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Pope Makes Surprise Visit to Nun Recovering From Surgery

By Junno Arocho Esteves

ROME (Catholic News Service)  — An elderly religious sister who worked for many years at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the papal residence, was at her congregation’s house recovering from surgery when she received an unexpected visit from Pope Francis.

The pontiff arrived at Rome’s Regina Mundi House July 28 and greeted Sister Maria Mucci, a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, as well as members of her congregation.

Since October, Mucci has been recovering from a delicate surgical procedure. Nevertheless, the elderly nun was in good spirits, especially after the pope’s visit.

“Just look! My illness has made all the sisters of the Regina Mundi House who met the pope happy,” she told L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

In an interview with the newspaper, Sister Stefania, a fellow Daughter of Charity, said that Mucci took great pride in her work attending to the needs of Pope Francis at the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Before her surgery, Mucci “took care of the kitchen and was proud of personally preparing vegetables for the Holy Father,” Sister Stefania said.

According to Vatican newspaper, the Holy Father spent some moments contemplating a relic belonging to his predecessor, St. John Paul II. The relic was the bloodstained shirt worn by St. John Paul during the assassination attempt May 13, 1981.

Pope Francis also took time to greet the other members of the Daughters of Charity, as well as employees and guests staying at the congregation’s house before returning to the Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano reported.

Currents News for Tuesday, July 30, 2019

On the newscast: The latest on the California food festival shooting. Police are still investigating why the suspect decided to shoot up his hometown; The Covington Catholic teen has lost his first court battle. It was a win for the press that dragged his name through the mud; A missile launcher checked into one man’s luggage. Hear why he is calling it a gift; And an exclusive look into one of the Vatican’s most revolutionary museums.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

Hearts ‘Heavy With Sadness’ Over Shooting at Garlic Festival, Bishop Says

SAN JOSE, California (Catholic News Service) — Late July 29, San Jose Bishop Oscar Cantu held a bilingual prayer vigil for victims, survivors and first responders at St. Mary’s Church in Gilroy in response to a July 28 shooting that claimed the lives of three people and injured 12 others on the last day of a popular festival.

“Our hearts are heavy with sadness in the wake of the horrific shooting that claimed the lives of at least three innocent victims and injured several others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival,” Bishop Cantu said in a statement. “I am grateful for the first responders and individual citizens whose quick thinking and professional actions saved countless lives.”

CBS News reported that the three who were killed included a six-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a man in his 20s at the festival in Gilroy, which is about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. Police quickly shot and killed the gunman, identified as Santino William Legan, 19.

The police chief said investigators had not found motive yet for the shooting.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, survivors and their families in this time of sorrow,” Bishop Cantu said. “May God, the source of our faith and strength, grant comfort and hope to all those affected by acts of violence.

“May grief give way to healing and grace, as we work together to protect the innocent and prevent future massacres, so that peace may prevail in our hearts and communities,” he added.

Gilroy is considered the “garlic capital of the world.” The festival goes over three days, features food, cooking competitions and music, and draws more than 100,000 people.

Families Expected to Spend Hundreds in ‘Back to School’ Buying, Says Survey

Currents News Staff

Summer fun is almost over, and it’ll soon be time to start looking at that back to school shopping list.

As kids head back to school families are planning to spend more than ever on supplies, and you might be surprised by what consumers are buying this year.

According to a survey of nearly 8,000 families by the National Retail Federation, on average, parents of kindergarteners to high school seniors are expecting to drop nearly 700 dollars this fall. 

The NRF data projects that this year, American households will spend the most on clothing and accessories.

Electronics such as computers, calculators and phones came in second on the list

“It seems that more and more schools are requiring you to have these things. So no, no surprise there,” said Mark Mathews, Vice-President of Research for the National Retail Federation.

Then there’s back-to-college, where a high need for electronics is where shoppers will put most of their money. They expect to spend almost 1,000 dollars on all of their supplies before even starting classes.

Some of that will go toward showing their school spirit and furnishing their new pads.

“They’re shopping in their university stores and they’re buying a lot of stuff for the dorm rooms,” said Matthews. 

Vatican Museum Showcases the History, Evolution of Radio

Currents News Staff

Transmitters, telegraphs and waves are some of the beginnings of radio, and just a taste of what is contained in the Vatican’s Radio Museum.

It was February 1931 when Pope Paul XI first stepped foot in the same building where the museum now stands to make his very first transmission on radio. Now, the same microphone he used is on display to visitors.

