Dublin, Ireland, Aug 9, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Twitter users will have access to special emojis commemorating Pope Francis’ visit to the Ireland later this month, the Irish Daily Mail reported Thursday.
The emoji, which can be accessed by use of the hashtags #popeinireland, #pápainÉirinn, and #festivaloffamilies on Twitter, will feature an image of Pope Francis in front of the Irish flag. Another will feature the pope in front of Ireland’s Knock Shrine.
The emojis were created to mark the pope’s visit to the island on August 25-26, when he will attend the the World Meeting of Families.
Similar emojis were created during Pope Francis’ visit to the United States in 2015. Twitter has also launched customs images for events such as the World Cup, the Eurovision Song Contest, and the Olympics.
Twitter will also curate a list of recommended accounts to follow during the World Meeting of Families and the papal visit.
Officials from the World Meeting of Families told the Irish Daily Mail they were “very happy” about Twitter creating the emoji, and that it was “exciting.”
“Social media didn’t exist when Pope John Paul visited, so this is a new era in technology for such trips.”
Benedict XVI was the first pope to have his own presence on Twitter. He joined the social media platform in December 2012, about three months before he stepped down from the papacy. His handle, @pontifex, was passed on to Pope Francis after he was elected.
Pope Francis has since been an active Twitter user, using the social network to weigh in on world events, and offering prayers and guidance to the Church. The pope now maintains a Twitter account in nine languages – Latin, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Arabic, French, and Polish.
Pope Francis will be in Ireland for about a day and a half, and will celebrate Mass at Dublin’s Phoenix Park on August 26. This is the first papal visit to the country since Pope St. John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979. Twitter and Facebook would not exist until several decades after that visit.
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Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna, Italy, in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 5, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Rome, Italy, Nov 25, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).
No, it does not seem as if Pope Francis is going to resign. Indeed, his dynamism and desire to do things, working to bring the Church closer to the people, should be appreciated.
That is how Cardinal Matteo Zuppi responded when asked if the Pope Francis era was about to come to an end.
The questions, however, were legitimate because they were asked at the launch of a book explicitly addressing the papacy’s future.
Zuppi was on a panel for the Nov. 18 presentation of the book “Cosa Resta del Papato? Il futuro della Chiesa dopo Bergoglio” (“What Remains of the Papacy? The future of the Church after Bergoglio”), by the Italian Vaticanist Francesco Antonio Grana.
The book examines what the institution of the papacy is and what it can become after the resignation of Benedict XVI and the pontificate of Pope Francis.
It reconstructs the last part of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, revealing that among the few people aware of the forthcoming resignation was Italy’s then president, Giorgio Napolitano. The book also offers a glimpse of what the next conclave might look like.
Returning from Slovakia in September, Pope Francis had complained about the prelates who were allegedly already seeking to identify his successor. For this reason, the presence of a cardinal at the launch of a book that also looks at the papal succession risked being viewed as part of a “hidden electoral campaign.”
This is especially the case as Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna, northern Italy, is seen by many as one of the possible papabili in a future conclave.
A leading figure in the Community of Sant’Egidio, and known internationally also for his role as a peace mediator in Mozambique, Zuppi has nevertheless always maintained a low-key and ascetic profile. This approach made him a beloved parish priest, first at the Rome church of Santa Maria in Trastevere and then in a parish on the city’s outskirts.
His hierarchical ascent began with his appointment as an auxiliary bishop of Rome in 2012. He was then called by Pope Francis to be archbishop of Bologna, a major Italian see, in 2015, receiving the cardinal’s red hat in 2019.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi receives the red hat on Oct. 5, 2019. Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
Zuppi’s presence at the book launch was all the more striking because he is a cardinal loved by Pope Francis, who gives little indication of wanting to detach himself from the legacy of the reigning pope and always defends his pastoral activities. (The one exception might be his decision not to clamp down severely on the Traditional Latin Mass in his archdiocese following the motu proprioTraditionis custodes.)
