“AT HOME WITH JIM AND JOY”…AND OTHER FRIENDS – POPE BAPTIZES SIAMESE TWINS, MOTHER THANKS HIM

There is a rather surprising link between my first story and that of the Pope baptizing newly-separated Siamese twins.

Most Mondays and every Friday, I go to La Vittoria for dinner. I was seated outside last night and at a certain point an Italian women, obviously intending to eat inside, stopped at my table near the door, smiled and asked, somewhat hesitatingly, if she had seen me earlier filming near St. Peter’s Square. I replied that indeed I had been filming for a Catholic television program and she told me she recognized the ‘lovely blue dress’ I had been wearing in the square and at dinner.

I learned her name was Carmela. She asked me what my work entailed and I told her that my TV segments, radio shows and writings focused on the Vatican, the papacy, and the Catholic Church. I explained that the program for which she saw me filming in the square was called “At Home With Jim and Joy” and focused on marriage, the family and pro-life issues.

Carmela told me of her volunteer work with Catholic institutions, including Rome’s Bambin Gesu pediatric hospital, adding that because of Covid, volunteer work was at a minimum.

She then recounted that some of her friends at Bambin Gesu told her of Siamese twins who had been separated at the hospital and then blessed by the Pope. I had not heard the story and – lo and behold! – it appeared today on the pages of Vatican News. Except the Pope had not just blessed the girls, he baptized them.

And now you know another reason why I love going to La Vittoria – for the stories I hear and the people I meet!

“AT HOME WITH JIM AND JOY”…AND OTHER FRIENDS

As most of you probably know, I appear every week on “At Home with Jim and Joy” on their Monday edition (the show also airs Wednesday and Fridays). There was a technical glitch yesterday that showed a different clip from Rome than the one I filmed for the show. That has been remedied and the show can be seen here (the segment starts at 19:40): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bCj9PoYtEU

The theme of last night’s program was friends and friendships and their meaning in our lives. In high school we were asked to write a poem about friendship. I searched for the original (which I know I have in my vast archives) and did not find it but I do remember the first words: “True friendship is a priceless treasure, a bright star whose light never fades…”

I also told Jim and Joy: “And God indeed has graced my life with amazing, beautiful friends – friends all around the world – lay friends, priest friends, friends in the Roman Curia, so many members of my parish here in Rome – people who have been there in both the tumultuous and joyful moments of my journey. And the tumultuous moments certainly include the Covid era we are living through! Weeks and months – maybe even now for many! – of being unable to be in the presence of those friends – to share, listen, understand, advise – even to hug them! That’s what I miss most! But just knowing they are there for me and that I am here for them is another kind of grace.”

And many of you reading this column know full well I am describing you!

POPE BAPTIZES SIAMESE TWINS, MOTHER THANKS HIM

Hermine Nzotto, the mother of conjoined baby girls who were successfully separated in an extraordinary surgery at Rome’s Bambino Gesù hospital in June, writes to Pope Francis, thanking him for baptizing her daughters a few days ago.

By Robin Gomes

Hermine Nzotto wrote a letter to Pope Francis who recently baptized her twin baby girls.   In her letter, Nzotto, a native of the Central African Republic (CAR), recounts her life as a “peasant girl from the forest” in the town of Mbaiki, some 100 km from the capital Bangui, where her Siamese twins were born with fused skulls on June 29, 2018.

Hope of Holy Door in CAR
The twins were transferred to Bangui, where they were cared for in a hospital built with the help of Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital, a Vatican-owned hospital in Rome. The unit built in the Central African Republic was a project started after Pope Francis visited the war-torn country in November 2015.

In Bangui, the hospital made arrangements and transferred the mother and her daughters to Rome on September 10, 2018, to see if they could be separated.  At the end of the third surgery on June 5 that ran for 18-hours and involved some 30 specialists, the two girls, Ervina and Prefina, were successfully separated. They were baptized by Pope Francis recently at a private ceremony at Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.

During his 2015 visit to Bangui, the Pope had launched the Jubilee of Mercy by opening the Holy Door of the cathedral.  That door assumes an added significance for the mother and her daughters, as Nzotto expresses in her letter to the Pope.

“Baptizing my miraculous Mary and Frances by Your Holiness assures me that God is truly close to the least,” Nzotto writes to the Pope, using the baby girls’ baptismal names. “If tomorrow my daughters are able to be among the luckiest children on earth who go to school and learn what I do not know and which I now desire to know, and one day to be able to read Bible verses to my daughters, then it is not a Holy Door that you opened in Bangui in 2015, which closed a year later.

Rather, she continues, “it is a bridge that you built for eternity, which needy people like me and people of goodwill like the team of doctors who are treating my separated inseparable ones can cross.”

In her letter, the mother of the two girls expresses her heartfelt gratitude to the doctors of the Bambino Gesù Hospital, Dr Mariella Enoc, the president of the hospital who arranged her transfer and the surgery and Dr Carlo Efisio Marras, the head of the Neurosurgery department, whose team “miraculously separated and resurrected” her daughters.

In conclusion, Hermine Nzotto writes, “Prayer is what can unite the people of the earth.”  Hence, she promises her prayers to Mary for Pope Francis saying, he who dared to defy mosquito bites and visit the CAR during the rebellion in 2015, knows better than her what to ask of the Virgin Mary for the world.

“TOGETHER, CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS MUST SAY NO TO HATRED, NO TO REVENGE AND NO TO VIOLENCE!”

