Sing Sing inmates participate in gift exchange with Pope Francis
Catholic News Agency
New York City, N.Y. - Inside the chapel of Our Lady of Hope at Sing Sing Prison, inmates sitting in the penitentiary’s chapel pews were stunned by what they had received from Pope Francis.
Denis Martinez, a convicted felon of eleven years serving time at Sing Sing, sent an original drawing of three crucifixes on Calvary as a gift to Pope Francis.
Other inmates sent messages along with the drawing to the Pope, as a symbol of their respect for him.
Much to their surprise, the inmates at Sing Sing received a gift in return from the Holy Father, who sent Martinez and his fellow prisoners a rosary, blessed holy cards, and a promise to keep them in his prayers.
Well-researched book on heaven
also offers delightful portraits
“Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife” by Lisa Miller. Harper Collins (New York, 2010). 331 pages, $25.99.
Reviewed by PEGGY WEBER
Catholic News Service
When my son was about 7, he asked me the compelling question: “Are there cheese curls in heaven?”
Well, Lisa Miller, the religion editor at Newsweek magazine, does not answer that particular question. However, she does present an incredibly well-researched body of work in her book, “Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife.”
She truly provides a broad and comprehensive look at what people and religions believe about life after death.
The author’s notes, bibliography and index are 71 pages long. This certainly should make one aware of the depth of Miller’s research.
However, even though her book has scholarly merit, it also has a delightful human touch. Miller inserts delightful portraits of the people she interviews amid a lot of information.
Indian priest finds warm (and cold) welcome in southwest Kansas
By David Myers
Southwest Kansas Register
Not long after a baby boy was born in the town of Uppaladadia in the southern tip of India -- a stone’s throw from the Bay of Bengal Sea – the infant’s parents took him to a priest.
The baby had contracted typhoid fever and despite the doctor’s efforts, was at the point of death; the priest blessed the baby, baptized him, and told his parents, “This boy will one day serve God.”
“With his blessing, I was cured,” said a smiling Father Kola Prakash Rao, MSFS, the newest priest to grace the high plains of Kansas.
Father Kola arrived in the Diocese of Dodge City Dec. 22 and is currently staying in Spearville with Father Rene Labrador. He will be assigned to a parish by Bishop John Brungardt following the orientation program for newly-arrived international missionary priests.
“I went through elementary school and high school, and upon seeing the example of the priests, I impressed upon the Lord that I wanted to be a priest,” Father Kola said.
Cuba, U.S.: how the Holy See was behind the scene for 50 years
Catholic News Agency
Vatican City - The announcement that the US and Cuba will enjoy warmer relations follows more than 50 years of Vatican diplomacy, which was ramped up by St. John Paul II during his 1984 visit to nearby Puerto Rico.
The Church’s commitment for Cuba has a twofold path: on one side, the relations that bishops, especially from the US, had with Cuba, thus ‘de facto’ creating a bridge between two worlds divided by the embargo; and on the other side, the Holy See’s diplomatic effort, backed by St. John Paul II.
Cuba is the only communist nation with which the Holy See never broke off diplomatic relations. The US broke off its ties with the island in 1961, and during the October 1962 missile crisis St. John XXIII wrote to both John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev to avert a war.
And the American ecclesiastical hierarchy had always been in touch with the Cuban bishops: In 1972, the US bishops’ conference backed the 1969 request by Cuban bishops to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and in 1985, American and Cuban bishops conference exchanged a visit.
During the 1980s, the Archdiocese of Boston became one of the most prominent actors in the scene of U.S.-Cuba relations.
Cardinal Bernard Law, then Archbishop of Boston, strongly supported the opportunity of a new diplomatic tie between Cuba and the U.S., and advocated against the embargo.
Building bridges:
Muslims, Jews, Christians
join forces for peace
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The enthusiastic exchange of calling cards and making sure caterers provided kosher and halal food are small yet critical signs of a successful interfaith conference.
