An El Salvadoran countryside, a Canadian mosque, a carpenter’s workshop on the small Italian island of Lampedusa and a family home in Minnesota serve as the setting of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation’s latest documentary, The Francis Impact.
In his opening act Sunday on a two-day visit to Bulgaria, Pope Francis praised the nation as a bridge not only among the various religious communities present within its territory, but also on the European continent.
Despite stating at the outset that he didn’t like travel and didn’t plan to do much of it, during the first six years of his pontificate Pope Francis made close to 30 international trips, including visiting virtually every country of Latin America.
When Pope Francis sets off for Macedonia and Bulgaria this weekend, it could well be a classic case of big things coming in small packages.
A genuine crisis – not a self-invented melodrama, but an honest-to-God existential threat – is a funny thing, in that often it produces wildly contrasting effects in people. Among some it can generate burning anger and resentment, in others confusion and despair, and in still others only shrugs and ennui.
After attacks that took the lives of more than 250 people on Easter Sunday, the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka is working on becoming a beacon of hope. Yet according to the local cardinal, if civil authorities don’t find the perpetrators and put them on trial, they risk the community taking justice into its own hands.
According to the international papal charity Aid to the Church in Need, 2019 is already one of the bloodiest for Christians in modern history, with violent attacks in the Central African Republic (CAR), southern Philippines, Nigeria, India and Sri Lanka.
In its 20th annual report, released on Monday, the Commission offered a bleak picture of oppressed conditions for practicing faith for believers of all stripes in the world’s most populous country.
Pope Francis has donated $500,000 to migrants at the U.S. border. The funds will be distributed to 16 Mexican dioceses and religious groups working to provide food and safety to those displaced by immigration.
For Cardinal Malcom Ranjith of Colombo, where Sunday’s Easter attacks took place, his focus is not so much on rebuilding churches but lives. His priority is to be there for his people. Where words fall short, gestures are the only comfort he’s able to give.
