Italian police announced Monday that the sender of the letter addressed to Pope Francis containing three bullets has been identified.
The police have not released the name of the individual, but said Aug. 9 it is a French citizen “already known to Vatican security, with whom the Carabinieri of Milan will now coordinate to evaluate the meaning of the gesture and its possible danger.”
At the moment, according to the Italian news agency ANSA, “the information that most interests investigators is knowing where he is, because it would raise a different level of alarm to know if he were in France or in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.”
The Italian police originally revealed that the envelope contained three pieces of 9 millimeter ammunition, of the kind used in a Flobert gun, and a message referring to financial operations in the Vatican. The new statement reveals that the envelope also contained a copy of a 10 Euro deposit, but it is not known for what and under what circumstances it would have been made.
The piece of mail, which had no return address but carried a French stamp, was addressed to “The Pope, Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square in Rome”.
The manager of an Italian post office branch in the town of Peschiera Borromeo, about seven miles southeast of Milan, alerted authorities when he found the suspicious piece of mail during sorting on the night of Aug. 8.
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CNA Staff, Jul 2, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- An English bishop has urged Catholics to resist a new push to strip away protections for unborn children that would “leave the U.K. with the most extreme abortion legislation in Europe.”
Pope Francis met with members of the Society of Saint Paul on June 18, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 18, 2022 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has pointed to St. Paul as a model for Catholics who seek to use the latest technologies to c… […]
Students from hundreds of universities from around the world are attending this year’s SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. / Credit: Jonah McKeown/CNA
St. Louis, Mo., Jan 4, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).
A record number of college-age students, priests, bishops, religious brothers, sisters, and more are attending this week’s SEEK24 conference in downtown St. Louis with anticipation already building for 2025’s conference, set to be held in Salt Lake City.
The conference, which is being held by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) for a second straight year in St. Louis, has attracted nearly 20,000 young people for presentations and talks related to the Catholic faith from world-renowned speakers as well as opportunities for Mass, confession, and Eucharistic adoration. As of Tuesday evening, the conference had 19,707 paid attendees registered, a 28% increase over last year.
The keynote address Tuesday evening, presented in the former NFL stadium attached to the convention center, was delivered by Monsignor James Shea and Sister Mary Grace, SV.
“If you’re sad, anxious, burned out, or overwhelmed, maybe you’re not dead wrong. Maybe you’re responding reasonably” to the fact that Satan is real, said Shea, who is president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.
“But Jesus came to break the power of Satan!” Shea continued, to thunderous applause.
“The wound of sin is deep in us, but it’s nowhere near the deepest part of us. Much deeper in our baptized soul is a place for God … and we’re capable, through baptism, of life with God and God living in us.”
Also on Tuesday evening, FOCUS announced that its 2025 conference will be held in Salt Lake City.
Wednesday morning’s session featured separate tracks for male and female attendees. During the men’s session, Catholic comedian and speaker Paul J. Kim spoke passionately about the importance of cultivating brotherly relationships, using the image of a soldier dragging a comrade off a battlefield.
“We’re all involved in spiritual battles. And the stakes are very very high. I don’t know if you know this, and if you don’t, you need to become aware of this very very quickly,” Kim told the young men in attendance.
“Some of the happiest, most joyful, amazing men of God that I know on this planet are totally sold out for Jesus Christ. And there’s no shame. What is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul, gentlemen?
This year’s SEEK participants come from hundreds of universities and also include active-duty servicemen and women based at installations across the country. There are also 44 bishops attending this year — a doubling of the number who showed up last year — as well as 450 seminarians registered, up from 250 last year.
Anna Sturtin, a freshman at Hillsdale College in Michigan and a St. Louis-area native, told CNA that she has noticed a joy and a pride among the young Catholics who are at SEEK that has also caught the attention of others in the city.
“People in St. Louis who know nothing about this are seeing the signs, seeing all the people in town and the craziness, and they’re like, what is this? What is SEEK?” Sturtin said.
“I bet a lot of people are researching it and finding out that this is a Catholic youth conference … and that contradicts the secular narrative that the faith is dead. It’s a great witness to our faith … and I think that is really wonderful just for the city of St. Louis.”
The conference continues all this week, wrapping up with a closing Mass on Friday morning.
On Wednesday evening, Catholics from the St. Louis area were scheduled to join conference attendees for a massive Eucharistic adoration. FOCUS spokesperson Kate Milligan said they expect to surpass 24,000 attendees for the event.
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