St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. / Credit: Alexander_Peterson/Shutterstock Rome 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 a vision that restricts social friendship to ethnic or blood ties.”Speaking at a Vatican press conference promoting the event, Jesuit Father Francesco Occhetta, the head of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, noted that participants in the event “will be given as a gift a piece of organic soil and seeds to plant and germinate as a symbol of the commitment to guard fraternity.”Nobel laureates who have confirmed their participation in the World Meeting on Human Fraternity include Iraqi human rights advocate Nadia Murad, Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege, and Yemeni Arab Spring leader Tawakkol Karman.The former presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Poland, and Democratic Republic of East Timor — all peace prize winners — will also participate, as well as representatives of several U.N. organizations that have been past recipients.The World Meeting on Human Fraternity will begin with private meetings of five working groups representing Nobel laureates, the poor, environmentalists, students, and associations.At 4 p.m. local time, Italian TV presenter Carlo Conti, the former host of Italy’s national Eurovision competition, will kick off an Italian television broadcast of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity event in St. Peter’s Square with performances by Bocelli and other Italian musical artists. Pope Francis will join the event two hours later to listen to what emerged in the working group discussions, sign the human fraternity document, and join the symbolic embrace. Later, circus performers and street artists will take to the stage in St. Peter’s Square to perform until 10 p.m.Town squares in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jerusalem; Nagasaki, Japan; Brazzaville, Republic of Congo; and four other locations in the world will connect live to St. Peter’s Square for the event.The following is a list of Nobel laureates and Nobel laureate representatives who will participate in the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, according to the Vatican:Juan Manuel Santos, president of the Republic of Colombia from 2010 to 2018 (Colombia): Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his resolute commitment to ending the civil war that has affected his country for 50 years.Oscar Arias Sánchez, president of the Republic of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010 (Costa Rica): Nobel Peace Prize winner

Pope Francis delivers his Angelus address on June 4, 2023. / Vatican Media Vatican City, Jun 4, 2023 / 06:05 am (CNA). Each time that a Catholic makes the sign of the cross, it is a reminder that God is a communion of love, Pope Francis said Sunday.Speaking on the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the pope highlighted how the simple gesture that Catholics are taught as children is a sign of the central mystery of Christian faith. “By tracing the cross on our body, we remind ourselves how much God loved us, to the point of giving his life for us; and we repeat to ourselves that his love envelops us completely, from top to bottom, from left to right, like an embrace that never abandons us,” Pope Francis said on June 4.“Yes, brothers and sisters, our God is a communion of love: this is how Jesus revealed him to us,” he added.Pope Francis invited the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square to make the sign of the cross together.“God is love. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he gave his life for us, so we make the sign of the cross,” he said.The pope spoke on Trinity Sunday, a solemnity celebrated on the Sunday following Pentecost that dates to before the 10th century. The tradition of making the sign of the cross dates back much further. St. Basil (329-379) wrote that the Apostles “taught us to mark with the sign of the cross those who put their hope in the Lord.”In his Angelus address, the pope reflected on a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus recorded in the Gospel of John 3:16-18. Pope Francis noted how Jesus “revealed the heart of the mystery to him, saying that God loved humanity so much that he sent his Son into the world.”Pope Francis pointed out that one way to picture the Holy Trinity is to think of “the image of a family gathered around the table, where life is shared.” “But it is not only an image; it is reality,” he said. “It is reality because the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that the Father poured into our hearts through Jesus (cf. Gal 4:6), makes us savor God’s presence: a presence that is close, compassionate and tender. The Holy Spirit does with us what Jesus does with Nicodemus: he introduces us to the mystery of new birth– the birth of faith, of the Christian life – he reveals the heart of the Father to us, and he makes us sharers in the very life of God.”“The invitation he extends to us, we might say, is to sit at the table with God to share in his love. This is what happens at every Mass, at the altar of the Eucharistic table, where Jesus offers himself to the Father and offers himself for us.”At the end of the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis prayed for the victims of a train crash in India that killed more than 280 people. “I am

