7 Things to Know About the Dobbs Abortion Case Now Before the Supreme Court
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As attacks on society’s most vulnerable proliferate, Christmas lets us glimpse the value and meaning of every human life
The post Celebrating the total victory of life even as we struggle appeared first on Catholic Herald.
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Cardinal Pietro Parolin speaks in a Vatican News interview published Nov. 30, 2021. / Screenshot from Vatican News – Italiano YouTube channel.
Vatican City, Nov 30, 2021 / 06:22 am (CNA).
The Vatican’s Secretary of State on Tuesday criticized a…
Posted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Brideshead Revisited, Christmas, Column, December 2021, Magazine, News |
Why we should always believe in the mystery of Christmas
The post The joy of unexpected things appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MoreCoronavirus has made us all more aware of our mortality – and that’s a good thing
The post Contemplating death at Christmas appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | December 2021, Features, Magazine, News |
As a model for the modern father, we should cherish Saint Joseph’s presence in society. By Piers Paul Read
The post The father we need appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Catholic News Service, Catholic University of America, Church in the US, Faith and Science, News |
Bradley Gregory, associate professor of biblical studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, said today “most scientists see that science can inform faith and faith can inform science.”
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Archdiocese of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Catholic News Service, Church in the US, News |
Exactly one year after he was made a cardinal by Pope Francis, Wilton Gregory was again presiding at Mass — at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown Washington for the first Sunday of Advent Nov. 28.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Catholic News Service, Catholic University of America, Church in the US, George Floyd, News, Racism, religious art |
The president of The Catholic University of America said the institution’s law school has replaced an icon of Mary holding Jesus that was stolen after some complained the image of Christ resembled George Floyd.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Associated Press, Church in Europe, euthanasia, News, Physician-assisted suicide, Portugal |
Portugal’s president has refused to sign for the second time a parliament-sanctioned bill allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Archbishop William E. Lori, Biden Administration, Catholic News Service, Church in the US, Conscience Protection, News, Religious exemptions, U.S. Congress |
U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., has urged Congress to pass the Conscience Protection Act.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Associated Press, Church in Europe, Cyprus, Greece, lead, Lesbos, migrants and refugees, News, Papal Trips, Pope Francis, Pope in Greece & Cyprus |
When Pope Francis visited the Greek island of Lesbos in 2016, he was so moved by the stories he heard from families fleeing war in Iraq and Syria that he wept and brought a dozen refugees home with him.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Catholic Church, Catholic News Service, Church in Africa, Ethiopia, News, tigray |
ishop Tesfaselassie Medhin of Adigrat called for an immediate end to aerial bombardment in Tigray, the Ethiopian region where a deadly conflict has unfolded since last November.
Read MoreVerona, Italy, Nov 30, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Commenting on protests against Italy’s vaccine rules, the Vatican’s Secretary of State said that the Church’s message is clear that vaccination is an “act of love.”
In an interview with Vatican News published on Nov. 28, Cardinal Pietro Parolin was asked about “No Vax” and “No Pass” demonstrations in cities across Italy.
“No Vax” refers to demonstrators who object to COVID-19 vaccines, while “No Pass” protesters focus on the Italian government’s decision in October to require all workers to possess a Green Pass proving that the holder has been vaccinated, tested negative every 48 hours, or recently recovered from COVID-19.
Parolin was asked specifically to comment on the actions of a priest, Father Floriano Pellegrini, who blessed the crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators before a “No Vax” march in Verona on Nov. 27.
“It seems to me that the message is clear and well known, there is no need to repeat it, it is what the Holy Father has always said,” said Parolin, who was attending an event promoting the Church’s social doctrine in the northern Italian city where the march occurred.
“I refer to his statements, his admonitions, to experience the reality and the issue of the vaccine with a sense of responsibility.”
He went on: “I believe this is what it is: a responsible freedom. Because many call for freedom, but freedom without responsibility is empty, indeed it becomes slavery.”
“Therefore, responsibility towards oneself, because we see how the No Vax [people] are affected by the disease, and responsibility, above all, towards others, which then the pope summed up with this beautiful expression that I like so much but that, in the end, goes in this sense, of an act of love.”
