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Vatican Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Gallagher (center) meets with Vietnamc's Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son (unseen) and other officials at the Foreign Ministry in Hanoi on April 9, 2024. / Credit: NHAC NGUYEN/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesRome Newsroom, Apr 11, 2024 / 09:40 am (CNA).The Vatican's foreign minister met with Vietnam's prime minister in Hanoi on Wednesday during the first high-level diplomatic visit by a Church official to the country since the Vietnam War.Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican secretary for relations with states, spoke with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh about the possibility of Pope Francis becoming the first pope to visit the Southeast Asian country.The Vietnamese state-run news agency reported on April 10 that both Gallagher and the prime minister agreed "on the need to push ahead with high-level contacts, including Pope Francis' visit to Vietnam."During his six-day trip to Vietnam, Gallagher will visit Hanoi, Ho ...
Pope John Paul II's helicopter flies over the huge crowd in Manila's Luneta Park prior to celebrating an open-air mass for an estimated two-million people gathered for the 10th World Youth Day on Jan. 15, 1995. / Credit: JUN DAGMANG/AFP via Getty ImagesACI Prensa Staff, Apr 11, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Nearly 40 years ago, an event was held in Rome that laid the foundations for what today is World Youth Day (WYD). On April 14, 1984, Pope John Paul II met in Rome with 300,000 young people from all over the world who were hosted by some 6,000 Roman families.WYD is an encounter of young people from all over the world with the pope that takes place every two or three years in different cities around the world. The first one took place in Rome in 1986. Since then, the fruits of each WYD have flowed: conversions, vocations discovered, and even alleged miracles.The seminal event was part of the 1984 Holy Year of Redemption, held near Palm Sunday. On that occasion, the pope told...
Students in morning assembly prayer in Catholic school at Seppa in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. / Credit: Anto AkkaraBangalore, India, Apr 10, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).New guidelines for Catholic schools from the Catholic bishops of India have elicited mixed reactions in the country, with many applauding the move to respect "all faith traditions" while others have accused the Church of bending to pressure from Hindu fundamentalists.The 13-page document issued to India's 15,000 Catholic educational institutions includes a recommendation that schools display the preamble to the Indian Constitution at school entrances and that children recite the preamble during daily assemblies.The bishops' education commission said the document was written "to face the emerging challenges due to the current socio-cultural-religious-political situation in India." Its release comes ahead of elections that will take place between April 17 and June 1.The guidelines come at a...
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives at the Atlanta airport on April 10, 2024, in Atlanta. / Credit: Megan Varner/Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Apr 10, 2024 / 14:20 pm (CNA).Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would not sign a national abortion ban if reelected to the office of the presidency in November. The Republican presidential candidate was at an event in Atlanta on Wednesday when a reporter asked him: "Would you sign a national abortion ban if Congress sent it to your desk?" "No," Trump said in response. Asked by the reporter: "You wouldn't sign it?" Trump responded again: "No."Trump had minutes earlier indicated that he disagreed with this week's historic ruling at the Arizona Supreme Court. That court on Monday ruled that state law does not guarantee a right to an abortion and that an 1864 law prohibiting all abortions can take effect later this month.Asked in Atlanta on Wednesday if that ruling "went too far,...
null / Photo credit: Kryvosheia Yurii/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Apr 10, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).Republican Gov. Brad Little of Idaho on Monday signed a law designed to protect government employees and students at public schools from being forced to use names and pronouns that violate their sincerely held beliefs. HB538, which the Idaho Legislature passed last week, is set to take effect July 1. The new law provides for "a prohibition on any governmental entity in the state of Idaho from compelling any public employee or public school student to communicate preferred personal titles and pronouns that do not correspond with the biological sex of the individual seeking to be referred to by such titles or pronouns.""Such prohibition is essential to ensure that the constitutional right to free speech of every person in the state of Idaho is respected," the bill reads.Government, public school, and higher education employees "shall not be subject to adverse employment ...