It was a historic moment not only for the Vatican, but the world. This bit of history created by radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi, is protected within the Vatican at the museum.

“The old transmission machine was a Marconi shortwave transmitter in five kilowatts. In addition, there was a recording studio which is on the left,” explained Giorgio Patassini, a Collaborator at Vatican Radio.

“Thus, it was from here where Pope Pius’s first radio transmission was sent out,” he said of the original transmitter, which needed to be managed from within and required water so it wouldn’t overheat.

The original recording studio is just across from the transmitter, where a machine for morse codes is also on display. The machine serves to demonstrate the evolution from dots and dashes to musical notes on an airwave.

“After the First World War experiments were carried out to transmit voice. At that point, instead of being more bidirectional, between a receiver and a transmitter; it became unidirectional,” explained.

“So the signal could be launched in ether, depending on certain directions and forms. Whoever had a machine could hear it, so it no longer had to be two-way,” he added.

The museum also has a Thomas Edison cylinder phonograph showing one of the earliest examples.

From U.S. Army receivers and transmitters to testing out original equipment used at Vatican Radio, these prized possessions help show the progress to where radio is today.

While the Museum hasn’t been used as the headquarters for Vatican Radio for many years, it still has a purpose. FM Waves are located outside.

Official: Youth Called to be Leaders and Protagonists in the Church

By Christopher White, The Tablet’s National Correspondent

NEW YORK — More than 100 Catholic theologians and young people will gather this week beginning on July 31 for the first U.S. summit focused on Pope Francis’s major letter on young people released last spring.

The event is taking place at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

Paul Jarzembowski, who oversees Youth and Young Adult Ministries for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops believes the gathering, known as the National Dialogue, will be an occasion to follow in Francis’s footsteps and “mobilize the Church towards greater unity and engagement of youth and young adults.”

Ahead of the gathering, he spoke with The Tablet about how the event builds on last year’s Encuentro and the Synod on Young People and how he believes the Church can move forward on these issues in the shadow of the clergy abuse scandals.

The Tablet: For starters, what’s the history of the National Dialogue and why should your average Catholic care about it?

The National Dialogue is a response to polarization, disengagement, and indifference present in society and in the Church and in particular among youth and young adults. It actually originated from the observations of everyday Catholics and ministry leaders who noticed these realities playing out in their local communities and churches. These voices and the concerns raised were heard by national leaders several years ago, who started this ball rolling.

Since then, this initiative, taken up by the key national organizations focused on youth and young adults and affirmed by the USCCB, was echoed internationally when Pope Francis called a synod to respond to similar experiences on a global scale. The Holy Spirit was truly at work as the National Dialogue organizers were able to connect their ideas with the Synod and the Fifth National Encuentro processes.

The National Dialogue then, unfolded over three phases, corresponding to the realities being addressed and inspired by Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium(in particular, #222-#237): 1) unity; 2) engagement; and 3) mobilization.  The project was launched at the USCCB Convocation of Catholic Leaders in July 2017 and has continued through leadership network gatherings, local conversations and listening, and laying out plans for implementation – based on what was heard. This initiative will continue through 2020, but the mobilization begun in this final phase will last well beyond that.

The final result is ultimately how to impact local Catholic communities: To foster collaboration, to more intentionally encounter, accompany, and listen to the realities of youth and young adults, and to invest in building community, ministry, and missionary discipleship among youth, collegians, and young adults of all cultural families. When that is being done in more and more parishes and local apostolates, then this initiative will have been a success.

How do you take dialogue between young people and theologians and turn it into action?

The Voice + Vision conference will be a dialogue moment between ministry leaders, theologians, and young people.  While there will be some presentations and conversations, the end goal of the event is to start crafting action plans. After this event, the theologians and academics will study this more, and explore ways to train leaders more effectively for ministry, while the pastoral ministers and young people will focus on implementation strategies and mobilizing all levels of Church leadership. There is a process, and the National Dialogue core team will help both groups through that journey.

In his final words in Christus Vivit, Pope Francis said, “And when you arrive where we have not yet reached, have the patience to wait for us.” (299). In other words, the process to turn ideas into realities takes time, effort, and collaboration – so this won’t happen overnight. However, working together with a common goal can yield bold steps.