Pope Francis tweeted today. The time has come for new messengers of Christ, ever more generous, more joyful and more holy.

This will be a rather abbreviated column as, in the midst of busyness on so many upcoming projects – WHAM! –  I received an email with a pdf copy of my about-to-be-released book, “A Holy Year in Rome.” and that changed my afternoon agenda a bit! I was very moved and excited to check this out and I’m afraid I lost some time in exploring what promises to be (all modesty aside!) a real best seller! I’ll let you know very soon when and how it will be available!

Today’s projects included researching and writing some material for “At Home with Jim and Joy,” preparing for my three weekly radio shows and editing an interview for “Vatican Insider” this weekend.

Be sure to tune in tonight to “At Home” when I will be bringing news from Rome about Pope Francis’ amazing, just completed six-day, three-nation apostolic trip to Africa.  As you know, “At Home” airs Mondays and Thursdays at 2 pm ET.

One of Pope Francis’ most important moments in the conflict-ridden Central African Republic took place this morning when he met with Muslims at the Grand Mosque of Koudoukou in Bangui. The sad thing about the CAR conflict is that is is a question of a Muslim-Christian conflict. The Pope’s remarks today were very important so I bring you Vatican Radio’s report on that encounter.

Hopefully the Holy Father will rest a bit tomorrow and then tell us all about his remarkable days in Kenya, Uganda and the Central Africa Republic at the Wednesday general audience.

By the way, things are progressing quite nicely in St. Peter’s Square for Christmas. I was briefly in the square this afternoon but did not have my camera so will return tomorrow to take some photos of the building of the Nativity scene – il presepio – in St. Peter’s Square, just in front of the obelisk, and the very colorful decorations on the Christmas tree which is to the right of the obelisk. In past years there have been only silver and gold-colored ornaments but this year they are multi-colored and delightful.

This seems to be an afternoon of gifts.  I just received a lengthy phone call from a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre regarding my investiture as a Lady into the Order on December 18 and 19!  I am very excited and also very humbled to have been invited into the Order, but more than anything I am overjoyed to be able to play some small part in helping Christians in the Holy Land that I love so much!

More later about all of these exciting events!

“TOGETHER, CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS MUST SAY NO TO HATRED, NO TO REVENGE AND NO TO VIOLENCE!”

(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Monday morning visited the Grand Mosque of Koudoukou in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, meeting with the city’s Muslim community.

The Holy Father was welcomed to the mosque by the Grand Imam Nehedi Tidjani, along with four other Imam, who accompanied him to the podium.

In his address, Pope Francis recalled the recent violence which has rocked the country, saying “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters.”

“We are well aware that the recent events and acts of violence which have shaken your country were not grounded in properly religious motives. Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace. Christians, Muslims and members of the traditional religions have lived together in peace for many years. […] Together, we must say no to hatred, no to revenge and no to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself.  God is peace, God salam.”

Recalling the upcoming national consultations, the Holy Father said, “We cannot fail to express hope that the forthcoming national consultations will provide the country with leaders capable of bringing Central Africans together, thus becoming symbols of national unity rather than merely representatives of one or another faction.  I strongly urge you to make your country a welcoming home for all its children, regardless of their ethnic origin, political affiliation or religious confession.  The Central African Republic, situated in the heart of Africa, with the cooperation of all her sons and daughters, will then prove a stimulus in this regard to the entire continent.”

Below, please find Pope Francis’ prepared remarks to the Muslim Community of Bangui:

Address of Pope Francis

Meeting with the Muslim Community

Bangui, Central Mosque

30 November 2015

Dear Muslim friends, leaders and followers of Islam,

It is a great joy for me to be with you and I thank you for your warm welcome.  In a particular way I thank Imam Tidiani Moussa Naibi for his kind words of greeting.  My Pastoral Visit to the Central African Republic would not be complete if it did not include this encounter with the Muslim community.

Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters.  We must therefore consider ourselves and conduct ourselves as such.  We are well aware that the recent events and acts of violence which have shaken your country were not grounded in properly religious motives.  Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace.  Christians, Muslims and members of the traditional religions have lived together in peace for many years.  They ought, therefore, to remain united in working for an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the Face of God and whose ultimate aim is to defend particular interests by any and all means, to the detriment of the common good.  Together, we must say no to hatred, no to revenge and no to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself.  God is peace, God salam.

In these dramatic times, Christian and Muslim leaders have sought to rise to the challenges of the moment.  They have played an important role in re-establishing harmony and fraternity among all.  I would like express my gratitude and appreciation for this.  We can also call to mind the many acts of solidarity which Christians and Muslims have shown with regard to their fellow citizens of other religious confessions, by welcoming them and defending them during this latest crisis in your country, as well as in other parts of the world.

We cannot fail to express hope that the forthcoming national consultations will provide the country with leaders capable of bringing Central Africans together, thus becoming symbols of national unity rather than merely representatives of one or another faction.  I strongly urge you to make your country a welcoming home for all its children, regardless of their ethnic origin, political affiliation or religious confession.  The Central African Republic, situated in the heart of Africa, with the cooperation of all her sons and daughters, will then prove a stimulus in this regard to the entire continent.  It will prove a positive influence and help extinguish the smouldering tensions which prevent Africans from benefitting from that development which they deserve and to which they have a right.

Dear friends, dear brothers, I invite you to pray and work for reconciliation, fraternity and solidarity among all people, without forgetting those who have suffered the most as a result of recent events.

May God bless you and protect you! Salam alaikum!