On Friday, in a move that raised the eyebrows of some, Pope Francis consecrated Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A good Jesuit, Francis is applying the maxim “Pray as if everything depended on God, work as if everything depended on you,” a Vatican official told La Croix’s Loup Besmond de Senneville. Read more
As the world begins to emerge from the most recent surge of the Covid-19 pandemic, how do we return to normal? And what should normal mean? The feeling that we are ready for the return to normal is as much a product of exhaustion as of progress. While there is much to be celebrated, especially Read more
There’s a whole range of things that people can do, both to prevent the Covid-19 virus from taking hold, but also to be supportive of people who might contract the disease.” Cardinal John Dew the archbishop of Wellington told Vatican News. He said this is a time when people need to be ready to help Read more
Western Christians need to show solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the Middle East. Bishop Angaelos who is the head of the Coptic church in the UK, says for example many Coptic Christians in the North Sinai have been forced out of their homes. They were told by ISIS to “leave or die”. Angaelos Read more
Pope Francis will meet with refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos on April 16 to show his support and solidarity for the migrants. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press office, said the invitation for the pope to visit the island came from Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, and Greek president Read more
Pope Francis expressed “prayerful solidarity” with victims of the suicide bombing in Istanbul on Saturday. “[Pope Francis grieved] to learn of the casualties caused by the bombing in Istanbul … and he expresses his prayerful solidarity with all touched by this tragedy,” read a telegram to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Read more
Students at Catholic schools in Saskatoon in Canada will no longer be able to buy a bottle of water at school. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools (GSCS) is eliminating plastic bottled water from vending machines, cafeterias, school-related events and meetings. The reasons given are environmental consciousness and solidarity with people in the world who lack clean Read more
A massacre of the innocents is taking place in the heart of Africa as the world looks the other way. The humanitarian emergency in the Central African Republic (CAR), a landmass bigger than France where the average male life expectancy is 48, remains a blind spot for most of the international community. Samantha Power, the US Read more
Pope Francis has condemned the waste of food as a symptom of a “throwaway culture” and said hunger and malnutrition should never be considered “an inescapable fact of life”. He called for greater efforts to build a worldwide “culture of encounter and solidarity”. The Pope’s words came in his annual message for World Food Day, Read more