Vatican City, Nov 20, 2018 / 10:05 am (CNA).- “Art, spirituality, beauty,” are the three words Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta used to describe a visiting exhibition of 54 Russian icons and masterpieces, which opened at the Vatican T… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2018 / 03:14 am (CNA).- Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, known as RFRA.
While the law is well-known within legal circles, many Americans may not realize that RFRA… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2018 / 12:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Health researchers need alternatives to using fetal tissue, Department of Health and Human Services leaders have said after several years of controversy and investigations into whether fetal ti… […]
Madrid, Spain, Nov 19, 2018 / 07:46 pm (ACI Prensa).- Matteo Pio Colella was just 7 years old when he contracted a deadly disease. Doctors believed there was no hope for the boy, but he made a full recovery. His cure was the miracle that paved the way for the canonization of St. Padre Pio by Pope John Paul II in June 2002.
Colella, now 27, gave an exclusive interview to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, on the occasion of the pre-release of the film “El Misterio del Padre Pío” (The Mystery of Padre Pio) in Madrid.
The documentary is directed by writer and filmmaker José María Zavala and includes Colella’s testimony.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” he recalled. “I told my mother that I didn’t want to go to school, but she made me go because at that time I didn’t like school. That same night, when my mother came to say goodnight, I didn’t recognize her, and so they immediately took me to the hospital.”
On Jan. 20, 2000, Colella was diagnosed with acute fulminant meningitis, caused by bacteria. The disease had affected his kidneys, his respiratory system and blood clotting. He was immediately admitted to the hospital founded by Padre Pio, the “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza” (Home for the Relief of Suffering), located in San Giovanni Rotondo where the saint’s monastery is.
The following day, Colella went into a coma. His health deteriorated drastically, and doctors considered him a lost cause, thinking he would die within a few hours.
While Colella was in this critical condition, his mother Maria Lucia went to pray over the tomb of Padre Pio to ask for her son’s healing.
“During the coma,” Colella recounted, “I saw Padre Pio in a dream on my right and three angels on the left. One with golden wings and a white tunic and the two others with white wings and a red tunic. Padre Pio, on my right, told me not to worry because I would soon be cured. In fact, my cure was like the resurrection of Lazarus.”
And that’s exactly what happened. The doctors considered Colella to be clinically dead, but he came back to life.
The young man is grateful to Padre Pio for his intercession. He said he considers the saint to be like a grandfather in whom he can confide.
“I have always thought that I have received an enormous grace for which I must be thankful. When I talk to someone who doesn’t believe, I tell him ‘I’m here. For science it’s inexplicable, but there is another explanation that we can’t understand’.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Canberra, Australia, Nov 19, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- After being slammed for his religion and told he would never understand abortion because it is a women’s issue, Australian senator Barry O’Sullivan declared himself a woman before parliament last week so that he could speak about abortion issues.
“I’m going to declare my gender today, as I can, to be a woman, and then you’ll no longer be able to attack me,” O’Sullivan told fellow representatives at parliament Nov. 14.
The declaration was part of longer and heated remarks given by the senator, who said he was tired of the “vomit” and “vitriol” he received from far-right colleagues whenever he tried to raise “issues around strong values.”
Earlier that week, O’Sullivan, a Catholic, had motioned for pro-choice protesters to be banned from the annual pro-life Day of the Unborn Child events. This prompted Larissa Waters of the Australian Greens party to say that O’Sullivan would never understand abortion as a women’s issue.
“Senator O’Sullivan needs to get his hands and his rosaries off my ovaries and those of the 10,000 Queensland women who have an abortion each year,” Waters said, according to the Australian Associated Press.
She later complied with a request to withdraw her comment on the grounds that it attacked O’Sullivan’s religion.
“You cannot say the word abortion without being attacked..” O’Sullivan said in his remarks Nov. 14.
“These people come and attack me for my religion…using words like ‘rosary beads’, because I had the audacity to raise issues around late-term abortions, where babies who are only minutes away from getting a smack on the ass and a name, are being aborted under the policies of the Australian Greens,” he said.
“So I will not stand silent, I will not stand mute while these people try to continue to marginalize policies and ideas that we want to continue to discuss for this nation,” he continued.
O’Sullivan said that he believes many of the “values” issues he raises, including pro-life positions, reflect the values of an “ever-increasingly silent majority” of Australians, who are afraid to speak up for fear of being attacked for their beliefs.
“I’ve moved sensible motions here, reflecting the views of many people in our society, only to have formality denied,” he said, just before declaring his gender to be a woman.
“It is dispicable the behaviour of these people, for them to come in here with the freedom that they do, and that vomit, that vitriol that comes out of their mouths, it needs to be called out,” he added.
