July 2019

VATICAN (CNS): In what Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople described as a “brave and bold” gesture, Pope Francis gave the patriarch a famous reliquary containing bone fragments believed to belong to St. Peter.
 
The only time the bronze reliquary has been displayed publicly was in November 2013, when Pope Francis had it present for public veneration as he celebrated the closing Mass for the Year of Faith, opened by Pope Benedict XVI....

VATICAN (SE): “With immense sadness, the Holy Father has seen the images of the father and his baby daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande River while trying to cross the border between Mexico and the United States,” interim Director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, told reporters on June 26, Vatican News reported.
 
Twenty-five-year-old Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, from El Salvador, drowned in...

MANILA  (UCAN): Bishop Carlito Cenzon, the former bishop of the northern Philippine city of Baguio, died at the age of 80 in a Manila hospital on June 26.
 
The late bishop is most remembered for fighting to protect a forest reservation near the city from an illegal road project allegedly spearheaded by a former government official.
Today, Mount Santo Tomas is covered by a permanent environmental protection order following the bishop’s 2014 petition for a...

MANILA (UCAN): Church leaders in the Philippines have warned against any moves to pass a law that will revive the imposition of capital punishment. The Episcopal Commission on Prison Pastoral Care issued a statement on June 20 reminding newly elected legislators of their responsibility “to defend human life.”
 
Moves to revive the death penalty failed in the last Congress, but Church leaders said recent statements made by new legislators on the re-imposition of...