Vatican prepares for summer Olympics with conference on faith and sports

The French 19th-century three-masted barque Belem is seen from the Palais du Pharo in the southern port city of Marseille on May 8, 2024, before the Olympic Flame arrival ceremony, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Belem is set to reach Marseille on May 8 and ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories. / Credit: SYLVAIN THOMAS/AFP via Getty ImagesRome Newsroom, May 8, 2024 / 11:52 am (CNA).As 206 countries prepare to send their top athletes to participate in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, the Vatican is organizing an event to look at the relationship between the Catholic Church and sports, through both a spiritual and anthropological lens."In the current context of wars tearing our world apart, Olympism is first and foremost a message of peace, and the commitment of the universal Church, like that of France, is essential. The role of the Church in promoting Olympism is well known," said Florence Mangin, the ambassad...

Pope Benedict's pectoral cross still missing as thief faces prison sentence

Pope Benedict XVI on April 21, 2007, in Vigevano, Italy. / Credit: miqu77/ShutterstockCNA Newsroom, May 8, 2024 / 11:07 am (CNA).The man arrested for the theft of a pectoral cross bequeathed by the late Pope Benedict XVI to a parish in his native Bavaria is now facing time behind bars.According to CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner, the Traunstein district court on Monday sentenced a 53-year-old Czech citizen to two years and six months in prison.The perpetrator, whom authorities described as a serial thief with a history of crimes across several European countries, left traces at the crime scene that led to his identification and arrest.However, local media reported that the cross is still missing, and the verdict may yet be appealed.Pope Benedict XVI bequeathed a pectoral cross to St. Oswald's Church in the city of Traunstein in Bavaria after his retirement in 2013. The cross was stolen June 19, 2023, from the church. Credit: Bavarian Police/CNA DeutschThe court ...

Texas priest arrested over allegations of inappropriate contact with minors

Father Ricardo Mata. / Credit: Garland Police DepartmentCNA Staff, May 8, 2024 / 14:27 pm (CNA).Police in Texas this week announced the arrest of a priest with the Diocese of Dallas over allegations of inappropriate contact with two minors. The Garland Police Department said on its Facebook page that officers had arrested Father Ricardo Mata on Monday "on two counts of indecency with a child, a second-degree felony.""The allegations are based on reports of inappropriate contact with two juvenile victims, which occurred during a visit to a residence in Garland," the police said. Investigators are in contact with the Diocese of Dallas, the police said. Mata's bonds were set at $75,000 and $100,000, the police department said. In a Tuesday statement on its website, meanwhile, the Diocese of Dallas said that it had been "recently made aware of an allegation by a juvenile girl of inappropriate touching involving a priest.""Upon learning of the allegation last week, di...

Cincinnati archbishop diagnosed with cancer, will begin chemotherapy treatment

Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr. / Credit: Archdiocese of CincinnatiCNA Staff, May 8, 2024 / 12:55 pm (CNA).Archbishop of Cincinnati Dennis Schnurr has been diagnosed with cancer, the archdiocese revealed this week, with the prelate set to begin preparing for chemotherapy treatment this week. An archdiocesan spokesman told CNA on Wednesday morning that on Friday the archbishop "received a post-operation diagnosis of stage 3 small bowel cancer." "His doctor noted that, generally speaking, the archbishop's health is excellent, and that is certainly a source of optimism for the success of the treatment," the archdiocese said.  "The treatment plan includes a regimen of chemotherapy over the next six months, preparation for which will begin this week," the statement continued. "We ask all Catholics and people of goodwill to please keep Archbishop Schnurr in their prayers," the archdiocese added. Schnurr was installed as the Cincinnati arc...

Deaf Catholic community in Maryland grows with new chaplain, retreat, Eucharistic Congress

Father Mike Depcik offer Mass at the Seton Shrine Basilica in Emmitsburg, Maryland, during a recent retreat at the shrine. / Credit: Courtesy of the Seton ShrineCNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).One of the few Deaf Catholic priests in the United States is working to renew the Church's ministry to the Deaf in Maryland and beyond through signed Masses, retreats, and an upcoming Eucharistic congress for the Deaf. Father Michael Depcik, who last year became the chaplain for the Deaf Ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, was born deaf and grew up in a Deaf Catholic family in Chicago. According to Depcik, being "culturally Deaf" (a culture signified by the uppercase Deaf) is vastly different than losing hearing later in life. The distinction is important, Depcik explained, because the Deaf community is its own culture, with its own language. "We're proud to be Deaf, and we identify as Deaf people, and we use American Sign Language as the primary language," Depcik ...