The 66-year-old cardinal’s words at the book launch were cautious. He began by reflecting on the book’s title. He then focused on the Statio Orbis of March 27, 2020: the solitary prayer in St. Peter’s Square in which Pope Francis asked for an end to the pandemic. Zuppi said that on that occasion, “for the first time, Ecclesialese — the language spoken among us priests — became the common language.”
Speaking of the crisis in the Church, Zuppi said that “we can spend a lifetime arguing among ourselves, fueling an internal conflict. But the point is that it is a crisis, generative of something new.”
He stressed that John XXIII was considered “a simpleton, who seemed to impoverish the greatness of the Church,” and that Benedict XVI “defined himself as a humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard.”
In short, Francis is not, according to Zuppi, a pope who is diminishing the institution’s importance. Rather, he is giving it a new impetus. So much so, that there is “anything but an air of resignation,” Zuppi said. “In the many decisions he has made, and in the processes he has initiated, there is a great awareness and sense of the future.”
He added: “Pope Francis tells us that there is so much to do now, and he helps us not to have a renunciatory attitude, as a retreating minority. His significant reform is pastoral and missionary conversion.”
“He allows us to place ourselves in an evangelical, straightforward way, close to the people, and shows us some priorities for a Church that speaks to the heart. He helps us to be more Church, in a world that makes identity fade.”
There was also talk of the Zan bill, a proposed anti-homophobia law discussed in the Italian Senate. The Holy See presented a formal diplomatic note to the Italian state, highlighting that the bill violated the Concordat between the Holy See and Italy as part of the freedom of education.
It was not an opinion of the Holy See, but rather a diplomatic initiative to avoid the violation of a treaty. One of the panelists, Peter Gomez, director of IlFattoquotidiano.it, suggested erroneously that the Holy See expresses an opinion and the secular state is free to make its own decisions. But this was not the focus of the discussion.
Zuppi has repeatedly refused to address the controversy publicly. Many have interpreted this as a tactical move. The general assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference is currently discussing who should be its next president. Zuppi is one of the leading candidates to succeed Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti of Perugia-Città della Pieve.
Then there is the question of the next conclave that continues to hang over Zuppi. It was the author of the book himself, Francesco Grana, who sought to damp down any speculation. He explained that, despite its arresting title, the book was not presenting a manifesto.
He referred to a book recently published by Andrea Riccardi, founder of the community with which Zuppi is closely associated.
“Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, wrote the book ‘The Church burns.’ And if the Church burns, how can we not ask ourselves about the papacy of the future?” he asked.
Paris, France, Nov 3, 2018 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The International Astronomical Union has voted in favor of a recommendation to rename the Hubble law the Hubble-Lemaître law, to acknowledge the contributions of the Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître to the scientific theory of the expansion of the universe.
“To honour the intellectual integrity and the supremely significant discovery by Georges Lemaître, the IAU is pleased to recommend that the expansion of the Universe be referred to as the Hubble–Lemaître law,” the association stated Oct. 29.
Fr. Georges Lemaître, who died in 1966, was a physicist and mathematician who is widely credited with developing the big bang theory to explain the physical origin of the universe.
Hubble’s law describes how objects in the expanding universe move away from each other with a velocity proportional to their distance apart.
A resolution to suggest the renaming of the law was presented and discussed at the IAU’s 30th General Assembly, held in Vienna in August.
“This resolution was proposed in order to pay tribute to both Lemaître and Hubble for their fundamental contributions to the development of modern cosmology,” the IAU noted.
Among the resolution’s desires was “to honour the intellectual integrity of Georges Lemaître that made him value more the progress of science rather than his own visibility.”
The IAU is an international organization of professional astronomers, and is the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies.
More than 11,000 members were able to vote on the resolution. 4,060 members voted, with 78 percent approving the resolution, 20 percent rejecting, and two percent abstaining.
