Ex-nuncio to France to face trial in Paris on sexual assault charges

Fatima, Portugal, May 12, 2017 / 07:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Tomorrow, on the 100th anniversary of Mary’s first appearance at Fatima, Pope Francis will canonize Jacinta and Francisco Marto, two of the three shepherd children who witnessed the Marian apparitions.

A press conference preceding the Pope’s arrival highlighted the miracle that paved the way for their canonization. The miracle involved a Brazilian boy named Lucas, who was miraculously healed through the intercession of the shepherd children.

Jacinta and Francisco both died before age 10 and will become the youngest non-martyrs to be canonized. Sister Lucia, the third visionary, lived much longer, dying in 2005 at the age of 97. The Church is currently examining documents and collecting testimonies for her beautification cause.

In recounting the story of their son’s healing in the face of almost certain death, João Batista and his wife Lucila Yurie could not hold back tears.

“On March 3, 2013, before 8:00 pm, our son Lucas, who was playing with his little sister Eduarda, fell out of a window from a height of 20 feet. He was five years old,” related the boy’s father.

“His head hit the ground and he sustained a very serious injury, which caused a loss of brain tissue,” Batista said during the press conference at the Fatima Shrine.

Teetering between life and death, “he was given medical care in our city, Juranda, and given the severity of his condition, he was transferred to the hospital in Campo Mourao, Parana.”

“When we got there, Lucas was in a deep coma. His heart stopped twice, and they performed an emergency operation.”

It was at that moment that “we began to pray to Jesus and Our Lady of Fatima, to whom we have a great devotion,” Batista said.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>In 2013, their son Lucas fell 20 ft from window, had brain injury. Prayed for <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Fatima?src=hash”>#Fatima</a> kids intercession. Miracle. <br><br>Today, he's fine. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/EWTN?src=hash”>#EWTN</a> <a href=”https://t.co/zxxrQeUAzf”>pic.twitter.com/zxxrQeUAzf</a></p>&mdash; Alan Holdren (@AlanHoldren) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AlanHoldren/status/862728805336715265″>May 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
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“The next day we called the Carmelite convent of Campo Mouro to ask the sisters to pray for the boy,” he said. But the community was observing a period of silence, and so the message did not get to them.

As the days went by, Lucas became worse, his father recounted. On March 6, the doctors considered transferring him to another hospital, since their facility did not have the necessary care for a boy of his age.

“They told us that the chance of the boy surviving was low, and if he did survive, his recovery would be very slow,” likely dealing with “severe cognitive disabilities or even remaining in a vegetative state.”

On March 7, Batista said, “we called the convent again.” That time, they were able to get their prayer request to the sisters.

“One of them ran to the relics of Blessed Francisco and Jacinta, which were next to the tabernacle, and felt the impulse to pray the following prayer: ‘Shepherds, save this child, who is a child like you’…she also persuaded the other sisters to pray to the little shepherds to intercede for him.”

“And so they did,” Batista said. “In the same way, all of us, the family, began to pray to the little shepherds, and two days later, on March 9, Lucas woke up and began to speak, even asking for his little sister.” On the 11th, he left the ICU and was discharged from the hospital a few days later.

Since that time, Lucas “has been completely well and has no symptoms or after effects,” the child’s father said. “He has the same intelligence (as he did before the accident), the same character, everything is the same.”

“The doctors, some of them non-believers, said that his recovery had no explanation.”

Batista and his wife are grateful to the doctors who cared for their son, and to the postulator of the canonization cause of the little shepherds, “for all the care given throughout this process.”

But they are especially grateful to God. “We thank God for the cure of Lucas and we know with all the faith we have in our hearts, that this miracle was obtained through the intercession of the little shepherds Francisco and Jacinta.”

“We feel a great joy because this is the miracle that leads to their canonization, but especially we feel the blessing of the friendship of these two children who helped our child and who now help our family,” Batista said.

[…]

Cologne, Germany, Feb 19, 2019 / 04:38 pm ().- Noting the challenges facing the Church in Germany, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne told EWTN last week that amid dispute over the Church’s “direction”, the bishops are called to preserve the faith.

“The current situation in Germany is indeed difficult. And there does seem to be a dispute about the overall direction [of the Church], which was certainly also triggered by the abuse scandal. There are now those voices who argue it is time to cast aside everything we have hitherto held onto. To abandon old times. I think that is a very dangerous concept,” Woelki told EWTN.TV’s program director, Martin Rothweiler, Feb. 13.

“We are part of a great Tradition. The Church also stands for truths that transcend time. And it is not our task to now go and invent a new Church by ourselves. The Church is not just leverage that we have been handed to exercise [as we see fit]. Rather, it is our task as bishops to preserve the faith of the Church, as it has come down to us from the apostles, and to say and proclaim it afresh in our times, and also to preserve it for generations to come, and to express it for them in such a way that they too can encounter Christ as their salvation.”

Woelki commented that “one of the fundamental challenges” facing the Church in Germany “is to keep alive the question of God in our society as a whole. More and more people are convinced that they can live their lives rather well without God. Right there is where the Church has a very important task to play in making clear that God does exist, and that God is in fact the very origin of everything. The question of God to me therefore is one of the fundamental challenges we need to tackle.”

