted and blessed a group of pilgrims from China who broke protocol and approached him during the Wednesday general audience.
The group of faithful, some of whom approached the Holy Father on their knees, held Chinese flags and amid sobs, asked for him to bless a statue of Our Lady of Fatima they had carried into Saint Peter’s Square.
At first, some Swiss Guards tried to prevent the pilgrims from approaching the pontiff, but Francis quickly stopped them and shared a few moments with the pilgrims.
Among the pilgrims there were some children whom the Pope spent a few minutes with.
China only allows Catholic worship services for the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party, and rejects the authority of the Vatican to appoint bishops or to govern them.
The Catholic Church faithful to the Pope is not completely clandestine, although it faces constant opposition.
Diplomatic relations between China and the Vatican were broken in 1951, two years after the communists came to power and expelled foreign clerics.
For some years the Holy See has been working on an accord for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with China, a rapprochement encouraged by Pope Francis.
In August 2014, while he was on his way to South Korea, the Holy Father sent a telegram to the President of China to express his best wishes when his plane was over Chinese airspace.
The fact that the Pope had received permission to fly over Chinese airspace was considered a small step forward. Pope John Paul II had to avoid the airspace of this country during his trips to Asia.
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— ACI Prensa (@aciprensa) March 15, 2017
Vatican City, Mar 15, 2017 / 06:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis warned against the hypocrisy that comes from believing that the ability to genuinely love others is based on our own efforts or goodness, rather than being only and alway… […]
Vatican City, Mar 14, 2017 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Rather than a weakness, Pope Francis’ humanity – and his acknowledgment of it – has been a source of strength and impact during the four years of his pontificate, said Vatican’s press office director.
“The Pope says something which is very impressive, which is: ‘I am a sinner,’” Greg Burke told EWTN News Nightly. “And I think he says that in every interview he does, that none of us is without fault. I think that’s been part of his strength: how human he is.”
“Yes, he is the Vicar of Christ and yet at the same time he’s a human being like the rest of us.”
Burke reflected on one small moment from Francis’ pontificate that stands out in particular as hugely impactful: which was “when the Pope got down on his knees to go to Confession himself, in front of the cameras.”
The way that Pope Francis leads by example “has done a great service to all of us,” Burke said.
Burke was appointed Director of the Vatican’s press office in July 2016, after just under six months as vice director. Formerly a Rome correspondent for Fox News Channel and Time Magazine, he has worked in the Vatican since June 2012 when he was appointed senior communications advisor to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
March is the month of anniversaries, with March 13 marking the fourth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election as pontiff, and March 19 the anniversary of the start of his pontificate.
Burke said that in these four years there have been many significant moments, but one that stands out to him is the Year of Mercy, “because it wasn’t just that year it was the whole spirit of mercy which I think the Pope has helped remind everyone of.”
“That God is waiting there to forgive us, something he said from the first week of his pontificate, and people knew perhaps, but it’s been a great reminder.”
A few of the trips Pope Francis has taken “where he wasn’t supposed to go” were also important moments, he pointed out. For example, when Typhoon Haiyan – the deadliest typhoon on record – hit the Philippines in November 2013, Francis “insisted on going,” saying “I’m not going to leave those people alone.”
“That was impressive,” Burke said.
The Pope also went to the war-torn Central African Republic, “despite the risks,” Burke noted, because he thought it was important that he go there, “so he did.”
In general, Burke said that he believes the Pope’s impact on the Church the last four years “has been huge.”
“The Pope has helped people rediscover the joy of what it means to believe. That despite anyone’s limitations, despite their sins, despite the crosses one might have to carry, there is an inherent joy in the Christian life.”
His impact on the world at large has been much the same, he said. “Much of what makes a Christian a better Christian also makes a human being a better human being. In terms of taking care of the poor, visiting the lonely or the sick.”
“And I think the Pope has been a huge wakeup call in that sense, for all faiths, of taking better care of their neighbors,” Burke noted.
Despite confusing or misleading headlines at times, Francis’ message has been consistent the last four years, Burke said: “the Pope’s main message is simple and that remains: God loves you, God forgives you, and you just have to be willing to ask for that forgiveness and share God’s love with others.”
A lot of people think that the pace of activities Francis keeps are what makes it a “break-neck papacy,” Burke said, but in reality, what has changed the most is communications.
“I think we keep up with it just like everybody else does. Though it’s not always easy,” he said.
Personally, Burke said that Pope Francis has impacted him in many ways over the last four years, one of which is in how he pays attention to the person right in front of him.
“He has somebody in front of him and for that moment it’s that person and that person is all that counts and I think there’s a lot to learn from that,” he said.
“Quite frankly, most of us are busy with a million things, we’re busy with our cellphones. We’re talking to people and yet at the same time we’re checking Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, and maybe that’s what saves the Pope – that he’s not there with his cellphone.”
Mary Shovlain contributed to this story.
