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Asked if he approved of the American airstrikes that began earlier this month against Muslim militants in Iraq, Pope Francis held back his weighty moral imprimatur, refusing to support or denounce the military campaign. "I can only say this: It is licit to stop the unjust aggressor," the pontiff said Monday during a press conference on the plane back to Rome from South Korea. "I underline the verb: stop. I do not say bomb, make war, I say stop by some means." But in an apparent reference to the United States, Francis said "one nation alone cannot judge" the best...

Pope Francis prays with journalists on the papal flight en route to South Korea, August 14, 2014. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA. Daejeon, South Korea, Aug 15, 2014 / 04:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Addressing the division between North and South Korea, Pope Francis emphasized that the two are “one family,” calling for prayers of re-unification while stressing repentance and forgiveness. “There is only one Korea, but this family is divided,” the Pope said to a large gathering of young people from across the continent. His off-the-cuff comments came during an Aug. 15 gathering with youth of Asia at Solmoe Shrine, birthplace of...

Pope Francis speaks during his meeting with young people for Asian Youth Day August 15, 2014. Credit: EWTN. Daejeon, South Korea, Aug 15, 2014 / 04:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In an Aug. 15 meeting with Asian youth, Pope Francis emphasized the need to respond joyfully to God’s call in order to carry the hope of Christ to a world that desperately needs it. “Dear young friends, in this generation the Lord is counting on you!” he told throngs of young people from across the Asian continent. “Are you ready to say ‘yes’ to him? Are you ready?” “Just as the...

The Vatican has found its voice. Pope Francis wrote a letter to Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, asking him to "do everything you can to stop the violence against Christians in Iraq". The letter, received by Ban Ki-Moon on 13 August, is the latest of the PopeÂ’s interventions to stop the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. He writes: It is with a heavy and anguished heart that I have been following the dramatic events of these past few days in Northern Iraq where Christians and other religious minorities have been forced to flee from their...

Pope Francis addresses the Korean Bishops' Conference in Seoul, South Korea on August 14, 2014. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA. Seoul, South Korea, Aug 14, 2014 / 03:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the first day of his historic papal visit to South Korea, Pope Francis urged local bishops to not only remember their rich history of martyrdom but look to the future with hope and missionary zeal. “As pastors, you are responsible for guarding the Lord’s flock. You are guardians of the wondrous works which he accomplishes in his people,” the Pope said in his Aug. 14 address to the country's Catholic...

Pope Francis formally asked U.N. agencies and the entire international community “to take action to end the humanitarian tragedy now underway” in northeastern Iraq. In a letter signed Aug. 9, but released by the Vatican only after it had been delivered, Pope Francis told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon immediate action was needed “to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities.” The papal letter was sent after militants of the Islamic State terrorist organization had captured Mosul in late July and Qaraqosh in early August, killing hundreds of people and forcing tens of thousands of Christians,...

In an interview with the Vatican Television Centre (CTV), the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, talked about the issues Pope Francis will be focusing on during his visit to Korea: evangelization in Asia, the Asian youth gathering, the beatification of 124 Korean martyrs who are examples of lay saints and he Pope’s call for dialogue and reconciliation between the two Koreas. In the full version of the interview, Cardinal Parolin also speaks of Asia’s desire for God, the significance of Pope Francis’ encounter with suffering Koreans, from the disabled to relatives of victims of the Sewol ferry disaster...

No, the Maryknoll Sandinista priest Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, 81, who had his suspension a divinis -- first decreed by Pope John Paul II -- removed by Pope Francis in the past few weeks did not leave his absurd statements and government positions in the past, as one might gather from various news reports of the past couple of days that repeated his statements from many years ago. He repeated such statements yesterday on Nicaraguan television, and now on a whole new unheard-of level. For those who are unaware of its real meaning in practice and behind the theological fog, this...

Pope Leo XIII, born in 1810, is credited with being the founder of Catholic social teaching. (CNS/Library of Congress) By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Going by the pseudonym "X," Pope Leo XIII anonymously crafted poetic puzzles in Latin for a Roman periodical at the turn of the 19th century. The pope created lengthy riddles, known as "charades," in Latin in which readers had to guess a rebus-like answer from two or more words that together formed the syllables of a new word. Eight of his puzzles were published anonymously in "Vox Urbis," a Rome newspaper...

