Month: May 2013

(Vatican Radio) Each year for the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome celebrates Mass in the City’s Cathedral, the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.

Immediately following the Mass, the Holy Father will process with the Blessed Sacrament from the Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Parishes, confraternities and other groups of the faithful take part in Procession, which was revived during the Pontificate of Blessed John Paul II.

(Vatican Radio) Neither Pope Francis, nor the thousands of people who had begun to gather for the Holy Father’s weekly General Audience in St Peter’s Square even before daybreak, allowed the sudden rainstorm that blew through the city of Rome on Wednesday morning to dampen their spirits. After thanking the pilgrims and tourists for their intrepid spirit, and listening to a reading from the Gospel according to St John in which the episode of the soldiers’ piercing the crucified Lord’s side is recounted (Jn 19:32-35), Pope Francis began a new series of cathechetical reflections, centred on the mystery of the Church as presented through some well-known phrases from the documents of the II Vatican Council.

(Vatican Radio) Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva, has described Syria’s armed conflict as a national tragedy that risks intensifying regional and global conflicts and could melt down the entire country. Please see below the full transcript of Archbishop Tomasi’s statement delivered at the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council.

                    2013-05-28 Vatican Radio (Vatican Radio)  The Holy See has expressed “deep concern” for violations of religious freedom and systematic attacks on Christian communities in regions of the world such as Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This was pointed out by Msgr. Silvano Maria Tomasi, who spoke Monday at the United … Read moreVatican to UN: 100 thousand Christians killed for the faith each year

(Vatican Radio) The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has marked its 20th anniversary on Monday, amid concern about the future of some cases. Dutch King Willem-Alexander was among those invited to commemorate the occasion at a time when the United Nations court is under pressure to end its operations.

(Vatican Radio) How real is the risk that Syrian’s civil war could spill over into neighbouring Lebanon where many of the same ethnic and religious fault lines are replicated? Those long simmering fears have been heightened this week by a rocket attack fired from Syria against a Shia dominated area of southern Beirut. Jesuit priest, Father Samir Khalil Samir is a leading expert on Islam and the Moslem world and teaches at St. Joseph’s university in Beirut. He spoke to Vatican Radio’s Susy Hodges.

VATICAN CITY (CNS), Jan-31-2013

In October, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dismissed Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood because of his participation in the invalid ordination of a woman.

Since then, a Jesuit in Wisconsin has had his priestly faculties suspended after he celebrated a liturgy with a woman purporting to be a Catholic priest; and the Redemptorist order has confirmed that one of its members is under Vatican investigation for alleged ambiguities “regarding fundamental areas of Catholic doctrine,” apparently including the question of women’s ordination.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that only men can receive holy orders because Jesus chose men as his apostles and the “apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.” Blessed John Paul II wrote in 1994 that this teaching is definitive and not open to debate among Catholics.

Catholic.net

Three life sentences for Dr. Kermit Gosnell.

His crime? Killing infants just a few seconds after the legal cut-off.

That’s the irony of the case, and perhaps the reason why Dr. Gosnell shook his head as the sentence was read. In a country where abortion is legal, condemning him for terminating a pregnancy a few seconds late makes no legal sense.

Catholic Ireland.net

The National Apostolate of Adoration has reacted with delight to the announcement that Pope Francis will next Sunday, 2nd June 2013, take part in a period of Eucharistic Adoration, which will be televised live throughout the world at 4.00pm.

The Pope has invited every parish in the world to have a time of Eucharistic Devotion on the same day, feast of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.

John Howard from the National Apostolate of Adoration said that from the time of Pope John Paul II, there has been great support from popes for Eucharistic Adoration. “Scarcely a month went by when the pope did not mention the power of prayer before the Blessed Eucharist,” he told told CatholicIreland, but said Mr Howard, this initiative of inviting the faithful to pray before the Eucharist with the pope was a “thrilling” development.

From the editor’s desk – The Tablet

4 May 2013
Under its new Pope, the Catholic Church begins to feel like an animal that has emerged from winter hibernation, blinking in the sunlight and looking for pastures new. From around the world the signs of this reawakening are becoming visible.
For instance, some German bishops are interested in the possibility of women being admitted to a special diaconate, as a step towards diluting the heavily masculine profile of Catholic ministry. The idea needs pushing further, not even ruling out the prospect, floated not long ago by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, that women could be appointed as cardinals, given that red hats do not necessarily have to be proffered to clergy. As the Epistles of St Paul make clear, leadership positions in the Church can in principle be as open to women as to men.