WORLDWIDE
NEWS & VIEWS
with a Catholic slant
HEADLINES:
Holy Father hammers home need to reduce and eliminate debts out of love for our fellow man during his Wednesday Papal Audience
The Holy Father continued with his theme of love and compassion, reminding all of the necessity to either forgive debts or reduce them so that the burden is lightened in striving for reconciliation among all God's children. He made his comments before 12,000 at St. Peter's Square during his regular Wednesday Papal Audience reinforcing that to those who have been given much, much is expected and this includes compassion for the poor and erasing international debts that prohibit them from enjoying the rewards of human dignity. For more, click on Wednesday Papal Audience
Foreign intrigue inside Vatican as documents reveal KGB plot to assassinate Pope and disrupt the Church
It reads like a John LeCarre spy novel but the facts are that the KGB had infiltrated the Vatican, planting bugs to spy on the Holy See in an attempt to assassinate the Holy Father in retaliation for his instrumentation in bringing down the Iron Curtain and to throw the Church into disaray. Thank God it was foiled. For more, click on satan and the KGB.
Controversy erupts over need for a local inquiry regarding Mother Teresa's beatification process
Accepting the holiness of Mother Teresa, a high-ranking faculty member of St. Francis Xavier High School in Calcutta raises the challenge to the Holy See, in the case of Mother, to forego the local diocesan level investigation and allow the Vatican to bypass this process for someone of her known holy credentials. While it makes sense in expediting the process, the current process for beatification provides a fail-safe method to assure that the person is worthy. Mother's successor Sister Nirmala refused to get embroiled in the controversy. For more, click on Debate over Expediting Mother Teresa's Beatification Process .
Church comes to the aid of storm victims in India as Pope sends his condolences on eve of his trip to India
Just days away from his Papal Trip to India, the Holy Father extended his condolences to the storm victims in Oressi, India where a devastating storm has rendered over a million homeless and killed 10,000 people. So many times when one sees a lavish dinner prepared for many, the comment comes - think of how that money could help the poor. That is exactly what is happening this time as the Church in India is cancelling the planned dinner for 200 Asian bishops coming together in New Delhi for the Pope's visit. Instead the Church is turning over the money earmarked for the dinner to help the victims. For more, click on Putting money where their mouths would have been.
For more headlines and articles, we suggest you go to the Catholic World News site at the
CWN home page and Church News at Noticias Eclesiales and the features, dossiers and Daily Dispatches at ZENIT International News Agency. CWN, NE and ZENIT are not affiliated with the Daily CATHOLIC but provide this service via e-mail to the Daily CATHOLIC Monday through Friday.
Coming
this weekend:
The 27th selection of the TOP 100 CATHOLICS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Another pertinent editorial in CATHOLIC PewPOINT
Heart-filled words from Sister Mary Lucy Astuto in her column GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Forty-fifth installment of our new daily feature APPRECIATING THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF OUR FAITH
Time Capsules in Church History with MILLENNIUM MILESTONES AND MEMORIES focusing on November 5th through 7th
DAILY LITURGY for the weekend of the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Another gem from SIMPLY SHEEN and we highlight another Prince of the Church: Cardinal Jan Pieter Schotte, C.I.C.M. of Belgium in our COLLEGE OF CARDINALS COLLECTION
...and much more in our 210th issue for 1999!
To review past articles in textonly format, click on Archives.
TOP 100 CATHOLICS OF THE CENTURY Countdown - Number 28: Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. Dynamic Friar who embodies all that Saint Francis and Saint Bonaventure taught in reaching out to the poor of New York as well as educating the millions of minds and hearts on EWTN
Today we bring you the 28th person selected out of the TOP 100 CATHOLICS OF THE CENTURY. The voters chose Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., one of the founding fathers of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal who is so well-known from his 17 years as a regular on EWTN. Last week we featured in this section the pupil in Father Frank Pavone; today we feature the teacher - Father Benedict who has taught numerous priests and religious over the past thirty some years. When he is not teaching or preaching, he is distributing food and clothing at one of the many shelters and friaries he oversees in New York City. For more on the 28th selection, click on FATHER BENEDICT GROESCHEL, C.F.R.
"For what does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?"
Matthew 16: 26
In his column today, Pat Ludwa reminds us of two saints whose virtues are applicable for our times. Having just celebrated the Solemnity of All Saints, we remember that addage "To live with the saints in Heaven, oh what glory; to live with the saints on earth, that's another story!" But we doubt one would have found it difficult to live with Saint Francis of Assisi or Saint Thomas More because of their sincere humility and obedience to all God commanded. Pat shows how one turned his back on material power, and the other turned his back on political power for there was a far greater prize awaiting them in the Heavenly kingdom. It is a reminder for all of us during these times when we are inundated by the lure of riches and status what is really important to us. For Pat's column Two special saints for our times!, click on VIEW FROM THE PEW
Appreciation of the Church's constant vigilance against Heresy and Schism in the second millennium
Today we continue with our new series in the search to uncover the wonderful treasures of the Church contained in the great Deposit of Faith. We conclude our two part feature on the Church's vigilance against Heresy and Schism, assuring all of Christ's promise that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16: 18). For the forty-fifth installment, click on APPRECIATING THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF OUR FAITH
Events that happened this day in Church History
Today is the 470th anniversary of the day when the Archbishop of York Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was arrested by King Henry VIII for his resistance to the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Ann Boleyn. Unlike Saint Thomas More who was also arrested and is featured in Pat Ludwa's VIEW FROM THE PEW today, Wolsey hedged and did not fully commit, fearful of his own life and therefore lost any opportunity among his fellow Conclave peers to be the next Pope. He had been one of the leading candidates to replace Pope Hadrian VI. For other pertinent events throughout the centuries that are memorable in Church history today, click on MILLENNIUM MILESTONES AND MEMORIES
SIMPLY SHEEN: Talk is cheap when there's no sincerity
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the words of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen have been known to launch a thousand images in one's mind, one of the ways this late luminary did so much to evangelize the faith. Because of the urgency of the times and because few there are today who possess the wisdom, simplicity and insight than the late Archbishop who touched millions, we are bringing you daily gems from his writings. The good bishop makes it so simple that we have dubbed this daily series: "SIMPLY SHEEN".
"The burden is on the strong. The fit must minister to the unfit; the rich must aid the poor. The blind man who tramples our flowers is not to be the object of toleration; rather, the loss of his sight must be felt by us as a personal loss. How often today writers and novelists take on the air of supporting the weak, the poor and the disinherited, but how few ever give any of their royalties to assist those whose misery made their fortune."
The clarion sounds as a wake-up call to Catholics as we provide a review of all past articles on the Church today
Like our other feature series, we present installments 1 through 105 of this series which is a set blueprint for Catholics everywhere to take up the banner of truth in defending Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as we prepare for this glorious event - the second coming of Christ and the Reign of the Sacred Heart, the Second Pentecost, the Era of the Eucharistic Presence, the Advent of Peace. To read any of the over one-hundred previous installments in this long on-going series, click on the Archives ofWHERE IS HOLY MOTHER CHURCH HEADING AS WE NEAR THE MILLENNIUM?
The DAILY WORD
"What man of you having a hundred sheep, and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it upon his shoulders rejoicing...I say to you that, even so, there will be joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance." Luke 15: 4-5, 7
DAILY LITURGY
Today is the Feast of the Bishop Saint Charles Borromeo while tomorrow we commemorate the Thirty-first Friday in Ordinary Time and FIRST FRIDAY For the readings, liturgies, meditations, and profile on this saint, click on DAILY LITURGY.
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