St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. / Credit: Alexander Peterson/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Jun 5, 2023 / 12:20 pm (CNA).Nobel laureates, Grammy-winner Andrea Bocelli, and several former heads of state will join Pope Francis in St. Peter s Square on Saturday night for the World Meeting on Human Fraternity.The June 10 event, called "#Not Alone," will culminate with Pope Francis signing a document calling for a commitment to human fraternity drafted by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners together with representatives of former Nobel Prize-winning organizations.Young people representing different countries will also form "a symbolic embrace" by joining hands in a ring around St. Peter s Square, according to the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, the sponsor of the event.Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter s Basilica, described the upcoming meeting as "a great day of celebration and unity inspired by Pope Francis encyclical Fratelli Tutti, transcending
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter s Basilica, presides over a penitential rite on June 3, 2023, two days after a Polish man stripped naked and stood on the basilica s high altar. / Vatican MediaWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 3, 2023 / 08:04 am (CNA).Two days after a naked man stood on the high altar of St. Peter s Basilica in a shocking security breach, the basilica s archpriest on Saturday held a penitential rite as required by canon law in cases where sacred places are desecrated.Vatican News reported that the unidentified man was a Polish national who approached the high altar on June 1 as the basilica was about to close. He quickly undressed and climbed onto the altar. Photos posted online showed the words "Save children of Ukraine" written in marker on his back."As officers of the Vatican Gendarmerie approached, the man did not resist but cooperated as they led him to the police station inside the Vatican," the Vatican News report said. "Aft
Pope Francis prays at his Wednesday audience in St. Peter s Square on April 12, 2023. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNAVatican City, Jun 4, 2023 / 06:45 am (CNA).Pope Francis prayed Sunday for the victims of a train crash in India that killed at least 275 people."I am close to the injured and their families. May our heavenly Father welcome the souls of the deceased into his kingdom," he said in his Angelus address on June 4. Hundreds of people were injured in the crash in the Balasore district of Odisha state, India s worst rail crash in over two decades, according to Reuters. The crash was caused by an error in a passenger train s electronic signaling system, which led it to change tracks and hit another train, which derailed. The two trains were carrying 2,296 people in total when they collided.The pope also sent a condolence telegram to India s apostolic nuncio Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli the day after the accident. The telegram sent on the pope s behalf by Vatican Secretary of State
Sister Scholastica Radel (left) and Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, discuss the recent exhumation of the order's foundress, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, in an interview with EWTN News In Depth on May 30, 2023, at their abbey in Gower, Missouri. / EWTN NewsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 4, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).Her flashlight was dim, so when Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell first peered inside the cracked coffin lid and saw a human foot inside a black sock where one would expect to find only bone and dust, she didn t say anything.Instead, she took a step back, collected herself, and leaned in for another look, just to be sure. Then she screamed for joy."I will never forget that scream for as long as I live," recalled Sister Scholastica Radel, the prioress, who was among the members of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, who were present to exhume the remains of their foundress, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster."It was a ver
Pope Francis delivers his Angelus address on June 4, 2023. / Vatican MediaVatican City, Jun 4, 2023 / 06:05 am (CNA).Each time that a Catholic makes the sign of the cross, it is a reminder that God is a communion of love, Pope Francis said Sunday.Speaking on the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the pope highlighted how the simple gesture that Catholics are taught as children is a sign of the central mystery of Christian faith. "By tracing the cross on our body, we remind ourselves how much God loved us, to the point of giving his life for us; and we repeat to ourselves that his love envelops us completely, from top to bottom, from left to right, like an embrace that never abandons us," Pope Francis said on June 4."Yes, brothers and sisters, our God is a communion of love: this is how Jesus revealed him to us," he added.Pope Francis invited the crowd gathered in St. Peter s Square to make the sign of the cross together."God is love. God is Father, Son and Hol