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis returned to the southern Italian city of Caserta on Monday for a private visit to the Pentecostal community known as the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation. The Pope first met the founder of the community, Pastor Giovanni Traettino, during his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires and over the past year he has met and received groups of Pentecostals at his Santa Marta residence here in the Vatican.

Archbishop Charles Chaput has disclosed the Pope Francis plans to attend the World Meeting of Families, to be held September 2015 in Philadelphia. Although the Vatican has not made an official announcement, the Pope "has told me he is coming," Archbishop Chaput said. He said that the Pontiff would be in Philadelphia for the final 3 days of the meeting, September 25-27. (As a rule, the Vatican does not formally confirm papal trips until a few weeks before they take place.) The archbishop also announced that Pope St. John Paul II and St. Gianna Molla are the patron saints of...

A Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death for converting from Islam to Christianity, then detained after her conviction was quashed, flew into Rome on an Italian government plane on Thursday and hours later met the Pope. Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, whose sentence and detention triggered international outrage, walked off the aircraft cradling her baby and was greeted by Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. Soon afterwards, Ibrahim, her husband and two children had a private meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican. "The Pope thanked her for her witness to faith," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

Pope Francis met privately Thursday with Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who faced a death sentence for refusing to renounce her faith, blessing the woman after she was flown to Italy on an Italian government jet. The Vatican characterized the visit with Ibrahim, 27, her husband and their two small children as "very affectionate."

I read at Il Giornale today that the prayer read by the Imam in the Vatican Gardens was indeed from the Sura 2, wherein Allah is asked to crush infidels (that’s us) and let Islam triumph over the whole world (that’s us, too). Vatican Radio, at the time, tried to give this an allegorical spin. It didn’t work very well. At a certain point it seems they also tried to edit out the troubling passage. Suffice to say that an Imam sang: “grant us victory over the heathen/disbelieving/infidel” (Sura 2: 286) in the Vatican Gardens, in front of the Pope,...

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during the Wednesday general audience May 28, 2014. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA. Vatican City, Jul 21, 2014 / 05:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his weekly Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis mourned the fleeing of the last Christians from the Iraqi city of Mosul, who were told by ISIS forces last week to either convert, pay the Jizya tax or leave. “They are persecuted; our brothers are persecuted, they are driven out, they have to leave their houses without having the possibility of taking anything with them,” Pope Francis voiced in his July 20...

I begin with a piece, spotted by Fr Tim Finigan and reported in his indispensable blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which had been published in Sandro Magister’s blog—not his English one, Chiesa, but his Italian language blog for L’Espresso, Settimo Cielo.A few days ago, Magister told the story of a parish priest in the Italian diocese of Novara, Fr Tarcisio Vicario, who recently discussed the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This is how he explained the Church’s teaching on the matter: “For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage...

In his message to the “Mexico/Holy See Colloquium on Migration and Development,” Pope Francis characterized the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants that have crossed the U.S. southern border as a product of globalization, suggesting that the phenomenon is happening worldwide. Francis proclaimed, “Despite the large influx of migrants present in all continents and in almost all countries, migration is still seen as an emergency, or as a circumstantial and sporadic fact, while instead it has now become a hallmark of our society and a challenge.” Emmer McCarthy for Vatican Radio said Francis expressed his concern for “the tens of...

“This humanitarian emergency requires, as a first urgent measure, these children be welcomed and protected.” “Many people forced to emigrate suffer, and often, die tragically; many of their rights are violated, they are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be the subject of racist and xenophobic attitudes,” the Roman Pontiff stated in the July 15 message.

In a Monday letter to a Mexico City Vatican conference, Pope Francis wrote that the tens of thousands of Central American children illegally crossing into the United States should be “welcomed and protected.” Just days after President Obama visited Texas and pledged a solution to the US border crisis, the Pope said migrant children’s human rights are being violated. “Many people forced to emigrate suffer, and often, die tragically,” he said. “Many of their rights are violated. They are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be the subject of racist and xenophobic attitudes.” The Pope also...

Some Papal Quotes that somehow and in some way beyond my meager intellect are in continuity with each other, or something. First Quote Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441. ex cathedra (infallibly defined): “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so...