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 Media Washington, 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. “After ascertaining his identity, the man was handed over to the Italian police, according to the Italy-Holy See Treaty, and was issued an expulsion order and instructed to leave Italian territory.”The basilica’s main altar, where the pope celebrates Mass, is called the Altar of the Confession. Reached by climbing seven steps, the marble altar is located directly above St. Peter’s Tomb and is crowned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s large Baroque sculpted bronze canopy.Celebran acto de reparación en la Basílica de San Pedro del Vaticano después de que un hombre profanara el templo al desnudarse en el altar mayor.@aciprensa @EWTNews— Almudena Martínez-Bordiú (@AlmuMBordiu) June 3, 2023 Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the basilica’s archpriest, led the penitential rite, held at noon Rome time Saturday. Canons of the Chapter of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter’s and several members of the faithful also participated, Vatican News reported.According to a report by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner, during the act of reparation, the cardinal pointed out that “it is the structure of sin that conditions the hearts and minds of people.”“This structure of sin is the one that feeds the wars, the one that inhabits our society,” he added. Referring to the desecration carried out on June 1, the cardinal pointed out that it is this “structure of sin” that pushed the man “to make an inappropriate and deplorable gesture,” ACI Prensa reported.“We are here to tell the Lord that we recognize that this structure of sin conditions the actions of God’s people. Lord, we ask your forgiveness, purify us,” Gambetti said.Next, after praying the Creed, the cardinal blessed the water and later spread it on the altar as a sign of purification. Later, two nuns dressed the altar with a tablecloth, candles, flowers, and a crucifix. The Code of Canon Law and the Ceremonial of Bishops provide guidance for situations where altars or other sacred spaces are violated.Canon No. 1211 states: “Sacred places are violated by gravely injurious actions done in them with scandal to the faithful, actions which,

Pope Francis greets pilgrims at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square on March 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA Rome Newsroom, Jun 3, 2023 / 05:30 am (CNA). The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Francis will visit Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign country.The pope is set to travel to Mongolia from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4. The trip will make Pope Francis the first pope to visit the Asian country that shares a 2,880-mile border with China, its most significant economic partner.Mongolia has a population of about 1,300 Catholics in a country of more than 3 million people.The first modern mission to Mongolia was in 1922 and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But under a communist government, religious expression was soon thereafter suppressed, until 1992. Mongolia’s first native priest was ordained in 2016.Last year, Pope Francis named an Italian who had served as a missionary in Mongolia for nearly 20 years as the world’s youngest cardinal. Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, 48, is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which serves the entire country.Roughly the size of Alaska, Mongolia has five people per square mile. About 30% of its population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Bordering Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is also the second-largest landlocked country in the world with the vast Gobi Desert covering one-third of its territory.Pope Francis will also travel to Lisbon, Portugal, for World Youth Day this August with a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.The pope is also expected to travel to Marseille to preside over a Mass on Sept. 23 as part of a meeting of Mediterranean bishops in the port city in southern France.