Vatican City, Mar 14, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis urged Catholics in Tuesday’s homily not only to avoid evil, but to pursue good in concrete actions, likening the Lenten conversion to a journey.
“Avoiding evil and learni… […]
Vatican City, Mar 13, 2017 / 10:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday, the anniversary of Pope Francis being elevated to the papacy, the United States offered its congratulations and wishes for collaboration in the future.
“On behalf of President Tr… […]
Vatican City, Mar 13, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- She begged and scrounged for food in the forest; she drank water from a stream with dead bodies in it; she wrapped grass on her feet in order to walk long distances in the hot sun in order to survive, facing starvation and malnourishment, all before the age of six.
Now, Mirreille Twayigira is a licensed medical doctor hoping not just to save lives, but to inspire young women worldwide – particularly those in her same situation – by showing them there’s hope, and that life is more than the tragedies they face.
While some might label her life “a tragic story” due to the suffering and loss she faced as a young child, Twayigira said others might choose to call it “a story of courage and perseverance.”
However, “I choose to call it a story of hope, a story of God…from ashes to beauty, (like) a beautiful stained glass window.”
Twayigira was among several speakers at the March 8 Voices of Faith women’s gathering in the Vatican, marking International Women’s Day.
First held in 2014, the VoF conference was established in response to Pope Francis’ call to “broaden the space within the Church for a more incisive feminine presence.”
Gathering women from around the world, this year’s VoF took place at the Vatican’s Casina Pio IV, headquarters of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, and featured testimonies of women from around the world, including Syria and Burundi, who shared their stories of perseverance, highlighting the importance of building peace in a world filled with conflict.
In her testimony, Twayigira noted that when war broke out between Tutsis and members of the Hutu majority the government, leading to mass killings of the Tutsi tribe, she was just three years-old.
Although she doesn’t remember much about the war itself when it started, she remembers the day she got the news that her father had been killed.
“I remember being told that my father had been killed, his body being brought home wrapped in this blue tent,” she said, noting that she was too young to fully understand what was happening on the day of his burial.
Before the war, “we were a big, happy family. Our house was next to our grandparent’s house, so my sister and I used to spend our days with uncles and aunts…so it was a beautiful and happy childhood,” she said.
After her father’s death, however, this changed dramatically.
“My family knew that it was no longer safe for us, so they had to pack and leave,” she said, explaining that at first, they fled to another district of Rwanda, thinking they would be safe.
However, after just a short time her younger sister, who was just one-year-old at the time, got sick and, because her family didn’t have access to medicine or proper nourishment due to the war, she passed away.
After her sister’s death – which marked the second time she had lost a sibling, since an older sister had died before Twayigira was born – the family fled through Burundi to a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“In the camp I was a very happy kid,” she said, “but this all ended when I encountered more loss.”
While in the camp, her mother fell ill and “one night she was gone.” However, Twayigira said that despite the tragic death of her mother, “life had to go move on,” so she and her grandparents continued to move forward.
But just two years later, in 1996, they had to leave because of war in the DRC, which is when “I began to experience a life that is unimaginable,” she said, recalling how she had her grandparents fled the camp with bullets flying over their heads, and took refuge in the forest.
“We only survived by begging for food,” she said. Her grandparents begged from locals in nearby villages, and at times were given moldy bread to eat. When begging wasn’t enough, “we even had to eat roots from the forest.”
“I remember sometimes we had to drink water from rivers with dead bodies floating in it,” she said, noting that their situation had become one of the “survival of the fittest.”
They had long distances to walk going from village to village and in search of another camp, many times walking on rough terrain. When the weather was too hot for their bare feet, they bunched up grass and tied it to their feet in order to be able to walk.
“We escaped death from so many things: from hunger, bullets, drowning, wild animals, you name it. No child should go through what I went through. In fact, nobody should go through what I went through,” she said.
Eventually the family made their way to another refugee camp, “but life would not be better there,” she said. While there were some soldiers protecting them, they would take young boys and train them to fight, and would take girls either as companions for the night or, at times, as wives.
Most of the boys leave refugee camps “with some sort of trauma,” she said, noting that when it came to the girls, some got pregnant, and others were made to be servants.
“The only reason I survived this is because I was very little,” Twayigira said. Due to the ongoing war, she and her grandparents traveled to nearby Angola before eventually ending up back in the DRC for a period of time.
However, with no improvement to the situation and no end to the war in sight, they again made their way to Angola for the second time. But when they arrived, “my grandma was very tired, and as for me, I was very malnourished.”
“You can imagine a big tummy and thin brown hair, and swollen cheeks and feet,” she said, describing herself as a young girl.
Twayigira recalled that her grandmother died shortly before they reached the refugee camp in Angola, and that had they not arrived when they did, “I was also almost gone.”
With just the two of them left, Twayigira explained that her grandfather eventually decided to travel to a different refugee camp in Zambia, because he heard they had a better school.
