Category: faith

Vatican City, Dec 16, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The elderly are crucial to a society that is respectful of the rights of all, Pope Francis told leaders and members of Italy’s National Association of Elderly Workers on Monday. Speaking at an audience commemorating the 70th anniversary of the organization’s founding, the pope said that “communion” among generations is vital for human dignity and a healthy society. “Older people, on a social level, should not be considered as a burden, but for what they really are, that is, a resource…

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Vatican City, Dec 15, 2019 / 10:00 am (CNA).- On Gaudete Sunday, Pope Francis celebrated a Filipino Christmas tradition in St. Peter’s Basilica — the Simbang Gabi Christmas novena. “In the Philippines, for centuries, there has been a novena in preparation for Christmas called Simbang Gabi, 'Mass of the night'. During nine days the Filipino faithful gather at dawn in their parishes for a special Eucharistic celebration,” Pope Francis said Dec. 15. “Through this celebration we want to prepare ourselves for Christmas according to the spirit of the Word of…

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Vatican City, Dec 13, 2019 / 09:56 am (CNA).- American bishops from the Midwest met with Pope Francis this week with questions about the outcome of the Vatican’s investigation of Theodore McCarrick. “I did ask about the McCarrick situation. That was something that all of us were very interested in knowing where this was going. And very glad to hear that a report is coming, and not sure when it will be, probably after the beginning of the new year,” Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing told EWTN Dec. 13. The…

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Vatican City, Dec 11, 2019 / 09:57 am (CNA).- Pope Francis is closely following the news of the Chilean military plane bound for Antarctica that went missing with 38 people aboard, the Vatican Secretary of State said Wednesday. The pope “prays to the Lord to give hope in this moment of uncertainty and to sustain the search work and all those who collaborate in it,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in a Dec. 11 telegram. The military transport plane has been missing since the evening of Dec. 9, when radio contact…

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Vatican City, Dec 10, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Imagine that your cell phone rings, and the display says the call is from a “private number.” You expect it to be a telemarketer. But instead, when you answer, you hear a man with an Argentine accent say: “This is Francis. I received your letter.” That phone call happened to Daniel Ibanez, the CNA and EWTN News Vatican photographer, on an ordinary weekday morning in December 2018. “I effectively stayed frozen, because I was speaking with the pope,” Ibanez told CNA.…

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Aachen, Germany, Dec 9, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- A German bishop has been relieved of all his diocesan responsibilities after being charged by prosecutors with taking more than $140,000 from an elderly woman’s account. Bishop Johannes Bündgens "left all offices" in the Diocese of Aachen following charges by state authorities in Cologne. On Thursday, the diocese, where Bündgens has served as auxiliary bishop since his consecration in 2006, announced that prosecutors had filed charges in the district court of Kerpen on December 2. Msgr. Andreas Frick, vicar general of the diocese, released…

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Rome, Italy, Dec 8, 2019 / 10:01 am (CNA).- For the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Pope Francis on Sunday venerated a statue of the Virgin Mary located in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna, reciting a prayer he wrote for the occasion. “I entrust to you all those who, in this city and in the whole world, are oppressed by distrust, by discouragement due to sin; those who think that for them there is no more hope, that their faults are too many and too great, and that God…

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Rome, Italy, Dec 7, 2019 / 07:12 am (CNA).- Birmingham’s Bishop Robert Baker said Friday there is a hopeful spirit about the renewal of the Church in the United States at the end of the latest round of ad limina visits with Pope Francis and other curial offices. About the crisis of mistrust in episcopal leadership, Baker said, “we know we have a long way to go, and we know the struggles there… We acknowledge our failures as bishops to do all that we should do.” “But there’s a hopeful…

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Vatican City, Dec 6, 2019 / 12:12 pm (CNA).- The superior general of the Jesuit order told reporters Tuesday that the devil is real, after making headlines in August by stating that Satan is a symbol, not a person. Satan “is the one who stands between God's plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ, because he has made this irreversible and free decision, and he wants to drag others to reject the merciful God, who prefers to give his life to save instead of to condemn,” Fr. Arturo…

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