NEWS IN BRIEF – THURSDAY JUNE 2
POPE FRANCIS MET WITH NATIONAL DIRECTORS, CHAPLAINS AND VOLUNTEERS FROM THE STELLA MARIS APOSTOLATE, urging them to be missionaries of compassion and to confront issues that are the fruit of human greed. The Stella Maris apostolate – the name means Star of the Sea – is active in over 300 ports worldwide, offering spiritual and material assistance to sailors, fishermen and their often-distant families. The Pope said, “without sailors, the global economy would come to a standstill; and without fishermen, many parts of the world would starve.” He asked those present to convey his esteem and encouragement to all the sailors and fishermen they come across in their work. He also noted that, “the life of a sailor or fisherman is not only marked by isolation and distance. At times it is also painfully affected by shameful experiences of abuse and injustice, by the snares of those engaged in human trafficking.”
THE VATICAN ANNOUNCED THAT ON MONDAY JULY 1, 2019, at 10 am in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Francis will preside over the celebration of the Third Hour and the Ordinary Public Consistory for the Canonization of 5 Blesseds, including John Henry Newman, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England. Others to be canonized at a date to be announced Monday include: Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini (born Giuditta Adelaide Agata), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus; Indian Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (born Maria Rita) of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God and Marguerite Bays of Switzerland, virgin of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi.
POPE FRANCIS ADDRESSED 500 PARTICIPANTS IN THE 41ST GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE ROME-BASED UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO), urging the cooperation of all in order to tackle the “scourges of hunger and food insecurity” in the world. One way to fight hunger and food insecurity, the Holy Father suggested, is to reduce the wastage of food and water. Addressing the group in his native Spanish, the Argentine Pope called for tackling the underlying causes of the lack of food and access to drinkable water. He blamed the tragedy on “a failure of compassion, the lack of interest on the part of many and a scant social and political will to honor international obligations.” The lack of food and water, he pointed out, is not an internal and exclusive affair of the poorest and most vulnerable countries, but one that concerns each of us. He said that responsibility lies on all for increasing or alleviating the suffering of many of our brothers and sisters whose desperate cries we are called to hear. (source: vaticannews.va)
Joan's Rome 