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IMAGE: CNS photo/Sean Gallagher, The CriterionBy John ShaughnessyINDIANAPOLIS(CNS) -- As Cardinal-designate Joseph W. Tobin headed to Rome for his Nov. 19 installationinto the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis, he naturally thought again ofall the ways his life has changed in the past six weeks.He alsothought of how those life-changing moments have been shaped by the relationshiphe has formed during the past 11 years with the pope.After all,it was Pope Francis who announced Oct. 9 that Archbishop Tobin would be oneof the church's 17 new cardinals. And 13 days later, Cardinal-designate Tobinlearned that Pope Francis was reassigning him from the Archdiocese ofIndianapolis to lead the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey -- a move thatbecame official on Nov. 7.Returning toItaly for his elevation as a cardinal in St. Peter's Basilica at theVatican, Cardinal-designate Tobin is also returning to the place he first metPope Francis.The year was2005, and the two men were participants in a me...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Police assisted by the FBI pressed an urgent appeal for public help Friday in finding a Kansas newborn a day after her mother was shot to death in her home, insisting the week-old girl was imperiled during a disappearance the police chief considered vexing....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady who were charged with conspiring to send drugs to the United States were convicted on Friday by a jury that found evidence of the crime even though the government's star witness came across to at least one juror as "slime."...
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump agreed Friday to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits against his now-defunct Trump University for real estate investors, averting a trial in a potentially embarrassing case that he had vowed during the campaign to keep fighting....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate confirmation hearing of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, is likely to rehash racially charged allegations that derailed his efforts to become a federal judge and made him a symbol of black-voter intimidation under the Reagan administration....
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has given an interview to the Catholic Italian daily, Avvenire to mark the end of the Holy Year of Mercy, saying that the Jubilee and Ecumenism are the fruits of the Second Vatican Council.Listen to our report: In the lengthy interview to Avvenire, the Holy Father gives his assessment of the Jubilee of Mercy and touches on the complex journey towards Christian Unity and the legacy of the Second Vatican Council.Speaking from the Casa Santa Marta the Pope talks about the Church's path of living and witnessing to the Gospel as a way of mercy and not as an ideology.Pope Francis explains that, he did not have a plan for the Jubilee. “I simply let myself be guided by the Holy Spirit”, he says.Stressing the importance of forgiveness, the Pope comments, that he likes to think that God has a bad memory. “He forgives and forgets”.Turning his attention to the issue of Christian Unity, the Pope underlines the significant steps taken dur...
(Vatican Radio) Members of the Presidency of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), were in Rome in mid-November for their customary visit to the various Dicasteries of the Roman Curia.Conference President Bishop Douglas Crosby, O.M.I., of Hamilton; Vice-president Bishop Lionel Gendron, P.S.S., of Sain-Jean-Longueuil; and Msgr Frank Leo, Jr., C.S.S., the CCCB’s General Secretary were received in an audience with Pope Francis at the beginning of their stay in Rome. Later, the prelates met with members of different Dicasteries.As their visit drew to a close, Bishop Crosby came to Vatican Radio to explain the annual visit.Listen to the full interview of Bishop Douglas Crosby, O.M.I., of Hamilton, President of the CCCB, with Christopher Wells: When the members of the Presidency meet with the various Dicasteries, Bishop Crosby said, they talk about “the state of the union,” “the state of the Church in Canada, and particularly relating to the D...
Rome, Italy, Nov 18, 2016 / 11:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Venezuelan Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo is one of the Pope's picks from the peripheries who will get a red hat this weekend, which the new cardinal-elect says is a sign of the Vatican's concern for the people amid the country’s ongoing crisis.“The Holy Father has shown a special interest for Venezuela,” Cardinal-elect Porras told journalists Nov. 15.“I think that never as now, here in the Vatican, have there been senior leaders who have had a direct or close relationship with the reality of Venezuela,” he said, adding that “undoubtedly the situation of the country” is what influenced the Pope’s decision to name him cardinal.This round of consistory red-hatters “is a bit special” in the context of the Jubilee of Mercy, he said, noting that the majority of his fellow cardinal-elects are “’outsiders,’ we come from dioceses or sees wh...
Vatican City, Nov 18, 2016 / 12:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Friday had a question for priests: “Are you attached to money?”“The house of our Lord God is a house of prayer. Our encounter with the Lord (is) with the God of love,” he said in his Nov. 18 homily. “The Lord of Money is constantly seeking to enter inside.”Pope Francis spoke at his Friday morning Mass at Casa Santa Martha’s chapel, largely attended by priests.His reflection focused on the day’s gospel reading about Christ driving money lenders from the Jewish temple.The moneychangers were renting their spaces from the priests, said the Pope in a strong warning about the “Lord of Money.”“This is the lord that can ruin our life and can lead us to end our life in a bad way, without happiness, without the joy of serving the true Lord, who is the only one capable of giving us that true joy.”The Pope particularly focused on the dangers of the love...
Vatican City, Nov 18, 2016 / 01:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday Pope Francis stopped by a formation course for bishops on the new marriage nullity process, telling attendees that as bishops, and now as local judges in annulment cases, they must pursue the truth, but never exclude those whose marriages have failed.The Church, “who is embodied in the sad stories and sufferings of the people,” bends down to the poor “and to those who are far away from the ecclesial community or consider themselves outside of it due to their marital failure,” the Pope said Nov. 18.Despite whatever distance couples who find themselves in this situation might feel, “they are and remain incorporated in Christ in virtue of their baptism,” Francis said.He stressed that the Church has always had the attitude of a mother “who welcomes and loves, following the example of Jesus the Good Samaritan.” Because of this, it is the responsibility of bishops to never &ld...
