Albano Laziale, Italy, Nov 1, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will visit on Thursday an Italian cemetery for American personnel killed in World War II, where he will say Mass for All Souls’ Day.
Cemetery Superintendent Melanie Resto said that for Francis to choose to commemorate the fallen soldiers at the cemetery is “the biggest honor I can imagine.”
“We didn’t expect the Pope, but it is a great honor,” she added.
Pope Francis “will be here to pray for the service members, not only the service members here, but all those who have died in wars.”
According to Resto, the cemetery is visited every week by family members of the soldiers whose bodies are buried there.
It is open every day, except Christmas and New Years Day. Staff are available to answer questions and to escort relatives to grave sites.
Rasto said many of the cemetery staff have been employeed at the memorial for more than 25 years; there are already three employees whose fathers worked on the grounds before them. They feel that “it’s an honor to work here,” she said, “and we’re proud to have them.”
The Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, dedicated in 1956, covers 77 acres, and 7,860 servicemen are buried there. In a chapel on the grounds are the names of 3,095 who were missing in action.
Most of those who are buried in the Nettuno cemetery died in the liberation of Sicily, the landings at Salerno and Anzio, and in air and naval support of these operations in 1943 and 1944.
In recent tradition, the Popes have said an All Souls’ Day Mass at Rome’s Campo Verano cemetery, founded in the 19th century.
Pope Francis did this the first three years of his pontificate, and in 2016 said an All Souls’ Day Mass at Rome’s Prima Porta Cemetery.
Material from EWTN News Nightly was used in this report.
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Image of Our Lady of Fatima in Lisbon’s cathedral. / Kate Veik/CNA
Fatima, Portugal, May 13, 2022 / 03:00 am (CNA).
While men in the trenches of World War I faced chemical gasses and industrialized weaponry that wrought unprecedented human carnage, an Angel of Peace appeared with a message.
“Do not be afraid. I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me: My God I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You,” the angel told three children in rural Portugal in that first of several supernatural encounters that would take place over the course of 1916 and 1917.
When the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco on May 13, 1917, she requested, “Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”
The Great War did come to an end in 1918, but the story and secrets of Fatima continued to unfold after the first world war until the fall of Communism in 1989. The Virgin Mary entered into the bloodiest century in human history with a message of peace and prayer.
In many ways the events at Fatima encapsulate the history of the 20th century, and in the long history of the Church, they will be remembered for their deep connections to the most important milestones of the last century.
Today a piece of the Berlin Wall stands in the Fatima square as a permanent monument to the apparition’s connection to 1989. The Bolsheviks’ October Revolution took place the same year as Fatima’s “Miracle of the Sun,” and the Virgin Mary specifically requested that the pope consecrate Russia to Mary, in union with the bishops of the world.
In Fatima’s museum, there is a rosary made from pieces of the Berlin Wall, a gift made by a Portuguese emigrant on May 13, 1991. There is also the ring that Pope John Paul II donated to Our Lady of Fatima in gratitude for her protection during the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981, a date that coincided with the anniversary of the Fatima apparitions. The ring had a special meaning to the pope; Cardinal Stephen Wszynski had given it to him at the beginning of his papacy in 1978. The pope also offered the bullet from the assassination attempt, which fit perfectly into Our Lady of Fatima’s crown.
World War II was also predicted by Our Lady of Fatima.
“God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI,” recorded Lucia in her third memoir.
“Fatima is undoubtedly the most prophetic of modern apparitions. The first and second parts of the ‘secret’ . . . refer especially to the frightening vision of hell, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism,” wrote the former Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith Tarcisio Bertone.
Lucia dos Santos, the principal Fatima visionary died in 2005. Her niece, Maria dos Anjos, is still living across the street from Lucia’s little house in Fatima. Now 98 years old, Anjos’ life has spanned all but three years of Fatima’s modern history.
“When she visited us Lucia always said ‘Pray the rosary every day. That is what Our Lady asked,” Anjos told CNA.
Anjos also told CNA how much the city of Fatima has changed in her lifetime. Life across Europe has changed completely since 1917, she said. For one thing, children no longer work as shepherds.
Saints Jacinta and Francisco Marto did not travel far within their short lifetimes. They lived simple, austere, and faithful lives. Both died of the Spanish flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people in the early 20th century.
In perhaps the most poignant symbol of a changing world, what was once the pasture of poor shepherds is now an international pilgrimage destination where people from South Korea, India, Australia, and all over the world come together seeking the sacred.
This article was originally published on CNA on July 18, 2018. Maria dos Anjos is now 102 years old.
The 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Rome Newsroom, Jun 16, 2022 / 08:30 am (CNA).
The Vatican is gearing up for the World Meeting of Families 2022, which will draw around 2,000 Catholic families to the It… […]
Daniel O’Connell, lithograph attributed to R. Evan Sly (EP OCON-DA (17) II) from the National Library of Ireland. / Credit: National Library of Ireland
Dublin, Ireland, Aug 9, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Daniel O’Connell, known as “The Liberator,” was a pivotal figure in 19th-century Ireland, championing the cause of Catholic emancipation.
Opposed to violence, he advocated for Catholic rights through peaceful means, emphasizing dialogue and legal reform, and organizing mass demonstrations to rally public support and raise awareness about the injustices faced by Catholics.
“Daniel O’Connell’s achievement in forcing the British government to concede Catholic emancipation in 1829 was immense,” Bishop Niall Coll of Ossory told CNA. “The penal laws, a series of oppressive statutes enacted in the 17th and early 18th centuries that targeted the Catholic majority in Ireland, restricting their rights to own land, hold public office, and practice their religion were set aside.”
