Biden pledge to codify Roe v Wade 'disturbing' and 'tragic,' bishops say
- Jan 23, 2021
Up and down Italy over the Easter weekend, police entered churches and broke up services, issuing citations and fines to those taking part, in several instances including the parish priest. Yet not only has there been no howl of protest from the country’s Catholic leadership, almost uniformly bishops have sided with the authorities.
Shortly after assuring of his closeness amid the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak on an Italian television program, Pope Francis on Good Friday yet again appeared in a nearly empty St. Peter’s Square to lead a livestreamed Via Crucis with meditations written by prisoners.
On Good Friday Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, said the COVID-19 coronavirus ought to be a turning point to end wars and fuel solidarity, and that the biggest thing people should fear is not an economic recession, but the further loss of humanity.
Meditations for Pope Francis’s “Via Crucis” ceremony on Good Friday were written by prisoners and their families, as well as crime victims and their families.
With Passover and Easter just around the corner, leaders from New York City’s Catholic and Jewish communities expressed their mutual conviction that God is present in their people’s suffering and warned about complacency in Catholic-Jewish relations.