From March 5 to 8, 2021, Pope Francis will visit the troubled Land of Two Rivers, a common translation of the old name, Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. Accepting the invitations of the Republic of Iraq and the local Catholic Church, Pope Francis is due to make an apostolic journey to the country, visiting Baghdad, the Plain of Ur, which is linked to the memory of Abraham, the city of Erbil, as well as Mosul, Qaraqosh, on the Plain of Nineveh,...
Pope Francis’ visit to Iraq (March 5-8, 2021)[1] will bring to the attention of Christians around the world and of the international community the issue of the survival of Christian communities in Middle Eastern regions that, because of wars, tribal conflicts and poverty, risk disappearing forever. These are very ancient communities, many of apostolic foundation. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil of the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq and founder of the Catholic University of Erbil, said in a recent interview:...
On December 30, 2020, the European Union and China completed political negotiations for a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). The pact was signed at the end of a videoconference involving Chinese President Xi Jinping and top European representatives: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission; Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the rotating President of the EU Council. President Emmanuel Macron of France was also connected.[1] In general terms, the agreement reflects...
January 6 should have been a day of quiet confidence for American Catholics. Joe Biden had been elected president and the Congress was about to confirm the popular vote. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as she opened the House session, took note of the Feast of the Epiphany and prayed the Peace Prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, “Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is darkness, may you [sic] bring light. Where there is hatred,...
Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti (FT) resonates as a passionate tribute to a fraternity without borders. If fraternity has a distinctive “local flavor,” Francis asserts, it is necessarily lived in a context of universality. Living a kind of fraternity that “integrates and unites” should appear as a kind of imperative, as an obvious fact that is accepted; yet, as Francis writes, “there are those who appear to feel encouraged or at least permitted by their faith to support varieties of...
“Arabian smallpox maliciously undermines man at the threshold of life and preys on the human species almost destroying it in its birth. This very sad thought is exacerbated by the repeated heavy losses of life caused by the disease and should persuade everyone to embrace with great enthusiasm and receive with equal gratitude the inoculation vaccine, a method that is as simple as it is effective in curbing the poisonous force of the disease.” These words are from the Edict...
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