O’Connell’s efforts culminated in the passage of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament and hold public office and significantly transformed Irish politics.
O’Connell was born in 1775 in Caherciveen in rural Kerry. His parents had managed to maintain their land despite the penal laws, thanks to their remoteness, business sense, and help from Protestant neighbors. O’Connell’s earliest years, until he was 4, were spent with an Irish-speaking family that instilled in him an inherent understanding of Irish peasant life.
After studying in France at the English Colleges in St. Omer and Douai during the French Revolution, he returned to Ireland, completed his studies, and was called to the bar. In 1802, then a successful barrister, he married a distant cousin, Mary O’Connell, and they had 12 children — seven of whom survived to adulthood. In 1823 he founded the Catholic Association with the express aim of securing emancipation.
O’Connell’s early experiences were critical to his political and social formation, according to Jesuit historian Father Fergus O’Donoghue, who told CNA that O’Connell’s exposure to European influences undoubtedly shaped his character, his opposition to violence, and his deep-seated opposition to tyranny.
“He witnessed the French Revolution, which appalled him and set his heart completely against violence,” O’Donoghue told CNA. “What Daniel O’Connell really did was produce a political sense in Ireland that was never previously generated. Irish Catholics lived in appalling poverty and were neglected. He energized them. He brought Church and laity together into politics and constitutionalism.”
Bishop Fintan Monahan at Daniel O’Connell’s memorial in Rome. Credit: Bishop Fintan Monahan
O’Donoghue explained how O’Connell’s arousal of a nationwide Irish Catholic consciousness impacted politics and society but also had far-reaching consequences beyond Irish shores.
“When Irish Catholics emigrated, which of course many were forced to do, many of them were already politically aware. That’s why Irish people got so rapidly into American politics and into Australian politics later.”
“He was part of the enormous revival of Irish Catholicism in the 19th century. Before the Act of Union, various relief acts had been passed so Catholics officially could become things like judges or sheriffs, but none really were appointed in numbers. He was blistering in highlighting the difference between the law and reality. He was liberal, which amazed people; he believed strongly in parliamentary democracy. Many Catholics were monarchists and tending to be absolutists and he was having none of that. Under no circumstances would he approve of violence.”
Coll told CNA how O’Connell’s personal reputation extended his influence worldwide: “The fact that he could remain a devoted and practicing Catholic — while supporting the separation of church and state, the ending of Anglican privileges and discrimination based on religious affiliation, and the extension of individual liberties, including those in the sphere of politics — made him a hero and inspiration to Catholic liberals in many European countries.”
Coll continued: “The fact that his political movement was based upon popular support and the mobilization of the mass of the people, while yet being nonviolent and orderly, gave proof that political agitation did not necessarily have to be anticlerical or bloody. The attention his movement and opinions received in the continental European press was remarkable, as were the number and distinction of European writers and political figures who visited Ireland with the express purpose of securing an audience with O’Connell.”
Coll agreed firmly with historians who believe no other Irish political figure of the 19th or early 20th century enjoyed such an international reputation as did O’Connell throughout his later public career.
Among those whom O’Connell also influenced were Eamon de Valera, president of Ireland; Frederick Douglass, social reformer and slavery abolitionist in the United States; and Gen. Charles de Gaulle. Indeed, de Gaulle, when on an extended visit to Ireland, insisted on visiting Derrynane House in Kerry, the home of Daniel O’Connell.
When asked how he knew about O’Connell, de Gaulle replied: “My grandmother wrote a book about O’Connell.” The grandmother in question was Joséphine de Gaulle (née Maillot), a descendant of the McCartans of County Down and his paternal grandmother, who wrote “Daniel O’Connell, Le Libérateur de l’Irlande” in 1887. De Gaulle’s father, Henri, was also a historian interested in O’Connell.
In The Tablet,Dermot McCarthy, former secretary to the Office of the Irish Prime Minister, wrote that O’Connell’s primary legacy was “lifting a demoralized and impoverished Catholic people off their knees to recognize their inherent dignity and realize their capacity to be protagonists of their own destiny.”
Minister for Culture, Communications, and Sport Patrick O’Donovan said last month: “Daniel O’Connell was one of the most important figures in Irish political history, not just for what he achieved, but for how he achieved it. He believed in peaceful reform, in democracy, and in civil rights; ideas and concepts to which we should still aspire today.”
However, in its official communiques praising O’Connell, the Irish government minister failed to mention the word “Catholic” even once.
For O’Donoghue, the absence of any Catholic context is unsurprising given the prevailing secular attitudes among many of the country’s politicians.
Bishop Fintan Monahan, bishop of Killaloe, visited O’Connell’s grave in Rome during the Jubilee for Youth, telling CNA: “In 1847, the Great Famine was at its most severe and O’Connell’s final speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for help for its victims. Due to his physical weakness, this final speech was barely audible.”
O’Connell died in Genoa on May 15, 1847, on the 17th anniversary of the first time he presented himself at the House of Commons.
It was hoped that his heart might be interred in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. However, Pope Pius IX feared offending the British government on whose goodwill Catholic missionaries depended in many parts of the world. A requiem Mass was offered for O’Connell in the Roman baroque basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle. The attendance included the future cardinal, now canonized saint, John Henry Newman.
O’Connell had said he wished to bequeath “his soul to God, his body to Ireland, and his heart to Rome.”
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