Christus Vivit, and in many respects last October’s Synod, have been overshadowed by the clergy abuse scandals. How do you envision moving beyond that and actually advancing both the document and Pope Francis’s call for accompanying young people?

Now more than ever, the Church needs positive, safe, and healthy examples of encounter, accompaniment, and community with young people.  Now more than ever, it needs healing and accountability. The National Dialogue does not seek to move beyond the realities facing us today, but to mobilize the Church towards greater unity and engagement of youth and young adults.

We need to be attentive to both repairing the damage and building a healthy, safe, and innovative space where young people can encounter Christ and the community of the Church, can find healing and renewal, and can become disciples on mission to transform the world in light of the Gospel. That is what Evangelii Gaudium and Christus Vivit are calling for. To do this, we need collaboration and support across generational, cultural, and ministerial lines.

You were recently in Rome leading a delegation of young adults who were participating in a Synod follow-up event. What was the purpose of that gathering and what were your major takeaways?

Pope Francis wrote Christus Vivit as a summons to young people to step up and become missionary disciples. It was addressed first to them. The gathering in Rome this summer, then, was a chance to ask them: how do you understand Christus Vivit, and how should we together – young and young-at-heart alike – take the initial steps it calls for?  This was also a chance to come full circle with the synodal process.  It was modeling what synodality looks like on a global scale: the Synod had preparatory consultations leading up to it, and this was the follow-up consultations coming from it. The Synod last October was a mountaintop moment, but the implementation will need to take place in the valleys – in the local communities around the world.

One of the key takeaways was that the Church is global and intercultural, and I was amazed to hear stories and the lived realities in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Latin America.  It reminded me that, in the United States, we have a bit of a microcosm of the world in our intercultural context, as we are – at heart – an immigrant nation. At the Forum and at any of these international gatherings related to Christus Vivit, including the ever-popular World Youth Day, there has been a peace between peoples, a love and compassion that is often lost in a divided society. Can we bring that spirit not only into our local Catholic communities, but also into our civil discourse and our everyday, lived experiences? Perhaps this is the wisdom in a Synod and a National Dialogue focusing on youth and young adults, who can help us see beyond our differences and see Christ reflected in one another.

Another takeaway was the leadership and protagonism that youth and especially young adults are being called to take up. Young people are not just the “next” generation who will take up the mantle one day in the future. Rather, they are, as Pope Francis says, “the now of God” and can step into those leadership roles in our churches right now. In fact, it is important to remember that “young people” includes adults. The individuals whom the Vatican brought together in Rome were between the ages of 18 and 30. These are young adults – in college, in the working world, in military service, those who are single and those getting married and those discerning religious life. In many of our churches in the United States, there is often very little taking place for young adults. This needs to change, and I hope this process leads to that.

Lastly, last year’s Encuentro will also be a part of these discussions. How so? 

The Fifth Encuentro process is part of the National Dialogue, and a part of the Voice + Vision gathering. Most of the speakers and facilitators, including the bishops present, were part of the synodal journey and the Encuentro experience. Cardinal Cupich and Bishop Caggiano were Synod Fathers present in Rome last fall, and Bishop Cepeda was and continues to be a key leader for the Encuentro process. The results of the V Encuentro will be assessed during the Voice + Vision event and factor into the National Dialogue implementation strategies.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Prepare for Second Debate

Currents News Staff

It’s time for round two as July 30 marks the start of the second Democratic debate, a two-night affair with 20 presidential candidates making their pitch to the American people. 

Things are revving up Detroit, the Motor City, as candidates take the stage for the second time.

“I’m looking forward to sharing the best of America on that stage, because we’re running to make sure that American can achieve her best,” said Beto O’Rourke, Democratic Presidential Candidate. 

“I’m looking forward to being on that stage with people that are vying for the most important job in our country,” said Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Cory Booker. 

With the Democratic National Committee setting stricter requirements for the third debate in September, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Over the next two nights top-tier candidates will be aiming to fuel their lead while those lesser known will attempt to reverse course, or risk permanently stalling out.

“My name is is still lower than for several of the other candidates, So I want to make sure that I continue to introduce myself and talk about the vision that I have for the future of this country,” said Julian Castro, a Democratic Presidential Candidate. 

Governor Steve Bullock, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, John Delaney and John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke are among Tuesday’s debate participants.

Tim Ryan and Marianne Williamson, as well as progressive candidates and frontrunners Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, will also be among those going head to head for the first time. 

