ROME (CNS) – Meeting more than 50,000 Catholic charismatics in Rome’s Olympic Stadium, Pope Francis admitted he was not always comfortable with the way they prayed, but he knelt onstage as they prayed for him and over him by singing and speaking in tongues.
ROME (CNS) – A Jesuit priest from India was kidnapped June 2 as he was leaving a school serving children who were recently returned to Afghanistan after living as refugees in Iran or Pakistan.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – From Cameroon to northern Italy and from Montreal to the Vatican, statements expressing “great joy” accompanied the news that a Canadian sister of Notre-Dame and two Italian missionary priests were released unharmed almost two months after being kidnapped in northern Cameroon.
Pope Francis celebrates Mass at Manger Square in Bethlehem, West Bank, May 25.
Pope said that when he prayed at the controversial Israeli-built separation wall in the West Bank and kissed the hands of Holocaust survivors, they were the “most authentic gestures” because they are the ones “you don’t think about … mine were not planned gestures, it just occurs to me to do something spontaneously that way.”
Many Jews in Jerusalem said while Pope Francis’ visit to their city was a positive thing, they wished their daily commute did not have to be disrupted so drastically.
Half a century after a historic encounter between their predecessors, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met in the same place to seek inspiration for Christian unity at the site of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Pope Francis has invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres to pray together at the Vatican for peace between their nations.
Pope Francis will meet with a group of sex abuse victims for the first time in June, he told reporters May 26.
The U.S. bishops, meeting in New Orleans June 11-13, will discuss today’s economy and its impact on marriages and evangelization.
