The leadership of the US-based humanitarian aid organization Cross Catholic Outreach visits the Vatican and meets Pope Francis as it renews its partnership in assisting the Pope's global charitable activities.

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In his Message for the Fourth World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which will take place on 28 July 2024, Pope Francis recognizes the situation of many elderly people today, and assures them: “God never abandons His children, never.”

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How does one qualify to be an apostle? The first act of the apostles after the Ascension of Jesus was to find a replacement for Judas. With all the questions, doubts, and dangers facing them, they chose to focus their attention on finding a twelfth apostle. Why was this important? Twelve was a very important number to the Chosen People: twelve was the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. If the new Israel was to come from the disciples of Jesus, a twelfth apostle was needed. But Jesus ...

The Laocoön group is a defining piece of the Vatican Museums that was found nearly intact underground in a vineyard in 1506. Its right arm was discovered just meters from that spot, 400 years later. The discovery is credited to the Jewish art dealer Ludwig Pollak, who was targeted by the Nazis but refused protection from the Vatican. He was deported and killed at Auschwitz. Attempts to save him by his friend and then director of the pontifical galleries, Bartolomeo Nogara, were in vain.

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In commemoration of the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, Christians in Mozambique’s City of Beira lit votive candles and prayed their the Rosary, asking the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession for peace in the troubled region. Since 2017, terrorist attacks have targeted Mozambique’s Province of Cabo Delgado.

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Pope Francis replies to letter that children being cared for at an Italian hospital sent him when he had been experiencing health issues. He offers them his heartfelt thanks for their kind words and good wishes, imploring the Blessed Mother to watch over them, and urging them to find a ray of light in the darkness of illness.

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This release has been edited to include the National Review Board's update to the bishops on the plenary agenda.

 

WASHINGTON - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will gather for the 2024 Spring Plenary Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, June 12-14. The public sessions on June 13 and 14 will be livestreamed on the USCCB website.

The public portion of the assembly will begin with addresses by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the United States, and Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, who serves as president of the Conference.

During the plenary, the bishops will receive updates on various issues and initiatives. The meeting agenda is not yet finalized and therefore, subject to change. However, it is expected to include updates on: the Committee on Migration; the bishops’ national mental health campaign; the Synod on Synodality; the Task Force for a National Directory for Instituted Ministries; the National Eucharistic Revival and the National Eucharistic Congress; and the National Review Board. The bishops will also hold a consultation on opening the cause for beatification and canonization of Adele Brise.

Votes are expected on a number of action items including:

• Three action items on liturgical texts pertaining to the Liturgy of the Hours, presented by the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship.
• Listen, Teach, Send: A National Pastoral Framework for Ministries with Youth and Young Adults, by the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.
• Keeping Christ’s Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry, a pastoral plan for Native American and Indigenous Ministry by the USCCB’s Subcommittee on Native American Affairs.

Prior to the public sessions, the bishops will spend time in prayer and fraternal dialogue with one another. They will also be reflecting on positioning the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) for the future. For a half-century, grants made possible through the annual CCHD collection have gone to help community organizations working to empower people striving to overcome poverty. Now, the bishops have begun the process of discerning the next 50 years.

Over the past several years, including during the pandemic, the CCHD maintained its level of support for those in need, despite a decline in donations. Last year, the CCHD started a review to explore ways to renew the mandate and mission of CCHD. The bishops will spend time prayerfully discussing the best way to adapt to the post-pandemic needs and resources, while at the same time continuing a steadfast commitment to helping the poor and disenfranchised emerge from the cycle of poverty.

Public sessions of the assembly will be held on the afternoon of June 13 and the morning of June 14, and livestreamed at: www.usccb.org/meetings -- news updates, vote totals, texts of addresses and presentations, and other materials will be posted to this page. Those wishing to follow the meeting on social media can use the hashtag #USCCB24 follow on Facebook (www.facebook.com/usccb), as well as Instagram (https://instagram.com/usccb), Threads (www.threads.net/@usccb), and X, formerly known as Twitter (@USCCB).

