Pope Francis names 21 new cardinals, including US Bishop McElroy

Cardinal Robert McElroy, bishop of San Diego, celebrates Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Rome Aug. 28, 2022. / Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Rome, Italy, Aug 28, 2022 / 12:26 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Robert McElroy spoke about Christian humility Sunday, at his first public Mass since he was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis.

The Aug. 28 Mass of Thanksgiving was celebrated at St. Patrick’s Church, the American Catholic parish in Rome, Italy. McElroy, 68, is the bishop of San Diego.

“Many people have the wrong notion of what Christian humility is,” McElroy said in his homily. “Humility is not putting ourselves down, it’s not underestimating ourselves, it’s not presenting ourselves as less than we are.”

Christian humility means two things, he said, “Putting aside the pretenses and facades we often put up to try to look better to others than we are. And secondly: challenging, facing, the impulse all of us have to place our own interests ahead of those of others.”

Sunday’s Mass was attended by US Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly and his wife Jill Donnelly.

American Cardinals Roger Mahony, Wilton Gregory, Joseph Tobin, Blase Cupich, Edwin O’Brien, and Daniel DiNardo concelebrated the Mass alongside seven US bishops and around 40 priests.

In his homily, Cardinal McElroy spoke about the 2010 movie “Of Gods and Men,” a fictionalized account of the days leading up to the kidnapping and martyrdom of seven Trappist monks in Algeria in 1996.

After debating among themselves about whether to leave their monastery or to stay put despite teh danger, the monks reached a consensus by “putting aside pretenses,” the cardinal said. “So it is with our lives…”

When we live with facades, they become prisons, he said, while “humility calls us to put aside those facades and to be open with people.”

“Humility,” he continued, “calls us to try to challenge that very common human impulse to place our own selves first. It’s a very hard thing to do in practice because it’s so deep in the human heart and soul and spirit.”

“The Gospel challenges us to do precisely this,” he added, “to take account of the rights, the lives … of others, as much as we do of ourselves.”

“That is Christian humility. That is the humility Christ calls us to in the Gospel of today, and that is the humility we should ask God for today and every day,” McElroy said.

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Vatican City, Mar 18, 2017 / 06:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In what will be his first international trip of the year, Pope Francis will be traveling to Cairo, Egypt, April 28-29, showing that interfaith dialogue is a priority.

He will visit the country in response to an invitation from His Holiness Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Imam of the Mosque of al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayyib, as well as Egypt’s president  Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the bishops of the local Catholic Church, a March 18 Vatican communique announced.

While the full program for the Pope’s the trip will be published shortly, he will almost certainly visit Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which has recently partnered with the Vatican to discuss combatting religious justification for violence in a warming of relations between the two.

The Pope’s trip will likely focus largely on inter-faith dialogue and Catholic-Muslim relations – especially in combating Christian persecution – continuing dialogue from a seminar Vatican officials attended in February.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, along with the council’s secretary and the head of their Office for Islam, traveled to Cairo Feb. 24 to participate in the special seminar at Al-Azhar University.

They discussed the theme “The role of al-Azhar al-Sharif and of the Vatican in countering the phenomena of fanaticism, extremism and violence in the name of religion.”

Persecution of Christians has long been an issue in Egypt, with a recent spike in attacks causing even more reason for alarm.

There have been 40 reported murders of Christians in Egypt in the last three months, His Grace Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, said in a statement Feb 28.

Twenty-nine were killed in a bombing at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo in December. The Islamic State took credit for the bombing and released a video threatening to target Christian “crusaders” in Egypt.

Since the video’s release, more Christians have been killed in Egypt and hundreds have reportedly fled their homes in the Sinai region in the north of the country after several murders there, the group In Defense of Christians claimed.

Egyptian society was also profoundly shocked by the beheading in Libya of 20 Orthodox Coptic faithful and a companion by Islamic State militants in February 2015.

Pope Francis was invited to visit Egypt by Coptic Catholic bishops during their ad limina visit at the Vatican Feb. 6, during which they also gave a report on the state of the Church in their country.

The Pope had also received an invitation to visit Egypt from the country’s president and from the Grand Imam of al Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayyeb, who occupies a prestigious place in the Sunni Muslim world.

Al Tayyeb paid a visit to the Vatican May 23, 2016 for a meeting with Pope Francis, which marked a major step in thawing relations between the al-Azhar institution and the Holy See, which were strained in 2011 with claims that Pope Benedict XVI had “interfered” in Egypt’s internal affairs by condemning a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria during the time of Coptic Christmas.

Since then relations have continued to move forward at a surprisingly fast pace, leading to the Oct. 21 announcement from the Vatican that sometime this spring the Holy See and the Al-Azhar Mosque and adjunct University will officially resume dialogue.