Woelki, 62, has been Archbishop of Cologne since 2014. He was ordained a priest of the archdiocese in 1984, and became its auxiliary bishop in 2003. He was Archbishop of Berlin from 2011 until his return to Cologne, during which time he was made a cardinal.

He was among the seven German bishops who wrote last year to the Vatican asking for clarification on the question of Protestant spouses of Catholics receiving Holy Communion, which possibility had been  promoted by the German bishops’ conference.

Woelki told EWTN.TV that Catholics in Germany are deeply concerned by the abuse crisis: “There has been a massive loss of trust both within and outside of the Church. The challenge now is how this trust can be restored.”

Regarding Church reform, Woelki noted that “it must simply be said that the Church has never been renewed by being less, but by being more” than the culture around her. “We must once again realize that as Christians, we must foster something of an alternative culture, which has to align itself solely with the standards of the Gospel and the will of Jesus Christ. And that is not less, but always more.”

This Christian culture, he said, “is not achieved by abolishing celibacy. It is not achieved by now demanding that women be admitted to the ministries. And it is also not achieved by saying that we must have a new sexual morality. No, the Gospel is and continues to be the touchstone. It is the faith of the Church that continues to be the touchstone, just as it was presented to us by John Paul II in his Catechism.”

“The challenge is precisely to witness and proclaim this timeless faith now in such a way that it becomes understandable and comprehensible to the people of today. This is a challenge that we must face up to, rather than retreating from.”

The ground for hope for the Church in Germany “is that Christ exists and remains and continues to be the Lord of the Church and that His Holy Spirit is promised and granted to us,” Woelki reflected.

“I am convinced that He will also lead us through these times. Of course, we must open ourselves to Him so that God’s Spirit can also work within us and guide us. And we mustn’t start playing Holy Spirit ourselves now.”

He said that “as bishops, we are subject to the Word of God and, like all the people and bishops before us, we must give witness to and proclaim this Word of God. In other words, Christ exists, Christ remains, and He is present. He is Lord of the Church. Just as He has led His Church through difficult times in the past, so He will lead us through these present times.”

Woelki’s faith is also “bouyed”, he said, “when I encounter young people who have let themselves be ignited by the faith of the Church. And it is the young people who seek precisely this ‘more’ of the Christian faith, who have a home in the Church, who have a home in the Eucharist, who live though he Eucharist and through adoration, and who live in the knowledge that their lives are touched by Christ.”

“That is something that encourages me, because these young people – as I experience them – live authentically and with conviction. And they simply give me hope in their witness.”

[…]

Foggia, Italy, Sep 19, 2019 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- More than 50 years after the death of Padre Pio, one of the last journalists to interview the saint has reflected on the saint’s hope and suffering.

Renzo Allegri, the author of the biography “Man of Hope,” visited the Italian saint a year before he died in 1968. He said Pio’s suffering was difficult to witness, but the experience emphasized the saint’s silent strength.

“It was hard for me to watch him walking in the sacristy or the corridors of the monastery, bent over, dragging his swollen feet, and holding on to the walls so that he would not fall down,” wrote Allegri.

“His suffering was tremendous, but he bore it without complaining as he continued to give himself to those who needed him. When he would lift his head and look around, his big eyes looked like they were burning, not from pain but from a goodness that he could not contain.”

Allegri said that during his stay at San Giovanni Rotondo in 1967, he was able to speak with Pio twice. He said he witnessed an “extraordinary moral strength that emanated from [Pio’s] whole being.”

Following the saint’s death, Allegri wrote a long newspaper piece on Pio’s life and works. During his research, the journalist was given thousands of unpublished documents regarding the saint’s hardships.

“I discovered something about Padre Pio that few people knew: he had endured incredibly enormous suffering throughout his life, consisting of more persecution, humiliation, accusations, slanders, trials, and condemnations than one can imagine,” he said.

He said many people will focus on Pio’s intense life of penance and characterize him as a dark and medieval. However, he said the saint is better labeled as “a man of hope.”

“Throughout his life, in the midst of the most difficult trials, he always looked to the future with a spirit of optimism, faith, and love,” said Allegri.

The saint was born in 1887 to farmers Grazio Mario Forgione and Maria Giuseppa Di Nunzio. During his childhood, Pio was known for his zealous spirituality, and, when he was 15, he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Franciscan Friars in Morcone.

World War I broke out in 1914 and Pio was drafted into the 10th Company of the Italian Medical Corps. He was released shortly thereafter due to medical reasons. In 1916, he moved to the Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary located in San Giovanni Rotondo.

Many miracles and extraordinary sufferings have been attributed to Pio’s life. Beside experiencing bilocation and levitation, he also had the stigmata – a miraculous exhibition of the wounds of Christ – and underwent physical attacks from the devil.

In his recent reflection, Allegri pointed to the words of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, archbishop emeritus of Genoa, who highlighted Christ’s redemptive suffering as essential to the faith. In times when this is misunderstood, Siri said God will send men like Padre Pio.

“With the stigmata which he bore throughout his life and with the other physical and moral sufferings he endured, Padre Pio calls our attention to the body of Christ as a means of salvation,” Siri told Allegri in an interview for “Man with Hope.”

“In our time the temptation to forget about the reality of the body of Christ is enormous. And God has sent us this man with the task of calling us back to the truth.”

[…]