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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Los Angeles reached an agreement Monday with international Olympic leaders that will open the way for the city to host the 2028 Summer Games, while ceding the 2024 Games to rival Paris, officials announced Monday....
BERATZHAUSEN, Germany (AP) -- The subject line read: "Announcing a personal change."...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Anthony Scaramucci is out as White House communications director after just 11 days on the job - and just hours after former Gen. John Kelly took over as President Donald Trump's new chief of staff....
Sacredness of human lifeA Vatican official has told a major Philippine Catholic conference that promoting and defending the dignity of human life cannot be separated from the new evangelization. Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelization, said the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision of society. “For us, life is important because life for us is a gift from the Lord. So we should defend and promote life,” he said.He was addressing a press briefing during the 4th Philippine Congress on New Evangelization at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila on Saturday. “Of One Heart and Soul” was the theme of the July 28-30 congress, that came during the 2017 Year of the Parish as Communion of Communities of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).Arch. Fisichella was responding to a question on how new evangeliz...
Sacredness of human life
A Vatican official has told a major Philippine Catholic conference that promoting and defending the dignity of human life cannot be separated from the new evangelization. Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelization, said the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision of society. “For us, life is important because life for us is a gift from the Lord. So we should defend and promote life,” he said.
He was addressing a press briefing during the 4th Philippine Congress on New Evangelization at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila on Saturday. “Of One Heart and Soul” was the theme of the July 28-30 congress, that came during the 2017 Year of the Parish as Communion of Communities of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Arch. Fisichella was responding to a question on how new evangelization is relevant to a society amid drug-related killings, a strong push for artificial contraception, among others. Catholic teaching, he said, also calls on the faithful to work towards the protection of the right to life by finding effective and peaceful means to do so.
Stress on ethics
The prelate noted that the world today faces an “unreasonable movement” in the business sector that lacks ethics. Morality, Arch. Fisichella pointed out, comes from a religious perspective while ethics from a reasonable understanding. He urged for stressing on reasoning and ethics, saying “reason can reach action.”
Evangelizing cultures and societies
The 4th Philippine Congress on New Evangelization brought together more than 7,000 lay people people, clergy, religious men and women, and the youth not just from the Philippines but also from other countries. The Congress seeks to introduce new methods to evangelize cultures and societies effectively. The various session of the congress explored different themes of new evangelization such as the new media, new movements, the environment, interreligious dialogue, and the youth-oriented approaches. It also dealt with families, schools, catechists, parishes, and social justice. (Source: CBCPNews)
IMAGE: CNS photo/Marcel van Dorst - MaRicMedia, EPABy Cindy WoodenVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Human trafficking is "brutal,savage and criminal," Pope Francis said, but often it seems like peoplesee it as a sad, but normal fact of life."I want to call everyone to make a commitment to seeingthat this perverse plague, a modern form of slavery, is effectivelycountered," the pope said July30, the U.N.'s WorldDay Against Trafficking in Persons.After reciting the Angelus with thousands of people gatheredin St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis asked them to join him in praying a"Hail Mary" so that Jesus' mother would "support the victims oftrafficking and convert the hearts of traffickers."In his main Angelus address, Pope Francis focused on theparables from the day's Gospel reading: the treasure hidden in the field andthe pearl of great price.Both parables involve "searching and sacrifice,"the pope said. Neither the person who found the treasure in the field nor themerchant who found the pearl woul...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Marcel van Dorst - MaRicMedia, EPA
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Human trafficking is "brutal, savage and criminal," Pope Francis said, but often it seems like people see it as a sad, but normal fact of life.
"I want to call everyone to make a commitment to seeing that this perverse plague, a modern form of slavery, is effectively countered," the pope said July 30, the U.N.'s World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.
After reciting the Angelus with thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis asked them to join him in praying a "Hail Mary" so that Jesus' mother would "support the victims of trafficking and convert the hearts of traffickers."
In his main Angelus address, Pope Francis focused on the parables from the day's Gospel reading: the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price.
Both parables involve "searching and sacrifice," the pope said. Neither the person who found the treasure in the field nor the merchant who found the pearl would have made their discoveries if they were not looking for something, and both of them sell all they have to purchase their treasure.
The point of the parables, he said, is that "the kingdom of God is offered to all -- it is a gift, a grace -- but it is not given on a silver platter. It requires dynamism; it involves seeking, walking, getting busy."
Jesus is the hidden treasure, the pope said, and once people discover him they are called to put following him before all else.
"It's not a matter of despising all else, but of subordinating it to Jesus, giving him first place," the pope said. "A disciple of Christ is not one who is deprived of something essential, but one who has found much more, has found the full joy that only the Lord can give."
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Islamic State group targeted the Iraqi Embassy in Kabul on Monday, with a suicide bomber blowing himself up outside the gates, followed by three gunmen who stormed into the building. The assault set off a four-hour firefight that ended only after Afghan security forces said they had killed all the attackers....
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- An official crucial to running Kenya's presidential election next week has been found tortured and killed, the electoral commission chairman said Monday, as concerns grew that the East African nation's vote again would face dangerous unrest....
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -- U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday strongly pledged America's commitment to protecting NATO allies against attacks, including the Baltic states, which have anxiously watched a growing Russian military presence in the region....
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's socialist government claimed a popular mandate to dramatically recast the country's political system even as the United States pledged potentially devastating oil sanctions on Monday and condemnations of the process poured in from governments around the world and the opposition at home....
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Oscar-nominated actor and celebrated author whose plays chronicled the explosive fault lines of family and masculinity in the American West, has died. He was 73....
