Shriveled sunflowers in a field in Spain / Quintanilla/Shutterstock.
Cordoba, Spain, Sep 2, 2022 / 12:48 pm (CNA).
Bishop Demetrio Fernández González of Córdoba is encouraging the faithful to “lift up prayers to God asking for rain” in the face of Spain’s drought, because while “meteorologists know how to explain and predict,” they cannot produce rain.
Spain is in the midst of its worst drought on record.
In his weekly letter, Bishop Fernández said, “We need water and it is a tradition of believers for centuries and centuries that when this drought reaches its extremes, we turn to God with community prayers to ask him for the gift of rain.”
“Jesus in the prayer of Our Father taught us to ask for daily bread among other petitions. That is, to ask for the food we need to survive. Well, right now we need the water from the clouds to fertilize the fields.”
The prelate is asking people to pray for rain throughout the month of September: “We are going to ask for the necessary rain to be able to survive,” he said.
Bishop Fernández underscored that “it’s not enough for it to rain a little, it is necessary for it to rain a lot and for the water reserves to be replenished, without this causing floods and other catastrophes.”
The volume of reservoir water in Spain is at 35% capacity, about 20 points below the average of the last 10 years at this time.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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A Catholic pregnancy center called “Aid for Women” in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood was vandalized with red paint and the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” at 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 23, just hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Mary FioRito, a spokesperson for the center, said that vandals also cemented the doors shut, forcing the nonprofit to cancel appointments for around 12 women. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 23, 2024 / 18:37 pm (CNA).
A Catholic pregnancy center in Chicago called “Aid for Women” was vandalized in the early morning hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention.
No one was present at the center at the time of the incident. Police have been contacted and are investigating the incident as a violation of the Freedom of Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, according to Mary FioRito, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a spokesperson for Aid for Women.
Aid for Women is a non-profit which according to its website was “founded on the faith and teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The nonprofit operates five pregnancy centers and two maternity homes in the Chicago area. The group partners with the Archdiocese of Chicago and offers a range of services including ultrasounds, abortion pill reversal medications, counseling, and material aid.
FioRito, who has been a regular volunteer at Aid for Women for over two decades, told CNA that the incident occurred in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood at 3 a.m. Friday morning, hours after the DNC’s final closing.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, four vandals splattered red paint and painted the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” on the center’s entrance. FioRito said that the vandals also cemented the center’s doors shut, forcing staff to cancel all appointments on Friday — which she said were with about a dozen women.
The doors at “Aid for Women,” a Catholic pregnancy center in north Chicago, were cemented shut by vandals at 3 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2024, hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
As of Friday afternoon, the center’s doors were still cemented shut and there is no timeline on when it will be able to reopen. FioRito said that this means the Aid for Women pregnancy center may have to cancel its appointments or ask women to visit another location on Saturday, which FioRito said is their busiest day.
FioRito said that when she saw the pictures of the damage to the center she was “horrified.”
Addressing the vandals she said: “You’re not hurting us; you’re hurting these women.”
“These are working-class women. A lot of stuff for them is a struggle. Why would you do this to women who already are facing so many obstacles? It baffles me,” she said.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, there was an unusually low police presence in the neighborhood at the time of the incident due to the DNC which took place in another part of town.
FioRito lamented that pregnancy centers have borne the brunt of anti-abortion anger since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“It’s so strange to me that pregnancy centers are somehow the collateral damage of all this anger over Roe being overturned because the pregnancy centers didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “Pregnancy centers are largely apolitical … they are not political advocates, they are not legal advocates, they simply help women.”
Edgewater is an urban neighborhood as culturally diverse and “not a wealthy neighborhood.”
“Many of the women we serve are not women of means,” she said. “Pregnancy is hard enough. You don’t need something like this layered on top of it, making your life even harder.”
“If the people who did this were intending to hurt the pro-life movement or get back at the pro-life movement for Dobbs, all they’re really hurting is poor women when they do something like this,” said FioRito.
The DNC took place at Chicago’s United Center this week, Aug. 19-22. Several of the Democratic speakers, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, highlighted abortion as a central issue in the 2024 election and condemned pro-life attempts to restrict abortion.
A local Planned Parenthood operated a free mobile abortion clinic just outside the convention. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers reported on Thursday that the mobile clinic had provided nine vasectomies and eight chemical abortions.
Madrid, Spain, May 8, 2017 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Police are investigating a case of vandalism with satanic messages at a Spanish monastery, which took place on a reliquary containing a veil believed to have touched the face of Christ.
The damage was discovered the morning of May 7 at the Monastery of the Holy Face in Alicante when a priest found the number 666 and an upside down cross on the shatter-proof glass that protects the relic of the Holy Face.
Several more upside down crosses on the Stations of the Cross were also discovered.
According to tradition, the Holy Face is the veil with which Veronica wiped the face of Christ during the Passion. The monastery has served as a pilgrimage site the second Sunday after Holy Week since the year 536.
According to El Mundo, security cameras showed the perpetrator to be a young woman, who apparently hid herself inside the church the night of Saturday, May 6. The suspect has already been identified and the police authorities aim to arrest her in the coming hours.
The perpetrator attempted to break the glass that protects the relic with a pointed instrument and scratched the number 666 on it. She also stole a liturgical prayer book and another one where the liturgical acts of the monastery are recorded.
The bishop of the diocese, Jesús Murgui, along with the vicar general visited the monastery after the robbery and met with the community of nuns who keep the Holy Face, who were shocked by the incident. The diocese reported the incident to the police who are currently investigating.
In a statement, the diocese said that it is looking into “increasing or improving” the security measures at the monastery after the acts of vandalism.
The diocese also said that “we are praying to God, Our Lord, for whomever caused this damage” and asked the faithful of Alicante that “the deplorable circumstances not be to the detriment of the love and the devotion that we feel toward this age-old relic of the Holy Face.”
Praying for rain is an age old practice across the Planet. Down the ages Americans, Europeans, Africans, the Chinese, and several other inhabitants of the Planet are known to indulge in rain dance, invoking the skies to open and release rain showers on the parched surface of their lifeworld.
I remember that fasting and repentance usually accompanied petitions for God’s assistance in calamities.
At least in older times folks made the assumption that God was trying to get their attention. Our governor asked us to fast and pray during the worst part of the Covid outbreak.
Praying for rain is an age old practice across the Planet. Down the ages Americans, Europeans, Africans, the Chinese, and several other inhabitants of the Planet are known to indulge in rain dance, invoking the skies to open and release rain showers on the parched surface of their lifeworld.
I remember that fasting and repentance usually accompanied petitions for God’s assistance in calamities.
At least in older times folks made the assumption that God was trying to get their attention. Our governor asked us to fast and pray during the worst part of the Covid outbreak.
“…rain dance…invoking the skies…” Of which god dost thou speakest?