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Is 55:10-11; Rom 8:18-23; Mt 13:1-23Anecdote: Dr. Norman Borlaug from the U.S., Dr. M. S. Swaminathan from India and Dr. Gurdev Khush from the Philippines proved to the world that seed has enormous power in it to save a nation from poverty. In the sixties, political scientists were predicting massive worldwide famine, acutely hitting countries like India with its 440 million people and leading millions to starve. There was, however, one scientist who saw things differently. His name was Dr. Norman Borlaug an agronomist from the U. S. who went to India with a seed called "Sonora 64," a wheat seed he developed at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico. Borlaug convinced the Indian agricultural scientists and the government authorities to give it a try. They planted some Sonora 64 wheat in the Punjab region of India. The results were spectacular and pretty soon they were using it throughout the subcontinent. Later, they introduced a new v...
India’s Catholic Church has condemned the growing phenomena of terrorist attacks, lynching, killing and communal violence in the country and appealed to the people to “rise above religion, caste, language or region and to unite in promoting peace, harmony and brotherhood.” India’s Catholic bishops have described as “dastardly and cowardly” Monday’s attack by militants on Hindu pilgrims as they returned from Amarnath shrine in troubled Kashmir. Seven, mostly women, were killed and 12 were wounded. The pilgrim bus got caught up in a gun battle between the militants and police near the town of Anantnag. “This last attack is another sign of the flames of violence that seem to be unfortunately engulfing the country,” wrote Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) in a statement on Tuesday. The apex body of the Catholic Churc...
(Vatican Radio) To celebrate the day the Church remembers Benedict of Nursia on July 11th we shine the spotlight on the figure of this great saint.One whom Benedict XVI, now Pope emeritus, referred to at the beginning of his pontificate with these words: "..I wish to reiterate the steadfast resolve of the Holy See to continue serving the cause of peace.The very name Benedict which I chose on the day of my assignment to the Chair of Peter is a sign of my personal commitment to peace. In taking this name I wanted to evoke the Patron Saint of Europe who inspired civilisation of peace on the whole continent..."In this archive interview Veronica Scarisbrick speaks to the retired Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation, Notker Wolf who highlights the Rule of Saint Benedict and the special charism pertaining to the Benedictines..In this programme you can also hear a Vatican Radio archive recording of Pope Paul VI as he proclaims Benedict Patron Saint of Europe in October...
Catholic education experts in Indonesia are drafting what they say are new school guidelines to counter growing intolerance and radicalism in classrooms. The guidelines are expected to be ready in the next few months and implemented in Catholic schools when the next academic year begins."What we are doing is in response to the current situation, where radicalism is so strong, including among teenagers," said Franciscan Father Vinsensius Darmin Mbula, chairman of the National Council of Catholic Education. "To stem this, we believe one solution is through education," he told UCANEWS on Monday. Father Mbula referred to a 2015 survey in 171 schools in Jakarta and Bandung, West Java that revealed 9.5 percent of students supported violence committed by radical groups, including the so-called Islamic State group. An earlier survey by the Institute for Islamic and Peace Studies revealed that almost 50 percent of students supported radical ...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter motu proprio on Tuesday, by which he created a new category, distinct from martyrdom, under which a Servant of God may be declared Blessed: oblatio vitae, or “the free offering (i.e. “oblation”) of [one’s] life”.The Letter, Maiorem hac dilectionem, takes its title from the words of Our Lord as recorded in the Holy Gospel according to St. John, “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends, (Jn 15:13)”.The Letter creates a new category - a facti species in technical language - called, oblatio vitae, and distinguishes it from the facti species of martyrdom, by five (5) criteria: The free and voluntary offering of one’s life, and heroic acceptance propter caritatem of a certain and soon-to-come death; A nexus – i.e. close relation – between the offering of one’s life and the premature death of the one who offers i...
Vatican City, Jul 11, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The norms regarding gluten and Communion hosts that went viral this weekend are nothing new in the Catholic Church.On Saturday morning, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a circular letter to bishops reiterating existing norms regarding the matter of the Eucharist, including the norm that Communion hosts must contain some amount of gluten to be valid matter for consecration.By Saturday night, the (misconstrued) news had spread like wildfire: “Catholic Church bans celiacs from Communion!” many media outlets declared. It was such a hot topic that Twitter declared it a “moment” in world news.But these were existing norms - there was no change, no announcement of new norms, nor banning of celiacs from the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Gluten-free hosts have always been invalid matter for the sacrifice of the Mass, meaning that Catholics with celiac disease have alre...
Kolkata, India, Jul 11, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Missionaries of Charity have patented the white and blue sari designed by Saint Teresa of Calcutta, obtaining a legal copyright recognizing the pattern as the intellectual property of the order.Although it was never officially announced, the copyright had been granted the same day as Mother Teresa's Sept. 4, 2016 canonization as the culmination of a three year legal process.According to the Press Trust of India, intellectual property attorney Biswajit Sarkar said that “the blue-designed border on the sari worn by nuns of Missionaries of Charity was recognized as Intellectual Property for the organization on September four, 2016, the day the Mother was canonized.”“The Missionaries of Charity does not believe in publicity and as such it was not publicized,” he said, while stressing that “we are witnessing unscrupulous and unfair usage of the design across the globe” and so are trying ...
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- Wildfires driving people from their homes in California and throughout the west have had help from an unlikely source: the rain. Major winter downpours that pulled the state out of years of drought also brought a layer of grass that early-summer fires are greedily feeding on....
HONOLULU (AP) -- An active duty U.S. soldier was arrested on terrorism charges after authorities say he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and said he wanted to "kill a bunch of people."...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican leaders are hoping to stage a climactic vote on their health care bill next week, though internal rifts over divisive issues like coverage requirements and Medicaid cuts leave the timing and even the measure's fate in question....