Vatican to publish new document on Marian apparitions next week

Argentinian prelate Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. / Credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty ImagesRome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 09:02 am (CNA).The Vatican's doctrine office will publish a new document next week on discerning Marian apparitions and other supernatural events.The Holy See Press Office announced on Tuesday that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), will unveil new norms for discernment regarding "apparitions and other supernatural phenomena" on Friday, May 17.In an interview with the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, last month, Fernandez said that the document will provide "clear guidelines and norms" for discernment.The new norms will be the first time that the Vatican's doctrinal office has issued a general document on apparitions in four decades. Pope Paul VI approved norms on "the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations" in 1978.Fernandez will speak at a livestreamed Va...

Justice Samuel Alito to address record-breaking 2024 class at Franciscan University

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito. / Credit; Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is scheduled to give the commencement address on May 11 to the record-breaking 896 students in the class of 2024 at Franciscan University of Steubenville.On the occasion, Alito will also receive an honorary doctorate in Christian ethics "for his decades of exemplary public service and tireless efforts to protect and uphold justice and the rule of law," according to Franciscan's May 6 press release. Alito is known for his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the 2022 decision that reversed Roe v. Wade and determined that the Constitution could not confer a right to abortion. Alito is also known for backing religious liberty and gun rights. Prior to the graduation ceremony, Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, is set to preside at the baccalaureate Mass and give...

Federal grant fund for security at houses of worship boosted by $400 million

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. / Credit: Albert H. Teich/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).A federal grant program that provides security funding for houses of worship and other nonprofits will receive $400 million more than it had the previous year amid rising threats, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer."The fear, the trauma, when synagogues and other houses of worship have to be evacuated … stays with the congregants and people who go the next day wonder, 'Is it going to happen again? Am I safe?'" Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a Sunday news conference announcing the increased funding."So this is vicious, aimed of course at synagogues above all, but also at mosques and churches and temples, and it has to stop," he added. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program was created in 2004. Although all nonprofit organizations are eligible for funding, nearly all of the money is allocated to religious institutions.Th...

Minnesota bishops urge opposition to 'Equal Rights Amendment'

Bishop Robert Barron. CNA file photo. / nullCNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis this week urged Catholics to join a rally to oppose a proposed constitutional amendment that they say "fails to protect Minnesotans from discrimination based on religion, could constitutionally mandate legal abortion up to the moment of birth, and promotes harmful gender ideology."The proposed amendment, sponsored by St. Paul Rep. Kaohly Her of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), adds several protected categories to the state's constitution, in part saying the state cannot discriminate against a person on the basis of sex.Within the category of sex, the proposal includes "making and effectuating decisions about all matters relating to one's own pregnancy? or decision whether to become or remain pregnant," as well as "gender identity or gender expression" and "sexual orientation."Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, speaking in a May 6 video m...

Prayers, processions, and seminars mark first anniversary of bloodshed in Manipur, India

Catholic bishops lead the faithful in prayer on the one-year anniversary of the May 3, 2023, violence in Manipur, India. / Credit: Anto AkkaraNew Delhi, India, May 7, 2024 / 14:31 pm (CNA).Several cities across India on May 3 observed the first anniversary of the mayhem and bloodshed that took place in Manipur state in northeast India, which left hundreds of Christians dead, with special prayer meetings, candlelight processions, seminars, and even protests.According to the government's estimate, as many as 230 died in the bloody ethnic conflict that engulfed Manipur beginning on May 3, 2023, while some observers estimate the actual figure to be much higher. Manipur, located east of Bangladesh and at the border with Myanmar, is home to 3.3 million people. For decades, members of the Meitei, Kuki, and Naga tribes have fought over land and religious differences. Beginning in May of last year, a protracted violent clash between the majority Meiteis, most of whom are ...