Italy was one of the countries worst hit by the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The nation of almost 60 million people has recorded more than 5 million COVID cases and 133,000 related deaths as of Nov. 30, according to the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Almost 73% of the population is vaccinated.
The Italian authorities have announced plans to introduce a “super Green Pass,” entering into force on Dec. 6. The move will bar unvaccinated people from dining indoors at restaurants, going to the gym, visiting museums and other tourist sites, or attending weddings or other public ceremonies until at least Jan. 15.
The new rules will remove the possibility for people to offer proof of a negative test within the past 48 hours to enter the venues, meaning that only those who have been vaccinated or recently recovered from COVID-19 will be allowed access.
Father Pellegrini, a priest from Coi, a hamlet in the northern Italian province of Belluno, has gained media attention for his opposition to the Green Pass.
Pellegrini has been supporting a dock workers’ strike in the port city of Trieste in protest against the government’s COVID rules.
The priest of the Diocese of Belluno-Feltre wrote an open letter to the Italian bishops, questioning their willingness to protect religious freedom from state power.
“For a year and a half now, the vast majority of the Italian Catholic faithful have been disconcerted and scandalized by your incomprehensible silence, by your lack of ability to indicate the path of faith,” Pellegrini wrote in September.
“You seem, for all intents and purposes, salt that has lost its flavor and, as Christ says, ‘is good only to be thrown away and trampled on by men.’ You have yielded to almost everything that the Italian government has asked of you and continues to suggest and you have transformed the Church from a divine reality into a society manipulated by the government.”
The priest, who is a champion to the Trieste dockers, has criticized Pope Francis for promoting vaccination and regards Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the controversial former apostolic nuncio to the United States who is also an outspoken critic of vaccine mandates, as a “hero.”
Italian media reported that the country’s Catholic bishops took aim at No Vax protesters in their message for Italy’s Day for Life, issued on Nov. 17.
They praised Italians’ response to the pandemic, but said that “there were also manifestations of selfishness, indifference, and irresponsibility, often characterized by a misunderstood affirmation of freedom and a distorted conception of rights.”
“Very often, these were understandably frightened and confused people who were essentially also victims of the pandemic,” they wrote.
“In other cases, however, these behaviors and speeches expressed a vision of the human person and social relations that was far removed from the Gospel and the spirit of the [Italian] constitution.”
The Vatican’s doctrinal office said in December 2020 that it is “morally acceptable” to receive COVID-19 vaccines produced using cell lines from aborted fetuses when no alternative is available.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also said that vaccination “must be voluntary,” while noting that those who refuse to receive vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses for reasons of conscience “must do their utmost to avoid … becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent.”
Pope Francis called vaccinations an “act of love” in a public service announcement issued in collaboration with the Ad Council in August.
He said: “Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love. I pray to God that each one of us can make his or her own small gesture of love, no matter how small, love is always grand.”
The pope was asked about the sharp differences among Christians over vaccines during an in-flight press conference as he returned from Slovakia to Rome in September.
He said that he did not know how to explain the opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Some say it comes from the diversity of where the vaccines come from, which are not sufficiently tested and they are afraid. We must clarify and speak with serenity about this,” he said.
“In the Vatican, everyone is vaccinated except a small group which they are studying how to help.”
The Pontifical Swiss Guard, charged with protecting the pope, has required all 135 of its guards to get a COVID-19 vaccine. It emerged in October that three Swiss Guards had quit after refusing to comply with the requirement.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Nov 30, 2021 | Archeology, Church in the Middle East, Holy Land, Israel, Jewish community, lead, New Testament, News |
Israeli archeologists have found the remains of a building dating back to the time of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish legislative body that existed in the Holy Land New Testament times.
Read MoreIn a front-page op-ed in the Vatican newspaper’s November 29 edition, Father Giulio Albanese, a missionary and journalist, linked the spread of the Omicron variant in Africa to the low vaccination rate there. 6.7% of Africa’s 1.3 billion pe…
Read MoreThe Prelate of Opus Dei and his auxiliary vicar met with Pope Francis for 30 minutes on November 29. The meeting came weeks after 42 Argentine and Paraguayan women, claiming labor exploitation, lodged a complaint with the Vatican.
Opus Dei, which w…
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