Pope Francis envoy to Ukraine Cardinal Matteo Zuppi on June 6, 2023, finished a "brief but intense" two-day visit to Kyiv, which included a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. / Credit: Vatican News/YouTubeCNA Newsroom, Jun 6, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA).Pope Francis envoy to Ukraine Cardinal Matteo Zuppi on Tuesday finished a "brief but intense" two-day visit to Kyiv, which included a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy."The results of these talks, such as those with religious representatives, as well as the direct experience of the atrocious suffering of the Ukrainian people as a result of the ongoing war, will be brought to the Holy Father s attention," the Holy See Press Office said in a bulletin Tuesday. Zuppi s conversations "will undoubtedly be useful in assessing the steps to be taken both on the humanitarian level and in the search for paths to a just and lasting peace," the bulletin said.On Tuesday morning, Zuppi stopped
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