Despite such a long journey and so much loss, her grandfather moved again for no other reason “than to give his granddaughter a better education,” Twayigira said. She recalled that her grandfather “really believed in me so much. He never once said, ‘she’s just a girl, let me not waste my time on her.’”
After spending a few years in Zambia, the pair decided to make yet one more move, this time heading to a camp in Malawi that had better living conditions and even better schools. They arrived in September 2000.
Twayigira immediately enrolled in school once she arrived, making several new friends and, for the first time since they had left, was happy to have adequate food and shelter.
Being able to do well in her classes “would give me joy. Because at least I got to make some people proud, and I was very happy,” she said. Twayigira was eventually selected to join a Jesuit-run school, with all fees paid for by the Jesuit Refugee Service.
When she finished school in 2007, Twayigira’s grandfather fell ill, passing away just a few days after.
“I cried uncontrollably, badly, but life had to go on, and although I was in so much pain with the loss of my loved ones, it did not stop me from working hard,” she said, “because I knew that my future, it was not certain, I did not know what my future had, but I knew that my hard work would pay off.”
In 2009 she studied for the national final exam in Malawi, and finished among the top 6 students in the country. At the awards ceremony, the Chinese embassy offered a number of full-ride scholarships to study in China for the top students.
Twayigira was one of the students selected and, despite being a refugee with no citizenship status or passport, was able to get her paperwork in order with the help of the Jesuits at her school, a Catholic radio station and even the Malawian parliament.
She then moved to China and studied the language for a year before officially beginning classes in Chinese. She has since graduated and is currently working as a medical intern in Malawi.
While there were many times she wanted to give up along the way, Twayigira said she persisted, because at a certain point she realized that “God spared my life” not to keep it for herself, but because “there are people that I was meant to serve.”
“Before I went to China, I used to think I was just this girl with a tragic past…but when I got to China I realized that I’ve got a story to tell; a story of God and his love, a story that can change somebody’s life.”
As a doctor, Twayigira said she feels she can give even more. But in addition to her medical duties, she also looks for opportunities to speak in schools to try and “raise hope among the youth, especially refugee youth.”
She said that in the future, she hopes to work more directly with refugees, “because I believe I have a lot to share, having gone through what they’ve gone through.”
“Now this is my story…but unfortunately for many, theirs is just in the tragedy part,” she said, explaining that many refugee children don’t even have access to adequate housing let alone higher education.
Even those who do get a good education don’t necessarily have the same opportunities, Twayigira said, so “their hopes are just crushed.”
In order to change the situation, she said war itself has to end: “why not end all this violence, and I’m not talking about people from other countries coming in to invade our own countries, I mean why wait for an outsider to come to stop hurting, and killing?”
“Is the money or power at the expense of their blood really worth it? I don’t think so,” she said, adding that the only way to really resolve conflict is with “forgiveness, mercy and love.”
“Is there such humanity in us, or have we become robots?” she asked. “What is happening to innocent kids is completely unfair, and it needs to stop and I believe it starts from within us: from love, forgiveness and mercy.”
People in situations similar to hers need to know “that they are loved by God and people around them. They need to know that they matter, that there is hope for them, that they have a purpose in life,” she said, noting that this stems not only from having the basic needs met, but above all from education.
In an interview with CNA after her talk, Twayigira stressed the importance of education, saying it’s “really the key to everything, because if not educated, many girls don’t even know their value.”
However, with a good education women learn that “okay, I’m not worthless and someone can’t just come and step on my foot. I am somebody,” she said, adding that a proper education helps women to step into decision making positions where they can change things.
“I believe that once a girl is educated, that means you’re actually educating the whole family. Because a woman, you raise your children, they’re with you all the time, you know that whatever they get is what you teach them,” she said.
“So if a woman is educated that means the whole family will get quality advice from their mothers. So educating a girl is actually educating the whole country.”
Twayigira said she was happy to be able to speak at the Vatican, since the event was streamed live. She voiced her hope that people can hear her story “and not just feel sorry for me, but also see ways they can help other people like me to get a better education or a safe place, or open their homes to refugees like me.”
She said she also hopes other young women and girls from around the world will be able to see and hear her story, and to know that “it’s all possible…I believe that I’m a pillar of hope for them.”
She said one of her hopes coming out of the conference is not only to encourage young women in her situation to have hope, but also that the people who have the power and resources to change things will see that they “can actually do something under-privileged people like I was.”
“Their actions can change somebody’s life for the better, never to be the same,” she said.
Rome, Italy, Mar 12, 2017 / 12:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In his brief homily at a Roman parish Sunday, Pope Francis reflected on the beautiful faces of Jesus during the Transfiguration and the Resurrection, saying they give us the hope and courage needed… […]
Vatican City, Mar 12, 2017 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis said Lent is a time to really contemplate the sacrifice Jesus made for each of us on the Cross, which is more than just a devotional symbol, but an exhortation to imitate th… […]
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