The senator’s gender-swap declaration sparked comments mostly of ridicule and disdain on social media. It also launched an extensive debate on Wikipedia about whether to change the pronouns on O’Sullivan’s page from “he/him” to “she/her.”
Nairobi, Kenya, Nov 19, 2018 / 04:07 pm (CNA).- Kenyan authorities have banned the international abortion group Marie Stopes from offering any form of abortions in the country. This comes after a government agency investigated complaints that the group was promoting abortion through its advertisements.
Marie Stopes is a UK-based organization that claims to be the “world’s largest provider of contraception and safe abortion services” and operates in 37 countries, according to its website.
Abortion is not permitted under the Constitution of Kenya, unless “there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger,” or if otherwise permitted by law. The exceptions were added to the Constitution in 2010.
The Medical Practitioners Board of Kenya sent a letter to Marie Stopes last week, saying the board was acting on complaints from, among others, the campaign manager at a campaign group called CitizenGo Africa. The pro-life organization had been campaigning for an investigation of Marie Stopes’ advertising practices since last year.
“Marie Stopes Kenya is hereby directed to immediately cease and desist offering any form of abortion services in all its facilities within the republic,” a Nov. 14 letter from the Kenyan Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board read.
The letter also ordered Maries Stopes Kenya to submit weekly reports for the next 60 days of “all services rendered within all its facilities.”
Ezekiel Mutua, head of the Kenyan government agency in charge of approving advertisements, welcomed the ban, saying in a statement that the Kenya Film Classification Board had banned abortion advertisements by Marie Stopes Kenya in September, but “the organization defied our ban and continued to run unrated and illegal adverts.”
He said the board had also ordered Marie Stopes to “pull down all misleading information on their abortion services from all media platforms.”
Marie Stopes had been operating in Kenya since 1985, BBC reports. The Kenyan Ministry of Health reported in May that the country had spent 533 million Kenyan shillings ($5.29 million) treating complications from back-alley abortions.
Santa Fe, N.M., Nov 19, 2018 / 03:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of New Mexican legislators seeks to overturn a state law that would make abortion illegal if Roe v. Wade were overturned, part of a developing trend among the handful of states with laws… […]
Newark, N.J., Nov 19, 2018 / 03:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Newark announced Monday that New Jersey’s five dioceses will together form a Victim Compensation and Counseling Program in the coming year, and will release the names of a… […]
Rumbek, South Sudan, Nov 19, 2018 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Victor-Luke Odhiambo, a Jesuit from Kenya, was shot and killed in South Sudan by unknown gunmen while at home Thursday morning.
Fr. Odhiambo, who was the principal of Mazzolari Teacher… […]
Santiago, Chile, Nov 19, 2018 / 01:34 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Chilean bishops’ conference has announced the signing of a collaboration agreement with the prosecutor’s office for the investigation of sex crimes within the Catholic Church.
Bishop Luis Fernando Ramos Perez, auxiliary bishop of Santiago and secretary general of the bishops’ conference, made the announcement at the conclusion of the bishops’ Nov. 12-16 plenary assembly in Lo Cañas, a Santiago suburb.
“We studied the draft agreement on mutual collaboration between the National Prosecutor’s Office and the Church for the investigation of crimes of abuse of minors by clerics,” Bishop Ramos said, reading a declaration by the bishops.
He emphasized that “the issue has been fully discussed with the authorities from the Prosecutor’s Office and their representatives” and that “in the coming weeks we hope to formalize an agreement by signing the respective document and its subsequent application.”
According to the data from the Prosecutor’s Office furnished to the Efe new agency, up to Nov. 5 there were 139 ongoing investigations against 190 members of the Church in Chile, involving 245 victims, of whom 102 were minors.
Bishop Ramos explained that the plenary assembly served to address this problem and said that with the National Council for the Prevention of Abuse, they analyzed the progress and follow up of the resolutions adopted in the bishops’ Aug. 3 Declaration, Decisions and Commitments statement.
The bishops also initiated the study of the essential elements of the standards of conduct necessary for all pastoral workers, especially clerics and religious, in order to have this instruction completed during 2019.
According to the press conference communiqué, the assembly approved a “roadmap for the process of discernment to make progress on the way to becoming a Church ever more synodical, prophetic, and full of hope, which seeks to place Jesus Christ at the center.”
A milestone on this roadmap will be the Third National Ecclesial Assembly to be held in May 2020 which “will lay the foundations for new pastoral guidelines for the Church in Chile.”
The assembly elected as vice president of the bishops’ conference Archbishop René Osvaldo Rebolledo Salinas of La Serena, following the resignation for health reasons presented by Bishop Cristián Contreras Villarroel of Melipilla.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
© Catholic World Report