All the members, which include more than 10,000 individuals, were invited to vote electronically by Oct. 26. The IAU reported that 4060 members cast their vote, with 78 percent in favor and 20 percent against the name change.
Lemaître published a paper in 1927 discussing the rate of the expansion of the universe, but “the limited popularity of the Journal in which Lemaître’s paper appeared and the language used made his remarkable discovery largely unperceived by the astronomical community,” according to the resolution.
The resolution also noted that Lemaître, an IAU member since 1925, exchanged views about redshift with Hubble at the 3rd IAU General Assembly at Leiden in 1928.
Among other honors, the priest received the Francqui Price in 1934 from King Leopold III of Belgium, according to the Francqui Foundation. Father Lemaître had also been a past president of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences.
Glasgow, Scotland, Sep 4, 2018 / 05:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Glasgow has welcomed the city council’s decision Monday to reroute a Protestant march which was to have passed by a Catholic parish where a priest was allegedly assaulted when a similar march passed by in July.
“We are grateful that common sense has prevailed,” a spokesman for the archdiocese said Sept. 3.
“The re-routing of the march will bring relief to the people of St Alphonsus parish and the surrounding area, who viewed with anxiety and fear the prospect of another march past the church so soon after the disgraceful scenes earlier this summer.”
The Glaswegian public processions committee imposed an alternate route on a proposed march by the Rising Star of Bridgeton Royal Black Preceptory No. 672.
The preceptory is a Protestant, loyalist fraternal order separate from, but closely linked to, the Orange Order.
Orange marches are organized by the Orange Order, largely in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to commemorate the defeat of James II by William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. James had been deposed as king of England, Ireland, and Scotland in a 1688 revolution by the Parliament of England after he had expanded toleration of Catholics and Protestant nonconformists in the officially Protestant kingdoms.
A spokeswoman of the Glasgow City Council said the public processions committee “heard evidence from Police Scotland that disorder was likely should the march take place on the original route – requiring around 20 times the number of officers that would otherwise attend.”
John McBride, a Police Scotland Superintendent, told the city council that “this parade causes a serious concern for the police in terms of public order and disruption to the life of the community … because it can be reasonably expected that there will be a significant protest to the parade should it occur.”
“It is my view that the resources which would be required to police the parade would be disproportionate to the numbers involved in the parade,” McBride added.
The Orange walk is expected to include about 60 marchers.
The Royal Black Preceptory is considering appealing the council’s decision.
Opposition to Orange walks have increased since a July 7 incident.
Canon Tom White, 43, was greeting parishioners after Mass that day when an Orange march approached St. Alphonsus parish.
According to the Archdiocese of Glasgow, Canon White was spat at, verbally abused, and lunged at.
A 24-year-old man was later arrested and charged in connection with the alleged assault.
The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland has denied any involvement in the assault on the priest.
Some subsequent Glaswegian Orange walks were cancelled after outcry over the attack on Canon White.
Police Scotland Superindendent Stephen Hazlett told the city council that “this is an area that needs to heal itself. It might take several years to de escalate back to where we were before July 7. We need to give the community time to reconcile themselves and return to normality. The feeling I get is that the time at this present moment is not right. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
A petition at change.org posted after the July 7 attack calling on Glasgow City Council to end the Orange walks has gained more than 83,000 signatures.
James McLean, spokesman for the Rising Star of Bridgeton Royal Black Preceptory said, “We feel we are being marginalised and demonised and that Glasgow City Council are acting clearly at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Scotland has experienced significant sectarian division since the Scottish Reformation of the 16th century, which led to the formation of the Church of Scotland, an ecclesial community in the Calvinist and Presbyterian tradition which is the country’s largest religious community.
Sectarianism and crimes motivated by anti-Catholicism have been on the rise in Scotland in recent years.
An April poll of Catholics in Scotland found that 20 percent reported personally experiencing abuse of prejudice toward their faith; and a government report on religiously-motivated crime in 2016 and 2017 found a concentration of incidents in Glasgow.
More dumbed down Roman Catholicism.