CNA Staff, Aug 31, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- An unknown assailant punched a priest during Sunday Mass in Berlin, Germany.
The assault took place Aug. 30 in St. Joseph’s Church in the district of Wedding, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German language news partner.
According to witnesses, at around 10:30 a.m. a man who had been “quietly seated” at Mass stood up and spat on the ground. He is said to have “walked purposefully” towards the sanctuary of the church on Müllerstraße in Berlin-Mitte, while uttering anti-religious statements. He punched the 61-year-old priest, knocking him to the ground.
Berlin police said: “Immediately afterwards, the stranger took the Bible and tore out several pages from it. [The priest’s] 56-year-old brother rushed to the aid of the stricken man. The attacker knocked him down with the Bible and fled the church unrecognized. The knocked-down and slightly injured priest and his brother, who was also only slightly injured, were treated by the alerted emergency services on site.”
The crime is being investigated by the department for political offenses of the State Criminal Police Office.
St. Joseph’s Church is currently hosting the liturgical ministries of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Berlin, which is closed for renovation.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
CNA Staff, Sep 10, 2020 / 05:10 am (CNA).- A cardinal said Wednesday that Europe should be “ashamed” after fire devastated the continent’s largest refugee camp, leaving 13,000 people without shelter.
Pope Francis meets with priests of Rome’s 17th prefecture in the Parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde in Rome on Nov. 16, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Nov 17, 2023 / 11:24 am (CNA).
Pope Francis met with priests of Rome’s 17th prefecture — which sits on the eastern edge of the metropolitan area — in the Parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde on Thursday evening to discuss pressing pastoral needs and material challenges.
The pope’s visit reflects his call to reach out to the “peripheries” of society, a theme that has been central to his pontificate. The 17th prefecture includes the neighborhoods of Rome’s fifth municipal district such as Tor Bella Monaca, Torre Angela, and Torre Gaia; it is one of the poorest areas of the city.
During the one-and-a-half-hour conversation, the pope took time to meet the 40 priests gathered there and to discuss the main pastoral needs of the parish and the prefecture, including “work, the sacraments, poverty, hospitality, assistance to socially weaker groups, [and] evangelization,” Vatican News reported.
Bishop Riccardo Lamba, auxiliary bishop of Rome’s eastern sector, said the meeting was characterized by “a very open, cordial, and familiar dialogue” and that the pope “encouraged everyone to continue with the good work they already do, to continue being among people, to continually propose the Gospel even if there are difficulties,” RomaSette reported.
Pope Francis meets with priests of Rome’s 17th prefecture in the parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde in Rome on Nov. 16, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
“He said to continue to have this synodal style in the parishes, which implies continuous collaboration between laypeople and priests,” the bishop said.
At the end of his meeting the pope visited the Villaggio dell’ospitalità (Hospitality Village), a complex adjacent to the parish that consists of 12 apartments and provides emergency housing for both Italian and foreign families.
At that complex he met with several families, including a Ukrainian family that had fled from the ongoing war in the country a month ago.
“At the moment, seven families live in the village and then people waiting to reunite with their husbands, wives, or children, for a total of 12 apartments, which were built when the parish complex was built,” said Father Rocco Massimiliano Caliandro, pastor of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità, according to RomaSette.
Pope Francis meets with residents of apartments adjacent to the Parish of Santa Maria Madre dell’Ospitalità in Villa Verde in Rome on Nov. 16, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
“With the help of a group of volunteers and with the support of the whole community, we try to stay close to these families both humanly and materially, offering them not only accommodation but also the possibility of taking food from a warehouse we have here in the parish,” he continued.
Caliandro said the visit reflected the pope’s pastoral priorities centered on the care of the most vulnerable.
“[The pope] made one word resonate in reference to all the themes touched upon in the meeting with us priests and it is ‘taking risks,’ compromising with people, always making sure that people prevail,” he said.
This was not the pope’s first visit to impoverished Roman neighborhoods. On Sep. 29 the Holy Father visited the Parish of Santa Maria della Salute in Rome in the Primavalle neighborhood in Rome’s fifth municipality. Like others on the “periphery,” the neighborhood deals with a high rate of poverty, crime, and homicide.
Yaawn. This is no longer news. This is simply what happens. The attacker was not confronted. The priest, except for his brothers help, Was on his own. Isn’t that special? Isn’t that the end result of the German bishops way of doing business?
Yaawn. This is no longer news. This is simply what happens. The attacker was not confronted. The priest, except for his brothers help, Was on his own. Isn’t that special? Isn’t that the end result of the German bishops way of doing business?
I’m with you on that, Sean.
Criminal needs to be charged for a hate crime. Period.
Prayers for the Priest, his brother, and for the deranged person, for his conversion.