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pilgrims passing through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica during the Holy Year 2025, going to confession, receiving Communion and praying for the intentions of the pope can receive an indulgence, but so can inmates in prison and those who work to defend human life or assist migrants and refugees.

Fasting "at least for one day of the week from futile distractions" such as social media also can be a path toward a jubilee indulgence, according to norms published by the Vatican May 13.

Pope Francis said he will open the Holy Year at the Vatican Dec. 24 this year and close it Jan. 6, 2026, the feast of Epiphany. But he also asked bishops around the world to celebrate the Jubilee in their dioceses from Dec. 29 this year to Dec. 28, 2025.

For centuries a feature of holy year celebrations has been the indulgence, which the church describes as a remission of the temporal punishment a person is due for their sins.

"Every sin 'leaves its mark'" even after a person has received forgiveness and absolution through the sacrament of reconciliation, Pope Francis wrote in the document proclaiming the Holy Year. "Sin has consequences, not only outwardly in the effects of the wrong we do, but also inwardly, inasmuch as 'every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death, in the state called Purgatory,'" he wrote, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The norms for receiving an indulgence during the Holy Year were signed by Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the new head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with matters of conscience and with the granting of indulgences.

The basic conditions, he wrote, are that a person is "moved by a spirit of charity," is "purified through the sacrament of penance and refreshed by Holy Communion" and prays for the pope. Along with a pilgrimage, a work of mercy or an act of penance, a Catholic "will be able to obtain from the treasury of the Church a plenary indulgence, with remission and forgiveness of all their sins, which can be applied in suffrage to the souls in Purgatory."

The Rome pilgrimage, Cardinal De Donatis said, can be to the papal basilicas of St. Peter's, St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran or St. Paul Outside the Walls. But also to one of the churches connected to outstanding women saints and doctors of the church: St. Catherine of Siena at the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva; St. Brigid of Sweden at Campo de' Fiori; St. Teresa of Avila at the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria; St. Thérèse of Lisieux at Trinità dei Monti; and St. Monica at the Church of St. Augustine.

Pilgrims to the Holy Land also can receive the Holy Year indulgence by praying at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem or the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

For those who cannot travel abroad, local bishops around the world can designate their cathedral or another church or sacred place for pilgrims to obtain the indulgence, the cardinal wrote, asking bishops to "take into account the needs of the faithful as well as the opportunity to reinforce the concept of pilgrimage with all its symbolic significance, so as to manifest the great need for conversion and reconciliation."

People who cannot leave their residence -- "especially cloistered nuns and monks, but also the elderly, the sick, prisoners and those who, through their work in hospitals or other care facilities, provide continuous service to the sick" -- can spiritually join a pilgrimage and receive the indulgence, according to the norms.

Visiting the sick or a prisoner, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked or welcoming a migrant, "in a sense making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them," can be another way to receive the indulgence, the cardinal said, adding that an indulgence could be obtained each day from such acts of mercy.

"The Jubilee Plenary Indulgence can also be obtained through initiatives that put into practice, in a concrete and generous way, the spirit of penance which is, in a sense, the soul of the Jubilee," he wrote, highlighting in particular abstaining on Fridays from "futile distractions" like social media or from "superfluous consumption" by not eating meat.

"Supporting works of a religious or social nature, especially in support of the defense and protection of life in all its phases," helping a young person in difficulty or a recently-arrived migrant or immigrant -- anything involving "dedicating a reasonable portion of one's free time to voluntary activities that are of service to the community or to other similar forms of personal commitment" also are paths toward an indulgence, he said.

"Despite the rule that only one plenary indulgence can be obtained per day," Cardinal De Donatis wrote, "the faithful who have carried out an act of charity on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, if they receive Holy Communion a second time that day, can obtain the plenary indulgence twice on the same day," although the second indulgence is "applicable only to the deceased."

 

UNICEF and other aid agencies are sending relief teams and desperately needed humanitarian aid to northeastern Afghanistan where unusually heavy rains have killed at least 300 people, swept away homes and damaged vital farmland.

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According to a Reuters report, Mozambique's army is fighting Islamist insurgents who launched a major attack on the northern town of Macomia on Friday morning, the country’s President Filipe Nyusi said in a televised address.

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