Seminarians and priests enjoyed a friendly bowling match in the St. John XXIII Pontifical Lanes during some downtime on an afternoon in May 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA Rome Newsroom, Jun 3, 2023 / 05:00 am (CNA). The “mythical bowling alley” — that’s how it was thought of by seminarians at the Pontifical North American College in Rome in recent years.The narrow room in the basement of the seminary’s main building, with its two 1960s-era wooden lanes and above-ground ball return, had become a glorified closet for at least nine years.A photo of the bowling alley in the basement of the Pontifical North American College before its restoration in 2023. Credit: Pontifical North American College“For years — for decades really — this bowling alley was breaking down,” NAC rector Monsignor Thomas Powers told CNA. “It was hard to find parts for the old pieces, and it was getting more and more expensive [to maintain]. So for the last few years it became more or less a storage room.”But then the idea by some students to restore the alley scored a strike.The original bowling alley had been a gift from St. John XXIII to the American seminary, Powers explained. The gift was announced in 1958 and the construction completed in the early 1960s.Monsignor Thomas Powers, rector of the Pontifical North American College, talks to CNA in the St. John XXIII Pontifical Lanes in May 2023. The blue benches were salvaged from the original bowling alley, which was a gift of St. Pope John XXIII to the college in the early 1960s. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA“Because [the alley] was possible because of a saint — and because it’s a great way for guys to have fraternity, to spend time together, to take exam breaks, study breaks, build teamwork — we thought it really should be back to what it was intended to be by the pope,” he said.Washington, D.C., seminarian Benjamin Bralove had also heard of this “mythical bowling alley that once existed.”He told CNA he talked to the Student Activities Committee at the seminary, which he chairs, and found that the other seminarians were also interested in “trying to bring this bowling alley back to life.”Washington, D.C., seminarian Benjamin Bralove (left) and the Pontifical North American College's CFO Michele Marconi (right) prepare to bowl the first balls on the seminary's newly renovated bowling alley after a blessing on May 17, 2023. Credit: Pontifical North American CollegeA generous donation from Norman and Darlene Ferenz last summer meant the students’ dream could finally be realized, and the college got to work restoring the St. John XXIII Lanes to their former glory.Powers blessed the newly refurbished bowling alley on May 17, and since that day, he said, the sound of bowling balls striking pins has reverberated throughout the college.Bralove, who led the restoration plan, said the hardest part of the process for him was the patience he had to exercise waiting for the monthslong project to be completed.Monsignor Thomas Powers, rector of the Pontifical North

Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. / Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum Rome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2023 / 10:15 am (CNA). Cardinal Robert Sarah urged students studying at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas to ask in prayer for “an intimate and profound union with the Lord and with one another.”Speaking at a Mass to mark the close of the academic year at the university in Rome known as the Angelicum, the Guinean cardinal spoke about the danger of division in the Church and the importance of prayer.“Jesus asks that each person may live in love and in true unity, a deep communion, in the image of the Trinitarian communion. A union that immerses our lives fully in Jesus, just as Jesus’ life is immersed in the Father,” Sarah said in his homily.He added: “Such a union is undoubtedly expressed in a Christian life of deep and intense prayer addressed to the Lord, which in daily life is manifested in a gaze of charity toward the brothers and sisters we meet.”Seminarians, priests, religious, and laypeople studying philosophy and theology at the pontifical university attended the Mass on May 25.The prefect emeritus of the Vatican Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reflected on Jesus’ priestly prayer at the Last Supper in which the Lord prayed: “that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).Cardinal Robert Sarah celebrates Mass for students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/AngelicumSarah said: “Jesus calls for them to be a family of God … Jesus knows well that the spirit of division, hatred, or mutual contempt would destroy his Church and mission. It does not matter how the devil is dressed. Everything that divides is still inspired by him.”“The danger of division, of infighting, of confusion in doctrinal and moral teaching is so grave that Jesus ventures an ambitious, lofty, almost impossible prayer: He asks the Father that his disciples have the same unity that exists between the two of them.”The 77-year-old cardinal reminded the students that “if theological study does not make us grow in the love of God and neighbor, if we only work hard to pass the exams, then we are killing ourselves for nothing.”“In our time, it is urgent to restart the missionary commitment to courageously bring the Gospel of Christ everywhere, but preaching must begin with prayer and the concrete witness of that evangelical love expressed with the death of Jesus on the cross and which impels us to look at others before themselves, to spend one’s life for the Gospel and not for one’s own interest or advantages,” he said.Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25,

