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Catholic News Headlines for Monday 04/17/2023

 

Celebrating Orthodox Easter amidst war – how Ukrainians of one town packed a local church to renew their faith and to have baskets of food blessed.

Pope Francis condemned what he calls offensive and unfounded allegations against Saint John Paul II.

One Holocaust survivor explains how interfaith collaboration plays a role amid a modern rise in Jewish hate.

Two teens in North Carolina discover a 1,000 year-old Native American canoe while out swimming.

North Carolina Teens Stumble Upon 1,000 Year Old Native American Artifact

A day at the lake turned into a monumental event.

Two young swimmers discovered a rare Native American artifact and researchers hope it’ll be a key to uncovering the history of a local tribe in North Carolina. 

This canoe, which was pulled from Lake Waccamaw, is a symbol of nearly 1,000 years of Native American culture in Southeastern North Carolina. 

For Michael Jacobs, the Chief of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe, it’s rare to find pieces of history like this one. 

“That canoe at 28 feet long, would have carried many a brave,” Jacobs said. “We feel like in our heart, it’s a history that we’re still exploring and understanding because this is the first time we’ve had access.”

It was a discovery that was unexpected for Eli Hill, one of the teenagers who stumbled upon the canoe, while swimming in the lake two years ago. 

“We were throwing mussels at each other and I stepped on it and I thought it was a log,” Hill said. “I tried to pick it open and it never came up. So, we kept digging at it and it just kept going. And then the next day, we came back and we started digging some more and it just kept going.”

Ukrainians Celebrate Orthodox Easter, Despite Raining Bombs

As the war in Ukraine against Russia continues, Ukrainians still took the time to celebrate and observe Orthodox Easter.

However, even the holy holiday wasn’t enough to keep Russian forces from dropping bombs on the besieged nation.

Despite the resurrection, Russia bombarded a Ukrainian city with missiles over the weekend, but the faithful turned to a local church in droves with hopes of a better tomorrow.  

“I always pray for Ukraine, for our children,” Anya Sloviansk, 73, a resident of Sloviansk said. “I ask for peace as soon as possible to live a little bit longer without war. We don’t want to die.”

Sloviansk and others have brought bags and baskets of food to be blessed.

More people have attended church during the recent troubled times than before the war started.

But not everyone could make the services because emergency crews are trying to find people under rubble.

This was the deadliest strike on Sloviansk since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. 

An S-300 missile gouged out the top floors of this apartment block killing, among others, a little boy.

“The child who died was only two years old,” Tatyana Sloviansk, said. “His father is still there. If only they could lift those slabs, they could rescue him.”

That family, like many others, fled Slovyansk early in the war but came back after the Russians retreated last autumn. 

Officials say around 30,000 residents have returned in recent months. 

Pope Francis said he’s thinking about everyone in Ukraine and Russia, who celebrated Easter this weekend and once again encouraged peace between the two nations. 

Catholic News Headlines for Friday 04/14/2023

 

Florida Governor Ron Desantis has signed the Heartbeat Bill into law, banning abortions after six-weeks of pregnancy.

Persecution of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua continues with President Daniel Ortega confiscating a cloistered monastery, forcing the Trappist Sisters to leave the country.

President Joe Biden visits County Mayo, where his ancestors are from, during his last day in Ireland.

Priest Shortage Impacting Thousands Of Churches

A number of churches across the country are in need of priests.

The amount of clergy leaders has drastically dropped over the last half century and there’s no easy fix to the problem.

It’s an issue that many communities in Connecticut are dealing with. 

Bishop Juan Miguel  Betancourt, the Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese Of Hartford, was aware of the situation when he was in seminary school and was told then that there was a major need for Catholic priests.

 “The conversations have been going on for a while now,” Betancourt said. “We have to do everything possible.”

The Archdiocese of Hartford has been particularly hard hit. Since 2017, it has endured a loss of 50 priests who have left active ministry, with another 35 priests expected to retire before 2030.

Bishop Betancourt is now trying to find a solution, adding: “Our priests are being spread thin. It’s going to be a challenge. A big one.”   

Catholic News Headlines for Thursday 04/13/2023

 

We have an update to the so-called “Vatican Girl” case from 1983.

The mayor says Kentucky law requires the gun used in the shooting there to be sent to state police officials who will sell it at auction.

A new report says overseas suppliers are on track to provide abortion pills to around 100,000 people in the U.S. in the year after Roe v Wade was overturned.

Pope Wants Truth Out On Missing Vatican Girl, Says Lead Prosecutor

By Justin McLellan

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican’s chief prosecutor said Pope Francis has given him free rein to investigate the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican resident.

The case has fueled conspiracy theories for close to 40 years and inspired a Netflix series in 2022.

Alessandro Diddi, the Vatican prosecutor, told Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, that the pope and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, have an “iron will” to shed whatever light is possible on what happened to Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, who vanished in Rome June 22, 1983.

Diddi’s interview with Corriere della Sera was published April 11, the same day Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother, met with Diddi and other Vatican prosecutors for more than eight hours.

It was their first meeting since Diddi opened a new file on the case in January at Orlandi’s request.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Orlandi said that in 40 years he had “never been questioned so thoroughly” on the case, but the meeting also gave him an opportunity to discuss “the most important things that have come out in these 40 years.”

Among them were the alleged existence of Vatican documents suggesting that Emanuela was taken to London as well as screenshots of messages allegedly exchanged between two Vatican officials in 2014 over documents about the case that have never been published.

During their meeting, he said, Orlandi gave Diddi a list of current Vatican officials he suspects have knowledge about the case; the officials include Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, and Leonardo Sandri, vice dean.

Orlandi said Diddi assured him that Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin gave him the freedom to “investigate from the lowest to those highest up” in the Vatican and said that much work already has been done since reopening the case in January.

While Orlandi said he felt the “willingness to shed as much clarity as possible” on the case by the Vatican prosecutors, he said he is “certain” that there are still people in the Vatican who know what happened to his sister.

Laura Sgrò, the Orlandi family’s lawyer, told reporters April 11 that the Vatican’s investigation and Diddi’s willingness to share information with the Italian government will provide new details on the case because she is certain the Vatican has information in its archives that it has not shared.

In the Corriere interview, Diddi said he was already analyzing and still searching for more old Vatican documents that are relevant to the case.

While Emanuela disappeared in Italy and Diddi only has jurisdiction in the Vatican, “it is precisely this tiny plot of land that the Rome prosecutor’s office hasn’t been able to access,” said Sgrò.

Emanuela’s disappearance has fueled a deluge of conspiracy theories, some linked to a ransom plot for the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who shot St. John Paul II, and others claiming involvement by the mafia, which Diddi downplayed in the interview.

The prosecutor said he was given full freedom to conduct a broad investigation “without conditions of any kind” and with “a firm order to silence nothing.”

Former Political Prisoner Details Nicaragua’s Atrocities on Catholics

Someone who knows Nicaragua’s war against the Catholic Church well is Felix Maradiaga.

He now lives in the United States after being exiled from Nicaragua, but just a few months ago he was a political prisoner there.

Maradiaga just testified to Congress about the country’s atrocities against the members of the church.

The Nicaraguan scholar and activist joins Currents News to talk about the “unholy war” against Catholics in the country.