Francis’ visit to Cairo and to the University in April will likely mark the official resumption of this dialogue.

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Nancy and Kelly McKeague of Alexandria, Va., say their Catholic faith provided an “anchor” to their marriage during Kelly’s service in the U.S. Air Force. / Courtesy of Nancy and Kelly McKeague

Boston, Mass., Nov 11, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

To coincide with Veterans Day, a marriage ministry has launched a free “virtual date night” video series specifically for military couples, providing mentoring and other resources to help spouses strengthen their bonds to one another, to their families and communities, and to God.

The new, three-part series is one of several developed by Witness to Love, a faith-centered marriage ministry based in St. Martinville, La. Founded by a Catholic couple, Mary-Rose and Ryan Verret, in effort to supplement existing church-based marriage preparation programs, Witness to Love provides a “virtues-based, Catechumenate model of marriage renewal and preparation that integrates modern principles of psychology and the virtues to help couples facilitate an authentic dialogue about their relationship,” according to its website.

There is also a date night series tailored to first responders and hospital workers, and a more general program suitable for all couples. 

Daniela Mazzone, vice president of content and leadership development and Spanish support lead at Witness for Love, told CNA that the idea for a date night video series came in response to the fact that so many couples were home together during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve always had in our hearts to do something for military couples, because we know that they also need a lot of support because there are challenges that they face in their own marriages which are much harder and could be different from what the average couple deals with,” especially when spouses are separated during a deployment, Mazzone said.

Couples can register online for free and will have access to Witness to Love’s app where they can see all the videos. It is not necessary to download the app on their mobile devices to see the videos, as they can also be viewed on the organization’s website, Mazzone said.

The military spouses series launches on Nov. 11, but couples will still have access to the videos on the website after that date. You can watch a promo video about the new military date night series below.

The new series features Kelly and Nancy McKeague, an Alexandria, Va. couple with four grown children who share the challenges and successes they experienced in their marriage while Kelly served in the U.S. Air Force.

“While a military spouse may not wear the uniform,” Kelly McKeague told CNA, “they’re going through the same tribulations and trials.”

“I just traveled with him and went along for the ride,” Nancy McKeague quipped. But her husband disagreed.

“I think, to be fair,” Kelly McKeague said, “the military spouse has a very unique role just because of separation, deployments, and what have you, and so in essence, a military spouse really does serve.”

Military life is a “higher calling,” Kelly McKeague said. “It’s a calling of service, but also a sacrifice that takes many, many forms.” 

Nancy McKeague told CNA that “it would seem that whenever Kelly would leave and be gone, something pretty dramatic and traumatic would happen in our life.”

Speaking about a time when their son had an asthma attack in the middle of the night, Nancy McKeague said that she grabbed all her children and went to the emergency room, spending hours there.

She noted that emergencies like her son’s asthma attack happened “quite frequently,” and she just had to remind herself to stay strong for herself and children.

Nancy McKeague said she constantly reminded her children, while her husband was deployed, to “just remember that Daddy is doing this not only for our family, but for our country, and this is a really great thing that he’s doing.”

“I know it’s not easy for him to be gone,” she would say to her children, “but just remember we’re just going to pray for Daddy that he comes safely back home.” 

The video series is not exclusively for Catholic couples. However, the McKeagues, who have been married for more than 37 years, say in their video testimony that their Catholic faith was their “anchor” during Kelly’s military service.

“Having that strong faith connection, in our view, as we present in the video, was so crucial to us, not only surviving as a military family, but thriving as a military family,” Kelly McKeague told CNA.

Staying close to the sacraments was “crucial” in keeping them strong as a couple and as a family, Nancy McKeague added. 

Other presenters in the videos include a Navy couple, Shannon and Kim Walker, who speak about interpersonal relationship; an Air Force couple, Jon and Lea-Ann Virnig, who discuss family and community life; and Father Michael Murphy, the pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Coronado, Colo. Reflection questions and other resources resources are included with each video.

While each of the couples in the series has a unique perspective on the challenges that military spouses face, they also share a common experience, the McKeagues say.

“The thing that I’ve always loved so much about our military life was traveling to new places, getting to meet many new people, building friendships that have lasted since the beginning of our time in the military, and people that we’ve kept in touch with through the years that have made us stronger and have made us grow in our faith more,” Nancy McKeague told CNA.  

“Those relationships and those friendships have been such a huge blessing to both of us,” she said.

“We were all in the crucible together, we were all experiencing the same challenges, and then some of those friends that Nancy talked about are from the chapel community, the Catholic chapel and they were lifelong friendships because they were honed in somewhat less than ideal circumstances, either the place or the situation or the operational tempo,” Kelly McKeague said.

“All of that starts to build a closeness with people who share the same uniform, but also share the same faith. So it’s an added bonus,” he said.

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