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Vatican Weekend for March 4th, 2017 features a report on Pope Francis’ general audience on Ash Wednesday, a leading Franciscan updates us on the situation in South Sudan, a nation the Pope said once again that he wishes to visit plus two reflections to mark the Lenten season.Listen to this program produced and presented by Susy Hodges:
Vatican Weekend for March 5th, 2017 features our weekly reflection on the Sunday Gospel reading, “There’s more in the Sunday Gospel than Meets the Eye,” plus our resident Vatican watcher Joan Lewis reviews the past week’s events in the Vatican.Listen to this program produced and presented by Susy Hodges:
(Vatican Radio) The Director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke, said Friday that Pope Francis will hold an audience with the heads of State and government of the European Union on March 24, 2017.The EU leaders will be in Rome to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome.Their audience with Pope Francis is to take place in the Sala Regia of the Apostolic Palace on the eve of a summit marking the EU’s founding treaty.The Holy Father previously addressed EU leaders last May at his acceptance speech for the Charlemagne prize for promoting European unity.
Myanmar’s prominent Catholic Church leader has warned that the world's ecological crisis is being fueled by greed, and that climate change has destructive powers equivalent to those of nuclear weapons. "Today we face an environmental holocaust. It is a scary moment…. Climate change is an atom bomb waiting to explode," Myanmar’s first Cardinal, Charles Bo Archbishop of Yangon said in his keynote speech at the Asia-Oceania Meeting of Religious (AMOR) forum in Yangon on Feb. 27. Just over 130 men and women religious attended the forum held at St. Mary's Cathedral compound Feb. 27-March 3.The 69-year-old cardinal told the forum that greed has unleashed ecological terrorism upon the Earth while adding that the poor are the most affected. He cited Pope Francis' environmental encyclical “Laudato Si' saying that degradation to the environment was being caused by "economic terrorists and ecological terrorists."&...
(Vatican Radio) A one-day workshop was held on Friday in the Vatican on ‘Twitter Diplomacy at the Holy See’. The event was hosted by the Vatican Secretariat for Communications (SPC), in conjunction with the British Embassy to the Holy See.Participants in the workshop included Britain’s Ambassadors to the Holy See, Sally Axworthy, and to Austria, Leigh Turner, along with Hungary’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Eduard Habsburg, and Professor Giovanni Maria Vian, Director of the Osservatore Romano.Pope Francis touches minds and hearts on social networks“Where people are, the Church is. This is why the Pope is present on Twitter and Instagram.” That was the explanation given by the SPC’s Secretary, Msgr. Lucio Adrian Ruiz.The event brought together diplomats and other personalities who, in the Vatican and the Church, seek to spread the message of the Gospel through social media, especially on Twitter.Workshop participants shared their expe...
(Vatican Radio) The Vatican Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff on Friday published the calendar of liturgical celebrations at which Pope Francis will preside during March and April of 2017. The list includes the Masses to be celebrated during the Holy Father's pastoral visits to Milan on March 25 and Carpi on April 2, as well as other events surrounding Holy Week and Easter.Please find below the full list:MARCHFriday 17: at 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, penitential celebration.Saturday 25: Solemnity of the Assumption of the Lord. Pastoral visit to Milan.APRILSunday 2: Fifth Sunday of Lent. Pastoral visit to Carpi.Sunday 9: Palm Sunday and the Passion of the Lord: At 10 a.m. in St. Peter's Square, commemoration of the entry of the Lord in Jerusalem, and Holy Mass.Thursday 13: Holy Thursday. At 9.30 a.m. in the Vatican Basilica, Chrism Mass.Friday 14: Good Friday. At 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica, celebration of the Passion of the Lord.At 9.15 p...
Paterson, N.J., Mar 3, 2017 / 06:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic chapel that has served a New Jersey shopping mall since 1970 has scheduled its final Mass.St. Therese’s Chapel at the Bergen Town Center in Paramus, N.J. was set to close on Ash Wednesday. The chapel, also called the Chapel on the Mall, was run by Carmelite priests.Father Eugene Joseph Bettinger, 70, served as the chapel’s executive director, the New York Times reports.“It will be a Lent of the hunting,” he told his congregation during Mass. “After Ash Wednesday, it will be quite the desert experience for us.”The chapel drew close to 1,000 people each week for its Masses, held three times a day Monday through Saturday. At times, people would go to the chapel in groups to say the rosary or to pray silently.The chapel, its offices, and its gift shop took up 5,000 square feet. Ten years ago it moved from a cramped location in the mall basement on condition that its lease would go mon...
Vatican City, Mar 3, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia leave Sunday to begin their annual five-day retreat on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius; since 2014, held at the Casa Divin Maestro retreat house.Casa Divin Maestro, nestled away in the woods on Lake Albano, is just a short distance from the Papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo in the town of Ariccia, some 16 miles outside of Rome.One view from the retreat house encompasses the lake and the town of Castel Gandolfo; even the dome of St. Peter's Basilica is visible in the distance.The peace and serenity of the location reflects the mood Pope Francis wants to set for the entire retreat, Fr. Olinto Crespi told CNA.“We know that the Pope does not rotate much: room, chapel, dining room. He speaks very little, even at the table. There is always a background of music and he himself stays silent,” he said. It is like “the real exercises of the school of St. Ign...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Jamal Nasrallah, EPABy Dale GavlakAL-UM-KUNDUN, Jordan(CNS) -- Catholic leaders have expressed concern for tens of thousands of IraqiChristian refugees sheltering in Jordan as access to international aid tightenswith crises deepening in the Middle East and elsewhere."The situation ofIraqi Christians refugees is critical and dangerous," Father Khalil Jaartold Catholic News Service on the sidelines of a conference hosted by theVatican Embassy in Amman and the Catholic charity, Caritas Jordan.Meeting at Our Lady ofPeace Center on the hilly, tree-lined outskirts of the Jordanian capital, theleaders sought better cooperation and were exploring income-generation projectsfor the refugees badly in need of funds."They havefinished their money and they aren't allowed to work. How can they live inhuman dignity?" asked Father Jaar, who has devoted his ministry to aidingIraqi and Syrian refugees flooding into Jordan from neighboring conflicts formore than a decade.Daniela Cicche...
By Carol GlatzVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Here is Pope Francis' schedule forHoly Week and Easter:-- March 5-10: Lenten retreat with officials from theRoman Curia in Ariccia, outside Rome.-- March 17: Penitential liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica.-- March 25: Pastoral visit to Milan where he wasscheduled to visit the Duomo and a prison, celebrate an outdoor Mass and meet withyoung people recently confirmed and preparing for confirmation.-- April 2: Pastoral visit to northern Italian town of Carpi.-- April 9: Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.-- April 13: Holy Thursday, morning chrism Mass in St.Peter's Basilica. Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper with foot washing at astill-unannounced location as of March 3.-- April 14: Good Friday afternoon liturgy of the Lord'sPassion in St. Peter's Basilica. Nighttime Way of the Cross in Rome's Colosseum.-- April 15: Easter vigil at 8:30 p.m. in St. Peter'sBasilica.-- April 16: Easter morning Mass in St. Peter's Square,followed by the papal blessing...