Father Andrew Small, OMI. / Photo courtesy of Father Small. Rome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2023 / 08:30 am (CNA). The Vatican is looking into the transfer of $17 million from the U.S. arm of a Church mission to an investment fund, according to the Associated Press.AP reported May 31 that Pope Francis has asked aides to “get to the bottom of how” the money was transferred.The transfers date mostly to 2021, when the board of directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies U.S.A. (TPMS-US) approved moving at least $17 million to a nonprofit organization and its private equity fund owned by the organization’s then-national director, Father Andrew Small, OMI.TPMS-US is the U.S.-based branch of the Pontifical Mission Societies, a worldwide network of four societies that provide financial support to the Catholic Church in mission territories, especially in Africa. Most of its funds come from an annual donation taken up in Catholic churches in October.As a pontifical organization, it is an official instrument of the Holy See and the pope.While national director of TPMS-US in 2014, Small founded the New York-based nonprofit Missio Corp. and its private equity fund, MISIF LLC, under the umbrella of TPMS-US. They were separately incorporated in 2018.After 10 years at the helm of TPMS-US, Small has been the temporary secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since 2021. He also continues to be president and CEO of Missio Corp., which runs Missio Invest, an impact investing fund providing financing to agribusinesses, health and education enterprises, and Church-run financial institutions in Africa.The mission group’s new national director, Monsignor Kieran E. Harrington, and new board of directors have now written off $10.2 million of the total transferred as a loss since “there is no timeline and no guarantee of investment return,” according to its latest audited financial statement, AP reported.“Management of the organization is diligently working to redeem the investment, however there is no timeline and no guarantee of investment return,” the financial statement says.Small, in comments to AP, called the write-off of the investment “shortsighted” and said there is no reason to think there will not be a return on investment after the minimum 10-year commitment.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told AP: “The Holy See is aware of the situation and is currently looking into the details of the events.”AP spoke to experts who said the transfers were not necessarily illegal, but Small’s leadership of both TPMS-US and Missio Corp. at the time, and the fact that the former distributes donations of the faithful while the latter gives out loans, raises some questions.AP reported that according to financial statements, TPMS-US asked Missio Corp. for the $10.2 million investment in MISIF back but it was denied by Missio Corp.Small told AP in email responses to questions that the money transfers from TPMS-US to Missio Corp and MISIF were approved by the board and in the best interest of the Church. Small also shared letters from bishops and religious sisters in Africa who benefited from Missio Corp.’s

Bishop Franco Mulakkal. / file photo. Rome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2023 / 05:36 am (CNA). Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of an Indian bishop cleared in early 2022 of charges of raping a religious sister in his diocese.The resignation of the 59-year-old Bishop Franco Mulakkal as head of the Diocese of Jalandhar comes more than 16 months after his acquittal by a court in India’s Kerala state in January 2022.The judge in the case found that “the prosecution failed to prove all the charges against the accused.”The Vatican did not indicate whether it carried out its own investigation into the accusations against Mulakkal, who has denied the claims and contends he was falsely accused after he questioned alleged financial irregularities at the accuser’s convent.A religious sister with the Missionaries of Jesus accused the bishop of raping her during his May 2014 visit to her convent in Kuravilangad, in Kerala. In a 72-page complaint to police, filed in June 2018, she alleged that the bishop sexually abused her more than a dozen times over two years.The Missionaries of Jesus is based in the Jalandhar Diocese, and Bishop Mulakkal was its patron.Malukkal was arrested in September 2018 amid protests calling for a police investigation into the allegation. He was subsequently released on bail.The bishop was charged in April 2019 with rape, unnatural sex, wrongful confinement, and criminal intimidation. After Malukkal tried to get the charges dropped pretrial, the Kerala High Court found there was enough evidence to proceed.He was cleared of all charges by the Kottayam court on Jan. 14, 2022.Malukkal had also claimed the allegations were made in retaliation against him because he had acted against the sister’s sexual misconduct. He said the sister was alleged to be having an affair with her cousin’s husband.Mulakkal was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Jalandhar in 1990. In 2009, he was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Delhi.He became bishop of the Diocese of Jalandhar in June 2013.

