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By Hannah Brockhaus Rome Newsroom, Sep 7, 2023 / 08:30 am Research in the archive of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome has uncovered a list of the names of thousands of Jewish people who found shelter from Nazi persecution in Catholic religious congregations in Rome from 1943-1944. While some of the information was first published in 1961, the full documentation, particularly the lists of people hidden in the Catholic institutions, had been considered lost, a Sept. 7 press release explained. The Nazis occupied Rome from Sept. 10, 1943, until June 4, 1944, when the city was liberated by the Allied forces. During that nine-month period, approximately 10,000-15,000 Jews faced persecution, and almost 2,000 Jews, including children and adolescents, were deported and murdered. The newly ...

The pope “expressed his sorrow for the sense of helplessness experienced in the face of war, ‘a thing of the devil, who wants to destroy,’ with a special thought for the Ukrainian children he has met during audiences. ‘They look at you and have forgotten their smiles,’ he said, and added, ‘This is one of the fruits of war: to take the smile away from children.’” Shevchuk said in a press release: “This meeting was a time of mutual listening and an opportunity for frank and sincere dialogue.” “We expressed to the pope everything that our faithful in Ukraine and throughout the world entrusted us to convey to His Holiness,” he said.  Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk on Sept. 6, 2023, gave Pope Francis a prayer book, rosary, and missionary cross belonging to two Redemptorist priests, F...

VATICAN CITY, Sept 5 (Reuters) – The Catholic Church is to beatify a Polish family of nine including a new-born baby who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War Two, the Vatican’s saint-making department said on Tuesday. The service to beatify Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children will be held on Sunday in the Polish town of Markowa where they died in March 1944. The family was killed by German military police for sheltering a family of Jews. The Ulmas hid them for a year and a half and were shot with them when Nazi guards discovered them. Beatification is the last step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican media have noted that it is the first time that an entire family has been honoured together in this manner. However, the Vatican’s ...

The pope also responded to a question about the possibility of a papal trip to Vietnam, saying that he was “very positive about relations with Vietnam,” despite the problems in the past in the Holy See’s “slow” dialogue with the country’s socialist government, adding that he thinks that any future problems can be overcome. Pope Francis joked: “If I do not go [to Vietnam], I’m sure that [a future Pope] John XXIV will go!” The 86-year-old pope added: “To tell the truth, travel is not as easy for me as it was in the beginning.” He added that he has some physical limitations with walking that can make traveling more difficult, but that he is looking into the possibility of visiting a small country in Europe. Vietnam is home to an estimated 8 million Catholics but has never had full diplomatic ...

In his homily, he reflected on the words of Psalm 63, “my soul thirsts for you” — words that he said accompany “our journey through life, amid all the deserts we are called to traverse.” Pope Francis said that the words of the psalmist, who laments the thirst of his soul as if in a “dry and weary land,” have “particular resonance in a land like Mongolia: immense, rich in history and culture, yet also marked by the aridity of the steppes and the desert.” The Gobi Desert, the sixth largest in the world, stretches across the bottom third of Mongolia. It has an extremely harsh climate with temperatures that can range from 113°F to -40°F. Prayers offered in Chinese at Pope Francis’ Mass in Mongolia today The pope shared a special message for Chinese Catholics at the end of Mass, saying he wante...

The Mongolian State Honor Guard stands at attention for the pope’s arrival at Chinggis Khaan International Airport on Sept. 1, 2023. Pope Francis is the first pope in history to visit the Asian country. Credit: Vatican Media Roughly the size of Alaska, Mongolia has five people per square mile. About 30% of its population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Bordering Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is also the second-largest landlocked country in the world with the vast Gobi Desert covering one-third of its territory. During the nearly 10-hour flight, the papal plane passed over more than 10 countries, including Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and China. The pope sent a message to the leaders of each of these countries, includi...

By Peter Pinedo Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 30, 2023 / 16:20 pm A group known as BishopAccountability.org, which tracks sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, condemned a Massachusetts district judge’s Wednesday decision to dismiss criminal charges against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The criminal charges involving the sexual assault and abuse of a minor were dismissed Wednesday after a judge ruled McCarrick, 93, was not mentally competent to stand trial. Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the bishops accountability group, told CNA that “the dismissal of the case against McCarrick is hugely disappointing” and that “our hearts go out to the courageous victim who brought this case, and to all of McCarrick’s victims.” McCarrick, the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, D.C., was...

The sisters were to be “poor servants of a poor people.” Pope Francis explained: “At the center of their lives was the Eucharist, ‘a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity,’ as the Second Vatican Council teaches us (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47).” “Love, unity, and charity. What does this mean? To adore, to serve, and to repair, that is, to fill with tenderness … to fill with tenderness the wounds and voids produced by sin in man and society, beginning by kneeling before Jesus in the Consecrated Host and remaining there for a long time,” he said. Nocche recommended that the sisters remain in prayer before the Eucharist “even when we seem to feel nothing, in quiet and trusting abandonment, because ‘Magister adest,’ (‘the Master is here’) (Jn 11:28).” “By the world’s standards t...