Pope Francis issues peace plea to all Holy See embassies

On behalf of Pope Francis, the Holy See sent a “nota verbale” to all embassies urging ambassadors to work for peace.

According to Vatican radio, the note, which has not yet been made public, was signed by Vatican secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. It included texts from recent speeches Pope Francis has given calling for peace, particularly in the Middle East.

In comments made to the Vatican agency, Msgr. Dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with states in the Roman Curia, said the note serves as a gesture inviting the entire interational community to take the question of peace to heart. The note comes at a time of particularly strong violations of human rights in the Middle East, he said.

Pope Francis has made several appeals for peace in recent weeks, including personal phone calls to the presidents of both Israel and Palestine asking for greater peace efforts. He also called ell as to Syro-Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan of Antioch and Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon Louis Raphael I Sako to assure them of his prayers in wake of increasing violence toward Christians in Iraq.

Zhejiang: 360 crosses or Christian buildings destroyed

Chinese Communist officials have continued their campaign against Christian institutions in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Since January, the government has demolished 360 crosses or Christian buildings, according to an AsiaNews report. On July 21, several hundred men attacked a Salvation Army church and tore down its cross in Wenzhou, the province’s largest city.

In Ningbo, a city of 7.6 million, the Catholic cathedral burned to the ground on July 28. The destruction of the cathedral, built in 1872, has been ruled an accident.

Müller: “These Theories Are Radically Mistaken”

A viewpoint by Sandro Magister

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The prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith refutes the ideas of those who want to permit second marriages with the first spouse still alive. He is backed up by Cardinal Sebastián, who also disagrees with Cardinal Kasper. But whose side is Pope Francis on?

In a book-length interview recently released simultaneously in Italy, Spain, and the United States, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, revisits and develops what he had already reiterated last fall in an article in “L’Osservatore Romano” that made a sensation.

In that article, Müller dwelt above all on the question of communion for the divorced and remarried, reiterating the reasons for the prohibition.

Already at the time, in fact, even at the higher levels of the hierarchy there were some who maintained the need for the Church to remove this ban.

And at the consistory in February of this year this change was upheld by the one whom Pope Francis had charged with introducing the discussion, Cardinal Walter Kasper.

Pope Gives New Interview Marking 500 Days of Pontificate

In a new interview, given to mark the first 500 days of his pontificate, Pope Francis has reminisced about his youth, discussed immigration and gives a ten point plan for happiness.

The first excerpts of the interview appeared as a feature article on Sunday in the Argentine magazine “Viva”, a supplement of the newspaper El Clarín.

“The Romans have a saying, which can be taken as a point of reference, they say: ‘Campa e lascia campà’ …live and let live,” said Pope Francis. “That’s the first step to peace and happiness.”

He then went on to mention the other nine, the next being “giving oneself to others.”

“If one gets tired, one runs the risk of being egoistic,” he said. “And stagnant water is the first to be corrupted.”

Bombing damages Gaza’s Catholic parish school

An Israeli army bombing has damaged the school of Gaza’s only Catholic parish, as well as the office of Gaza’s parish priest.

The target of the bombing was a nearby home, the Fides news agency reported.

“Everything happens around us,” said Father Jorge Hernandez, the parish priest. “The Hamas militants continue to fire rockets and then hide in the alleys. And we cannot do anything.”

“We cannot evacuate, it is impossible with children,” he added. “It is more dangerous to go out than stay here. We try to stay in safer places, always on the ground floor.”

Pope’s Dialogue With Priests in Caserta

“A Bishop that doesn’t pray, a priest that doesn’t pray, has closed the door, has closed the way of creativity.”

During Pope Francis’ Saturday visit to Caserta, he met with diocesan priests in the Palatine Chapel of the Palace of Caserta around 4 p.m.

Below is a translation of the text of the Holy Father’s dialogue with the priests.

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Monsignor D’Alise, Bishop of Caserta: Your Holiness, I haven’t prepared anything in writing because I understood immediately that you want an intimate and profound relation with the priests. Therefore, I say to you: welcome. This is our Church, the priests, and then we will go to see the rest of the Church, while we celebrate the Eucharist. This is an important moment for me, because I have been here for two months, and to begin this episcopate with your presence and your blessing is for me a grace upon grace. And now we await your word. Knowing that you desire a dialogue, the priests have also prepared questions for you.

Holy Father: I have prepared an address, but I will give it to the Bishop. Thank you so much for your welcome. Thank you. I am happy and I feel somewhat culpable for having combined so many problems on the day of your patronal feast, but I was unaware of it. And when I called the Bishop to tell him that I wanted to come to make a private pastoral visit, here, to a friend, thepastor, he said to me: “Ah, in fact on the day of the patronal feast!” And I immediately thought: “The following day, the newspapers will report: on the patronal feast of Caserta, the Pope went to see the Protestants.” — a nice headline, no? And so we systematized the event, somewhat in a hurry, but the Bishop helped me so much, and also the people of the State Secretariat. I said to the Substitute, when I called him: “But, please, take off the cord from my neck.” And he did it well. Thank you for the questions you will pose; we can begin; the questions are posed and I will see if I can consolidate two or three, otherwise I will answer each one.

Thai bishops’ seminar focuses on evangelization

At a recent conference held in Bangkok, Thai bishops gathered with the faithful to share and reflect on ways to share the gospel in their local communities.

“Let us all, including bishops and priests, be ‘converted’ and stirred up to boldly follow the path illuminated by the apostolic exhortation ‘Evangelii Gaudium’”, Archbishop Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij of Bangkok exhorted during the July 14-18 seminar “Experiences and Exchanging Ways of Evangelization.”

He added, “let us be inspired, and follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis’ teachings in reaching out into the peripheries.”

The seminar, which his held biannually, gathered the bishops and bishops emeritus, the priest, religious, and faithful of the Archdiocese of Bangkok, plus its five suffragan dioceses: Chanthaburi, Chiang Mai, Nakhon Sawan, Ratchaburi, and Surat Thani.

India’s Archdiocese of Madurai given new bishop

Pope Francis appointed Bishop Antony Pappusamy of Dindigal, located in India’s Tamil Nadu state, as Archbishop of Madurai on July 26.

Bishop Pappusamy was born in 1949 in Marambadi, a town 10 miles north of Dindigal. He holds a doctorate of sacred theology; he was ordained a priest in 1976, and was then consecrated an auxiliary bishop of Madurai in 1999.

When the Diocese of Dindigul was established in 2003, from territory of the Madurai archdiocese and the Tiruchirapalli diocese, Bishop Pappusamy was allowed to return home, being appointed its first bishop.

The diocese serves 106,000 Catholics, who are nine percent of the local population. In 2006, the diocese was served by 50 diocesan priests, plus 57 religious.