Rohingya refugees wait to receive aid Sept. 27 at a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Immigrants and refugees need to be respected and assisted, not treated like an enemy, a panel said during a Sept. 27 news conference at the Vatican launching the Caritas "Share the Journey" campaign. (CNS photo/Cathal McNaughton, Reuters)

Respect immigrants; they aren’t the enemy, Caritas says

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Politicians and community leaders must recognize the benefits of welcoming newcomers and not believe immigrants should be rejected automatically, said members of a panel launching the Caritas “Share the Journey” campaign. Immigrants and refugees need to be respected and assisted, not treated like an enemy, they said during a Vatican news

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Pope Francis greets immigrants and representatives of Caritas Internationalis during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sept. 27. Caritas Internationalis was kicking off its "Share the Journey" campaign in support of immigrants. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

‘Share the journey,’ embrace migrants, refugees, pope says

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christ calls believers to welcome migrants and refugees “with arms wide open, ready to give a sincere, affectionate, enveloping embrace,” Pope Francis said, launching the “Share the Journey” campaign of Catholic charities around the world. Christians’ embrace of people fleeing war or poverty should be “a bit like the colonnade of

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Pope Francis celebrates Mass in the chapel of his Vatican residence at the Domus Sanctae Marthae Sept. 26. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano)

Closeness to God is true freedom, pope says

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A close relationship with Jesus isn’t just about being an educated disciple but being a member of his family who listens and practices his teachings, Pope Francis said. Although Christians who “live in the Lord’s house are free,” there are others who call themselves Christian “but do not dare to come

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Pope Francis greets a child during a visit at the Santa Lucia Foundation rehabilitation center in Rome Sept. 22. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano, handout)

Pope makes surprise visit to Rome rehabilitation center

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis, continuing his occasional series of Friday afternoon visits to people who are suffering or in need of encouragement, visited a well-known Rome rehabilitation center for people with neurological disorders or nerve damage. The Vatican press office said the pope arrived at the Santa Lucia Foundation at 4 p.m. Sept.

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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Our Lady of Fatima's message about prayer, conversion and peace that she imparted to three shepherd children in a field in Portugal "is as important now as it has ever been since" she appeared a century ago, a Connecticut bishop told Massgoers Sept. 23 in Washington. "We come here to ask for her intercession," Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport said in his homily at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. "She might lead every human heart to answer the question, 'What is it that you are looking for?' And we will answer it: 'We are looking for your Son, and lead us to him.'" The bishop was the main celebrant of the Mass, which drew a capacity crowd to the national shrine's Upper Church. After Mass ended, Bishop Caggiano led a procession of concelebrants, deacons, altar servers and the congregation to a new rosary walk and garden near the shrine. As they walked, people recited aloud the joyful mysteries of the rosary. People flooded into the garden -- which on one side features a white Carrara marble sculpture of Our Lady of Fatima with the three child-visionaries at her feet, Lucia dos Santos and Jacinta and Francisco Marto. On the opposite side is the crucified Christ, sculpted from the same kind of marble. The paved walkway, symbolic of the thread connecting a rosary's beads, circles through and around the garden, taking visitors past groupings of colorful mosaics that illustrate the 20 mysteries of the rosary. Bishop Caggiano walked to the Fatima statue, then around the path, blessing the new garden as he went. He ended up back at the statue and led the crowd in prayer. At the beginning of Mass, Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the national shrine, welcomed the congregation, noting the 2,000 pilgrims from the Diocese of Bridgeport in attendance, along with pilgrims from the Philippines and China, the New York area and the Washington region. Bridgeport's diocesan youth choir sang for the Mass, which was broadcast live by the Eternal Word Television Network, CatholicTV of Boston and New Evangelization Television of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. Msgr. Rossi said it was the first pilgrimage from Bridgeport in about 15 years, adding that shrine officials were thrilled to see so many young people at "Mary's shrine." "I often say that our young people are the hope of the world and the church and they are the hope of Mary's shrine," the priest added. Thanking donors who made the new garden and prayer walk a reality, he noted the project was an initiative put forward by Bishop Caggiano and Dr. Daisy Lin of Washington. Opening his homily, Bishop Caggiano asked, "My friends, what are you looking for? What is it that you seek?" This "may sound like a strange question to ask on an occasion such as this and yet it seems to me that is the question that roots each of our lives," he said. "It is the reason that we have come here to this sacred place, and on this day of pilgrimage and prayer (it) affords us an opportunity to answer it again in your heart and mine in the mind of Christ," he said. Everyone at Mass had "made the sacrifice to break our ordinary routine" to come to the shrine," he said, but he was sure everyone there carried people in their heart -- a family member or friend or neighbor -- who "are confused ... without direction, without joy, perhaps even without hope" because they listen to the modern world's voices of secularism and materialism and are unable to find "the rock upon which they are to build their lives." "They're lost ... without happiness. ... They listen to the voice of relativism that tells them that the only truth that matters is what they believe it to be to be true, rather than a gift to be discovered," Bishop Caggiano. "And they live their lives without direction. And in our world marked with so much conflict and division, they believe the voice that tells them, 'My life is all about me,' and they find themselves alone." "We come here perhaps struggling with that sense of hopelessness, helplessness, (asking) 'How can I help these people?'" he continued. "We have come here because we will put them before Our Lady and we will ask her for her help, her intercession and touch their hearts in a way you and I cannot do." Bishop Caggiano also urged the congregation to be aware of how many times in their own lives they all have struggled -- and he included himself -- "to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus" and have been too stubborn to refuse to see Christ's face in the poor, the outcast, in the sick, in the immigrant, in the marginalized in our midst?" "How many times, my friends, has our own pride, yours and mine, prevented us from loving our neighbor as we love ourselves?" he asked. "And we come here to seek forgiveness, to seek a new beginning to allow our hearts to grow." "No matter what challenge you and I face," Bishop Caggiano said, "the Lord will lead us through it, through the intercession of his mother, and to you and I struggling to be disciples, she is our model and guide." About 1,500 pilgrims from Bridgeport boarded buses for the one-day trip to Washington; the other 500 came on their own. Pilgrims talked about the experience in tweets and in Facebook postings. "We've made it to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception! Positively joyful atmosphere here!" one person said in a Facebook post. "It was such a beautiful and spiritual day for me and my family. I was honored to serve in the Knights honor guard for the Mass," said George Ribellino. In an email to Catholic News Service, a member of the diocesan youth choir, Liam Drury, said it "was a very cool opportunity to be invited to sing and to be up on the altar while our bishop celebrated Mass for such a special occasion." "The basilica is so majestic and it was amazing to sing in such a beautiful place!" added Liam, a high school sophomore and a member of St. Mary Church in Bethel, Connecticut. "It was very powerful and moving to be part of the procession leading the rosary walk along with our bishop and other priests and pilgrims." Mary Bozzuti Higgins, choir director, said the experience for the young singers, ranging in age from sixth-graders to 12th-graders, "was just over the moon incredible." Sixty-five members of the 80-strong choir were there. She quoted a sixth-grader who said it best: "It was so pure and so holy I wished every in the world could have been there, how different the world would be if everyone in the world was there to experience it." A member of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Wilton, Connecticut, Bozzuti Higgins is a former opera singer who has traveled the world performing and also has taught voice at Boston University. She noted that directing the choir is "an avenue to combine my faith with love of music" and "couldn't be a sweeter." The youth choir just started its third year, she said, adding that its creation was Bishop Caggiano's idea as part his overall efforts "to connect kids to their faith."