null / Credit: ucchie79/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Apr 10, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA)."Growth is anticipated."That's how the Tokyo-based company Oji Holdings described the Japanese adult diaper economy last week. The company announced in a press release that it would be terminating its "domestic disposal diaper business for babies" later this year.The baby diaper market in Japan is a "low-growth business," the company indicated, though the 150-year-old company said it will not exit the diaper business altogether.The company "aims to continue … focusing its resources on the market for the domestic disposable diapers business for adults, where growth is anticipated," the press release said. Oji's pivot toward adult diaper manufacturing underscores an ongoing crisis facing many developed nations around the world, Japan in particular: cratering fertility rates. Global fertility has been falling for decades, though the problem is often most acute in industrialized nations with high...
null / Credit: PixabayCNA Staff, Apr 10, 2024 / 10:50 am (CNA).An Italian Catholic watchdog group says a blasphemous ad featuring a priest consecrating potato chips in place of Eucharistic hosts has been ordered pulled from the airwaves.The Italian Association of Radio and Television Listeners (Associazione Italiana Ascoltatori Radio e Televisione, AIART) on Monday had called for the immediate suspension of an advertisement by the Italian company Amica Chips, one that the group said "offends the religious sensitivity of millions of practicing Catholics." AIART says on its website that its mission is "inspired by Catholic principles."In the advertisement, an abbess fills a ciborium with potato chips instead of Eucharistic hosts prior to Mass, after which a priest distributes one of the potato chips to a nun during holy Communion. As the communicants are visibly surprised to discover the chips in place of hosts, the abbess looks on unconcernedly as she eats from th...
To mark its 10th anniversary, the St. Pio Foundation in the United States has released 10 never-before-seen photographs of Padre Pio. The candid images include scenes of the Italian priest celebrating Mass and deep in prayer. The foundation's director, Luciano Lamonarca, discovered the photos when visiting photographer Elia Saleto's studio. / Credit: Courtesy of the St. Pio FoundationCNA Staff, Apr 10, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).To mark its 10th anniversary, the St. Pio Foundation in the United States has released 10 never-before-seen photographs of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio.To mark its 10th anniversary, the St. Pio Foundation in the United States has released 10 never-before-seen photographs of Padre Pio. The foundation's director, Luciano Lamonarca, discovered the photos when visiting photographer Elia Saleto's studio. Courtesy of the St. Pio Foundation.The candid images show the Italian priest celebrating Mass and deep in prayer but also in lighter mo...
The State Supreme Court building in Phoenix. / Credit: ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 9, 2024 / 15:45 pm (CNA).The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that a law protecting unborn life from abortion beginning at conception can soon take effect. The court ruled that state law does not guarantee a right to an abortion and that an 1864 law prohibiting all abortions can take effect in 14 days, pending any further constitutional challenges.The 1864 law allows for exceptions in cases in which the mother's life is in danger but does not grant exceptions for cases of rape or incest. The 4-2 decision issued Tuesday found that the Arizona Constitution "does not create a right to, or otherwise provide independent statutory authority" for abortion and that any guarantees to a right to abortion in the state were predicated on the now overturned Roe v. Wade precedent."To date, our Legislature has never affirmatively created a right to, or independently a...
The official portrait of Servant of God Niña Ruíz-Abad was presented to the public during the opening session of the diocesan phase of her cause for beatification and canonization at the Cathedral Church of St. William the Hermit in Laoag City on Sunday, April 7, 2024. / Credit: Portrait of Catholic Saints, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsACI Prensa Staff, Apr 9, 2024 / 16:30 pm (CNA).The official portrait of Servant of God Niña Ruíz-Abad was presented April 7 during the opening of the diocesan phase of her cause for canonization at St. William Cathedral in the town of Laoag located in the Ilocos Norte region of the Philippines.If canonized, the young Filipina, who died in 1993 at age 13, could become one of the youngest saints in history.The proceedings, including the Mass celebrated by Renato Mayugba, the bishop of Laoag, were posted on Facebook. The ceremony began with a procession of members of the Diocese of Laoag followed by the reading of Ruíz-Abad's biography and th...