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders came together in Rome to share success stories and break bread together at a day-long meeting....
...Leaders from all three monotheistic religions were reaching outward toward one another in an urgent call for increased interfaith cooperation to bring peace and hope to the world.
Road trip!
Young men invited to‘Encounter God’s Call’
at three-day Missouri seminary trip
Young men who are high school juniors, seniors, or college age are invited to an “Encounter With God’s Call,” Nov. 14-16 at Conception Seminary College in Conception, Missouri.
Conception Seminary College offers the weekend retreat as a way for young men to spend time with seminarians, “men your own age who, like you, are seeking God’s will in our lives.”
According to Conception Seminary, “You will be immersed in the daily life of a seminarian. We will share with you our hopes, our joys and our fears.”
The weekend is designed to be educational, enlightening and spiritually invigorating. Participants are making no commitment by attending the retreat, other than the commitment to relax, open their heart to the Lord and enjoy the weekend.
The retreat is free and the Diocese of Dodge City is providing the transportation. The group will leave the Diocese early in the morning of Saturday, Nov. 14 and return the afternoon of Monday the 16th.
Click here to register, or contact Becky Hessman, Coordinator of Vocations, at (620) 227-1530 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
French imams: Muslims must condemn 'barbaric' attack on newspaper
By Andrea Gagliarducci
Vatican City, Jan 7, 2015 / 02:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Two French imams visiting the Vatican have called on Muslims to respond to the deadly attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo by rising up to express their disgust at the criminals who have “hijacked” their religion.
“Muslims are shocked and tired… the silent majority of them feel as if they are taken hostage,” Tareq Oubrou, director of the Mosque of Bordeaux, said Jan. 7.
Muslims need to demonstrate in public squares to “express their disgust” at the attack, he said, adding that the criminal action strikes “Islam and French Muslims.”
Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the Union of the French Mosque, emphasized that he was “frightened and shocked” by news of the attack, since he had just prayed with Pope Francis “for peace and brotherhood capable to consolidate and strengthen the world,” with a special intention for Christians in the Middle East.
Vatican condemns 'horrible attack' on French newspaper
By Kevin J. Jones and Andrea Gagliarducci
Paris, France, Jan 7, 2015 / 12:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Pope Francis has voiced his “strongest condemnation” of the “horrible attack” on a French satirical newspaper that published insulting cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, and he urged opposition to all hatred and violence.
“Whatever may be the motivation, homicidal violence is abominable. It is never justified: the life and dignity of all must be firmly guaranteed and guarded; any instigation to hate refuted; and respect for the other cultivated,” Holy See press office director Father Federico Lombardi said Jan. 7.
He said Pope Francis “joins the prayers of the suffering and wounded, and of the families of the dead.” The Pope also expressed his closeness, spiritual solidarity and support for all those who “continue their constant efforts for peace, justice and law” in order to “heal in their depth the sources and causes of hate.”
The Pope “exhorts everyone to oppose, with every means, the spread of hatred and of every kind of violence, both physical and moral, with destroys human life, violates the dignity of the person, and radically undermines the strong foundation of peaceful coexistence among persons and peoples, notwithstanding differences of nationality, of religion, and of culture,” Fr. Lombardi said.
Are you being ‘called by name?’
Email campaign takes on search for future priests
The Catholic Church is looking for a few good men.
If you think that you, or someone else you know, would make a strong candidate for the priesthood, the Catholic Church is asking you to take a chance and investigate the possibility.
“Called by Name” is an email campaign designed to identify future priests for the Diocese of Dodge City. The campaign, which kicked off in early October, is asking all priests, deacons, sisters, Catholic educators and many others throughout the diocese to submit the names of young men who are high school juniors or older who they think may make good priests. Submit the information by visiting the Called by Name website at calledbyname.info/dodgecity.