Message of Fatima as important today as 100 years ago, says bishop

Posted by - September 30, 2017

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Our Lady of Fatima’s message about prayer, conversion and peace that she imparted to three shepherd children in a field in Portugal “is as important now as it has ever been since” she appeared a century ago, a Connecticut bishop told Massgoers Sept. 23 in Washington. “We come here to ask for

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Pope Francis celebrates morning Mass in the chapel of his residence at the Domus Sanctae Marthae at the Vatican Sept. 25. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano)

Recognize God’s presence, be open to solace he brings, pope says

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians must learn to expect and recognize God’s consolation and hold dear the peace and tranquility it leaves behind, Pope Francis said. The Lord’s consolation touches one’s inner being “and moves you and gives you a boost of love, faith and hope, and it also makes you cry for (your) own

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New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond share a light moment Sept. 19 before Cardinal Dolan delivered the opening address at the Louisiana Priests' Convention in New Orleans. More than 430 priests attended the three-day conference, the largest attendance in the conference's history. (CNS photo/Peter Finney Jr., Clarion Herald)

Dolan: Honesty about church’s flaws might win back fallen-away members

Posted by - September 30, 2017

NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan suggested to more than 400 priests of the state of Louisiana that humbly and openly sharing the “wounds” and shortcomings of the church might bring those who are alienated back to the practice of the faith. Using the image of the church as “our supernatural

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Pope Francis leads the Angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square Sept. 24 at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Alessandro Bianchi, Reuters)

Worst sin is doubting God waits for all sinners to convert, pope says

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The worst sin of all is not trusting in God’s infinite love and not believing that God is always waiting for his sinning children to return to him, Pope Francis said. “He is always at the door, waiting for me to open it just a tiny bit to let him in,

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Blessed Stanley Rother's sister, Sister Marita Rother, gives the first reading during the beatification Mass for her brother Sept. 23 at Oklahoma City's Cox Convention Center. Blessed Rother, a priest of the Oklahoma City Archdiocese, was murdered in 1981 in the Guatemalan village where he ministered. (CNS photo/Dave Crenshaw, Eastern Oklahoma Catholic)

Blessed Rother ‘an authentic light’ for church and world, says cardinal

Posted by - September 30, 2017

OKLAHOMA CITY (CNS) — If the martyrdom of Blessed Stanley Francis Rother “fills us with sadness,” it also “gives us the joy of admiring the kindness, generosity and courage of a great man of faith,” Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, said Sept. 23 in Oklahoma City. The 13 years Blessed

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Educate for hope, solidarity, common good, Vatican urges

Posted by - September 30, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican is asking Catholic schools and universities to take the lead in pioneering education networks that value individual identity and talent, but also help students see how their gifts can contribute to the common good. The Congregation for Catholic Education presented broad guidelines in the document, “Educating to Fraternal Humanism,”

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