BETHLEHEM, West Bank (CNS) — A long line of cars trailed down the road next to the Church of the Nativity as Franciscan Father Ibrahim Faltas helped coordinate the placement of the electricity generator for the May 25 papal Mass. “We are working night and day,” he said calmly May 23, as he worked to quickly free up the road while drivers waited patiently in their cars. “I think it will be very nice. The people here are happy.”
About 60 retired or active duty U.S. military personnel packed their uniforms, flags, wheelchairs, canes and the inevitable emotional baggage of their daily struggles to take part in a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America welcomed the May 25 meeting between Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem.
Pope Francis assured the bishops of El Salvador that the sainthood cause of slain Archbishop Oscar Romero was proceeding well, and the bishops asked him to come to El Salvador to preside personally over the archbishop’s hoped-for beatification.
Calling family “indispensable and irreplaceable” in human development, a high-ranking Vatican official called for a “renewal of family models” when he spoke at the U.N. in Manhattan earlier this month.
The meeting was part of a dialogue between the U.S. bishops and Iranian Muslim leaders on nuclear weapons.
Pope Francis told seminarians not to become “orphan priests,” who are motherless without Mary; “businessman priests,” who are after money; or “prince priests,” who are aloof from the people.
The major events of Pope Francis’ trip to the Holy Land this weekend will be shown live on NET-TV.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (CNS) – A Harvard University student group’s plan to conduct a satanic ritual “black mass” May 12 on campus brought a public outcry, leading to its formal cancellation and an apparently impromptu off-campus version of the event, as well as a well-attended alternative Catholic holy hour. The planned event had drawn wide criticism from religious leaders as well as students, alumni and faculty at Harvard.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The recent rebuke of the officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) by the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office should be viewed as one part of his entire remarks and one aspect of the group’s visits and ongoing dialogue with Vatican officials, according to a statement by LCWR officers.