Pope Francis: Christ's birth more powerful than history of sin
By Ann Schneible
Vatican City, Dec 24, 2014 / 02:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - The birth of Jesus – a light that shattered the world's darkness on Christmas night – witnesses to God's love for mankind amid a history marked by “violence, wars, hatred and oppression,” Pope Francis said.
“Through the course of history, the light that shatters the darkness reveals to us that God is Father and that his patient fidelity is stronger than darkness and corruption,” he emphasized. “This is the message of Christmas night.”
This theme of Christ's light defeating the darkness of sin on Christmas, rooted in God's patience, closeness, and tenderness towards his creatures, was at the center of Pope Francis' homily during evening Mass on Dec. 24 at the Vatican.
Before the liturgy began in Saint Peter's Basilica, there was the chanting of “Kalenda” – a traditional chant recounting the events leading up to Christ’s birth. After this, the Holy Father unveiled and prayed before a small statue of the Child Jesus which laid in front of the main altar above St. Peter’s tomb. The statue, which itself rested upon a stand holding the Scriptures as a symbol of the Word Made Flesh, was then venerated with flowers by a group of children, one from Syria, representing all corners of the world.
Reflecting on the readings for Christmas night following the chanting of the Gospel, Pope Francis in his homily recalled Isaiah's prophecy of Christ's birth as “the rising of a great light which breaks through the night.” As recounted in the Gospel, the “sign” given to the shepherds by the angels was that of “a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12).
This “sign,” the Pope said, “is the humility of God taken to the extreme; it is the love with which, that night, he assumed our frailty, our suffering, our anxieties, our desires and our limitations.”
In the liturgy of Christmas night, Pope Francis said, the Savior's birth is presented as “the light which pierces and dispels the deepest darkness,” his presence canceling “the sorrow of defeat and the misery of slavery,” and ushering “in joy and happiness.”
In turn, having entered God’s house, we too have “passed through the darkness which envelops the earth, guided by the flame of faith which illuminates our steps, and enlivened by the hope of finding the ‘great light’.”
“By opening our hearts, we also can contemplate the miracle of that child-sun who, arising from on high, illuminates the horizon.”
Pope Francis recalled the “violence, wars, hatred and oppression” which unfolded following Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, recounted in Genesis chapter four.
Notwithstanding this history marked by violence and conflict, “God, who placed a sense of expectation within man made in his image and likeness, was waiting,” and “continued to wait patiently in the face of the corruption of man and peoples.”
“Through the course of history, the light that shatters the darkness reveals to us that God is Father and that his patient fidelity is stronger than darkness and corruption. This is the message of Christmas night.”
The birth of Christ, he said, gives rise to the way in which we reflect on the tenderness of God “who looks upon us with eyes full of love, who accepts our poverty, God who is in love with our smallness.”
“How do we welcome the tenderness of God?” he asked. Rather than merely seeking God, we should ask whether we allow ourselves to be found, and loved, by God.
“Do we have the courage,” the Pope continued, “to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us, or do we prefer impersonal solutions, perhaps effective but devoid of the warmth of the Gospel? How much the world needs tenderness today!
“The Christian response cannot be different from God’s response to our smallness,” he said. Rather, “when we realize that God is in love with our smallness, that he made himself small in order to better encounter us, we cannot help but open our hearts to him.”
In this light, Pope Francis called on the faithful to pray for “the grace of tenderness in the most difficult circumstances of life,” and “of closeness in the face of every need, of meekness in every conflict”.
Turning once again to the reading from Isaiah – “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” – the Holy Father said this light was not seen by the arrogant and proud. Such persons “made laws according to their own personal measures,” and “were closed off to others.”
However, Pope Francis added, the light was seen by those “unassuming,” and “open to receiving the gift of God.”
He concluded his homily by calling on the faithful to pray to the Blessed Mother, asking her to “show us Jesus!”
After the Mass, Pope Francis processed through the basilica carrying the statue of Jesus and placing it in the indoor nativity scene.