Canonization Mass for St. Artemide Zatti and St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini on Oct. 9, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, May 20, 2023 / 05:40 am (CNA).Pope Francis on Saturday approved the beatification of a young Italian priest martyred by Nazis during World War II, and advanced the beatification causes of eight other men and women.Father Giuseppe Beotti was one month shy of his 32nd birthday when he was shot by the Germans after refusing to leave his parish despite threats to his life. "As long as there is a soul to care for, I stay in my place," he is recorded as saying.Beotti was born in a small town just south of Naples in 1912. Three years later, his father, a farm laborer, was forced to leave his wife and five children to fight in World War I. As a young man, Beotti felt called to the priesthood, and despite his family s lack of financial resources, managed to attend seminary in northern Italy.He was ordained a priest in 1938 at the age of 25, and two years l
Members of an Italian pro-life and pro-family organization marched in the "Demonstration for Life" May 20, 2023, with a banner saying "There's life in the mother's womb. Let's care for it. #stopabortion" / Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, May 20, 2023 / 12:48 pm (CNA).Thousands of individuals, families, and young people braved the cool, rainy weather to march in Italy s national "Demonstration for Life" in Rome on Saturday afternoon.The walk May 20 started at Rome s Piazza della Repubblica, close to the central Termini train station, and slowly wound its way past the Basilica of St. Mary Major, down the thoroughfare of Merulana Street, to the square in front of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The route was about 1.2 miles.Formerly called the "March for Life," the name was changed last year when new leadership took over the event.The president of the organizing group, Massimo Gandolfini, told EWTN News earlier this month that the d
null / Torwaistudio, ShutterstockACI Prensa Staff, May 20, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).In the developing sexual abuse of minors scandal involving Jesuits in Bolivia, a May 13 article in the Spanish newspaper El País implicated two other priests, Francesc Peris and Carlos Villamil, and also published the testimonies of eight alleged victims.The Jesuits asked the victims to make a formal complaint with the Society of Jesus and offered their assistance in filing a complaint with the public prosecutor. El País broke the initial story on the scandal April 29 in a report titled "Diary of a pedophile priest," stating that Jesuit priest Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno, who died in 2009, sexually abused as many as 85 minors in Bolivia, based on admissions found in his own diary.Peris, known as "Checho," and Villamil, nicknamed "Vicu," allegedly committed the abuse in the 1980s when both priests worked at the John XXIII school in Cochabamba, where Pedrajas also worked.Vill
Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, was made a cardinal during the consistory of Oct. 5, 2019. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.Rome Newsroom, May 20, 2023 / 11:46 am (CNA).Cardinal Matteo Zuppi has been asked by Pope Francis to head a peace mission between Russia and Ukraine on behalf of the Vatican, the Holy See press office director said Saturday."The timing of such a mission, and its modes, are currently being studied," Matteo Bruni said in a brief statement to journalists May 20.Bruni said Pope Francis hopes the operation, which will be carried out in agreement with the Secretariat of State, "can initiate paths of peace."Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops conference, has strong ties to the influential Sant Egidio Community.Sant Egidio is a Catholic lay association that aids migrants and promotes ecumenism. It has also helped negotiate reconciliation, including by holding peace talks in countries like Mozambique and South S
Statue of Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, Bosnia Herzegovina. / Gnuckx via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).Rome Newsroom, May 20, 2023 / 08:42 am (CNA).An institution has been formed in Rome to study alleged Marian apparitions and other supernatural phenomena in the Catholic Church.The International Observatory on Marian Apparitions and Mystical Phenomenon (OISA) was established in April and is part of the Pontifical International Marian Academy.The objective of the observatory is to research alleged Marian apparitions and other phenomena, such as the apparent crying or bleeding of Marian statues and images, whose authenticity have not yet been declared by the competent authority.Sister Daniela del Gaudio, a Franciscan sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is the director of the observatory.The task of the observatory is not "to judge or intervene in alleged apparitions or phenomena, but to study how these events take place and to give information and support to the bishops of the various dioc.