The image of the Virgin of Ireland in the Cathedral of Gyor, Hungary. / Credit: Diocese of GyorACI Prensa Staff, Mar 17, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).On March 17, 1697, on the feast day of St. Patrick and in the same year penal laws were enacted in Ireland banning Catholic bishops and priests from the country, an image of the Virgin Mary known as the Weeping Irish Madonna shed tears of blood for three hours.The painting is now kept in the cathedral of Gyor, Hungary, where it was taken by the bishop of Clonfert, Walter Lynch, when he fled from Ireland due to the English persecution of the Catholic Church led by Oliver Cromwell. The image, whose original name was Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted, shows the Mother of God with her hands folded in prayer as she looks down upon the Infant Jesus, who is lying in a little bed.Bishop Lynch removed the image from the Clonfert cathedral to keep it out of impious hands and fled with it to Vienna, Austria, where he met the bishop of Gyor, H.
Pope Francis heard confessions at a parish in Rome on Friday, March 17, 2023, and encouraged people to remember that God "holds out his hand and lifts us up whenever we realize that we are hitting rock bottom. " / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Mar 17, 2023 / 12:30 pm (CNA).Pope Francis heard confessions at a parish in Rome on Friday and encouraged people to remember that God "holds out his hand and lifts us up whenever we realize that we are hitting rock bottom. "In the presence of eucharistic adoration, the pope presided over a Lenten penitential service on March 17 to open "24 Hours for the Lord," an initiative in which certain Catholic churches around the world will remain open 24 consecutive hours with round-the-clock confession and adoration."Brothers, sisters, let us remember this: The Lord comes to us when we step back from our presumptuous ego. … He can bridge the distance whenever, with honesty and sincerity, we bring our
Church of the Sacred Heart in Bordeaux, France. / Credit: Olivier432 - Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).The walls of Sacred Heart Church, located in downtown Bordeaux, France, were vandalized with satanic graffiti and communist and anarchist symbols the night of March 12-13.In addition, the vandals burned trash on the church s esplanade.The news was confirmed on March 13 by Constance Pluviaud, head of communications for the Archdiocese of Bordeaux."On the night of March 12-13, the door and some of the walls of the façade of the Church of the Sacred Heart were defaced with graffiti. A trash fire in front of the church was extinguished by firefighters called to the scene. This fire did not damage the church," the archdiocese reported in a statement.Pictures on social media show messages such as "Lucifer is right," "Devil, take me with you," "Thank you, Satan," and "The neighbors hate the Church.&
Father Sean Gough, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England, faced criminal charges for praying for free speech outside an abortion clinic after business hours in violation of a strict buffer zone law in the English city of Birmingham. "I pray wherever I go, inside my head, for the people around me. How can it be a crime for a priest to pray?" he said in a Feb. 9, 2023, statement from the ADF UK legal group. / Credit: ADF UKDenver, Colo., Mar 16, 2023 / 12:52 pm (CNA).Catholic bishops in the United Kingdom said a new law criminalizing prayer and outreach outside abortion clinics in England and Wales discriminates against people of faith."We lament that prayer, holding certain views, or peacefully witnessing to the Gospel of life in certain zones across these lands may now be a criminal offense," Auxiliary Bishop John Sherrington of Westminster, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales lead bishop for life issues, said March 15.&quo
null / Credit: Cherries/ShutterstockWashington D.C., Mar 15, 2023 / 10:30 am (CNA).A group of Jewish parents filed a lawsuit Monday against the California Department of Education, calling for the state to provide religious schools with equal access to special needs education funding for their students.Under California law, federal and state special education funding is available to public schools and secular private schools. However, state law prohibits these funds from going to private religious schools, such as the Orthodox Jewish schools these California parents want their children to attend. The prohibition also applies to Catholic schools, Protestant Christian schools, Muslim schools, and any other religiously affiliated school."It takes a special kind of chutzpah to deny Jewish kids with disabilities equal access to special education benefits," Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement. Becket, which provides pro bono lega