“I do not attack my fellow Democrats. And what I try to do is whenever I’m asked is talk about my vision, and try to talk about the positive vision of what we can do come 2020,” said Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Pope Francis: Prostitution is a ‘Wound to Humanity’

Currents News Staff

“A disease of humanity, a disgusting vice that confuses making love with airing out one’s instincts by torturing a defenseless woman.” With these strong words, Pope Francis described the tragedy of prostitution.

He said that it was a wound to humanity’s collective conscience and that person cannot be put up for sale.

Those were just some of words contained in the prologue of a new book, titled ‘Crucified Women’ by Father Aldo Buonaiuto. In it, Pope Francis recalled how he felt when he visited a group of former prostitutes during the Year of Mercy.

“Today, I ask you all for forgiveness. For all the Christians, for all the Catholics, who have abused you. And I also for forgiveness on my part, for not having sufficiently prayed for you and for this slavery,” he told them.

He said he never thought to meet women who “were truly crucified,” and hoped that the book will help others understand that if high customer demands are not stopped, it will be impossible to counteract exploitation and humiliation.

Additionally, he said that freeing women in circumstances of being “poor slaves” is a gesture of mercy and duty for all men.

Pope Francis also said that no one should ignore nor wash their hands of innocent blood that is spilled on the world’s streets.

These strong words were made public on the eve of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons on July 30th.

According to the United Nations, 72 percent of the victims of this crime against humanity are women and girls.

Currents News for Monday, July 29, 2019

On the newscast: the final goodbye at a Queens church after a deadly house fire claimed three lives; The big mystery at the Vatican. Hundreds of bones are discovered but they offer no hint about a missing teenage girl; Baltimore Archbishop William Lori is taking on President Trump after his tweet that no one would want to live in the city; And the priest who loves the Mets. He’s not from around here but he’s still a big fan.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

President Trump Signs 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund Bill

By Emily Drooby

For months activists have been fighting for the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund Bill to pass. Supports say that it gives first responders, victims and their families some peace of mind by paying mounting medical bills stemming from their time at the pile.

Most importantly, it reminds America’s heroes that their country is still there for them.

By signing the ‘Never Forget the Heroes Act’ into law, President Trump has made good on that promise to those most affected by that day.

“Today we come together as one nation to support our September 11th heroes to care for their families and to renew our eternal vow, never ever forget,” said President Trump.

On July 29 he signed the legislation which authorizes money for the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund which pays out claims for both deaths and illnesses related to the attack and the recovery effort.

This signing created a long-awaited financial stability for the heroes of 9/11 and their families – stability that for months, first responder John Feal has been fighting for.

“These men and women, uniformed and non-uniformed, the children of Lower Manhattan are sick and dying and their families are being left in financial ruins,” he said.

This is a fight John shared with fellow 9/11 first responder Luis Alvarez, whose testimony in support of the bill just weeks before his death was watched by millions.

“You all said you would never forget, well I’m here to see that you don’t,” he said.

Those powerful words inspired both the House and the Senate to pass the legislation that Alvarez never got a chance to see.

He passed away last month from 9/11 related cancer, but his son spoke out at a press conference in his absence.

“He said that he was coming down here to make sure that you never forget and I want to thank you for not forgetting him, not forgetting all of the other first responders who tirelessly worked to see this pass,” said David Alvarez.

In the 18 years since 9/11, Alvarez’s story has become too familiar. 2,000 deaths have been attributed to 9/11 related illnesses and 10,000 first responders and victims have been diagnosed with cancer.

The dangerous dust and toxins that covered lower Manhattan are now causing those who were exposed to it other devastating diseases.

The bill was named for Alvarez and two other first responders who lost their life to a 9/11-related illness: NYPD Detective James Zadroga and FDNY firefighter Ray Pfeife.

During the signing, President Trump commemorated them, their families and all of the other heroes who risked everything for the U.S. that day.

“You lift up our communities and you remind us all what it means to stand united as one nation under God,” he told them.

The 9/11 fund was in big trouble until heroes like Luis Alvarez and comedian Jon Stewart put Congress in the hot seat. The compensation program was running out of money, with predictions that the number of survivors with related diseases would soar in the future.

Now, the fund is bankrolled until the year 2090.

The estimates are that many will die from the illnesses they contracted while breathing the deadly air there, and experts say the number of deaths from 9/11-related cancers and other diseases will outnumber the almost 3,000 people who died on September 11, 2001.