null / Credit: anastasiya parfenyuk/Shutterstock Rome Newsroom, May 31, 2023 / 10:45 am (CNA). Pope Francis has backed a project aimed at enhancing interdisciplinary research at Catholic universities in the sphere of family, marriage, and childbearing.“We cannot be indifferent to the future of the family as a community of life and love, a unique and indissoluble covenant between a man and a woman, a place where generations meet, a source of hope for society,” the pope said in a message of support released Tuesday.The project, called the Family Global Compact, was presented May 30 by members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) and the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.In a written message read at the presentation, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the family dicastery, said: “The Family Global Compact entrusts Catholic universities with the task of developing more in-depth theological, philosophical, legal, sociological, and economic analyses of marriage and the family to sustain it and place it at the heart of systems of thought and contemporary action.”The compact includes a 50-page document outlining specific challenges faced by families today, followed by suggested solutions and actions to take. Each challenge also includes guidelines for university research on that topic.The document notes the challenges caused by low birth rates in many areas of the world and how the widespread practice and legalization of contraception, abortion, and sterilization “have transformed the meaning of procreation: from a natural inclination and gift of God to a project and result of a procreative will that tends to dominate life.”The Vatican document encourages working to create “favorable conditions for getting married and having children at a young age” and to improve access to Church-approved forms of medical care, such as Naprotechnology, for those struggling with infertility.The document also discusses the promotion of marriage among young adults, childbearing and adoption, intergenerational dependence, domestic violence, education to faith and the common good, employment, and poverty, among other subjects.“This project,” the document says, “also challenges all the social actors to whom the Family Global Compact will be able to offer arguments and reflections based on rigorous empirical evidence, investigated and interpreted within an explicit anthropological perspective, relational and personalistic in nature, firmly inscribed in the social doctrine of the Church.”The Vatican representatives emphasized May 30 that the project is based on the concrete realities of families today.The president of PASS, Sister Helen Alford, OP, said: “We see that, despite the sense of a crisis in the family, or even of the ‘death’ of the family, it remains a central goal and value in people’s lives.”“We cannot resign ourselves,” Pope Francis said in his message, “to the decline of the family in the name of uncertainty, individualism, and consumerism, which envision a future of individuals who think only of themselves.”“The family, it should be recalled, has a positive effect on everyone, since it is a generator of common good,” he continued. “Healthy family relationships represent a unique source of enrichment, not only for spouses and children but for

Pope Francis at his general audience in St Peter’s Square on May 31, 2023. / Adi Zace/EWTN Vatican City, May 31, 2023 / 05:30 am (CNA). Pope Francis dedicated his entire general audience on Wednesday to sharing the life of Venerable Matteo Ricci, a 16th-century Jesuit missionary in China.The pope, who has mentioned China at every Wednesday general audience in the past three weeks, praised Ricci’s “missionary spirit” in witnessing to the Gospel in the heart of the Imperial City of Beijing.“Matteo Ricci died in Beijing in 1610 at the age of 57, a man who gave his entire life for the mission,” Francis said in St. Peter’s Square on May 31.“His love for the Chinese people is a model, but what represents a current path is his consistency of life, the witness of his life as a Christian.”Ricci is known for introducing Christianity to China’s imperial Ming Dynasty. By studying the language and adopting the local clothes and customs, the Jesuit priest gained access to the interior parts of the country that had been closed to outsiders. “He always followed the path of dialogue and friendship with all the people he met, and this opened many doors for him to proclaim the Christian faith,” the pope said.“After Francis Xavier’s attempt, another 25 Jesuits had tried in vain to enter China. But Ricci and one of his confrères prepared themselves very well, carefully studying the Chinese language and customs,” he said.After first arriving in Macao in 1582, Ricci persevered in China for 18 years before he was able to enter Beijing’s Imperial City. Pope Francis described how Ricci engaged in dialogue with Chinese scholars, sharing mathematical and astronomical knowledge that “contributed to a fruitful encounter between the culture and science of the West and the East.”“However, Ricci’s fame as a man of science must not obscure the deepest motivation of all his efforts: that is, the proclamation of the Gospel,” the pope said.“With the scientific dialogue, with the scientists, he went forward, but he gave testimony of his own faith, of the Gospel. The credibility obtained through scientific dialogue gave him the authority to propose the truth of Christian faith and morality, of which he spoke in depth in his principle Chinese works, such as ‘The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven.’”Once Ricci entered Beijing in January 1601, he never left. He is buried in Beijing’s Zhalan Cemetery, the first foreigner to be buried on Chinese soil during the Ming dynasty.“In the last days of his life, to those who were closest to him and asked him how he felt, Matteo Ricci ‘responded that he was thinking at that moment if the joy he felt inside was greater than the idea that he was close to the end of his journey to go and taste God, or the sadness that could cause him to leave the companions of the whole mission that he loved greatly, and the service he could still do to God Our Lord in this mission,’”