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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - Jihadist groups and their Syrian rebel allies have conquered 11 towns in Hama province since beginning a surprise offensive on March 21, Agence France-Presse reported.
A regional news website reported that the rebels have advanced to the outskirts of Mahardah, a predominantly Christian city of 20,000.
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By Laura Ieraci • Catholic News Service • Posted March 21, 2017
CHICAGO (CNS) — Two weeks before arriving in Ohio on a nationwide pastoral visit, Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim of the Eparchy of Segheneity, Eritrea, got word that eight young people from his eparchy died trying to make their way to Europe in search of a better life.
It’s an all-too-common story, Bishop Tsalim told Horizons, newspaper of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Ohio, March 7.
About 190 Eritreans died trying to cross into Europe in February alone, he said. The poor migrants usually make their way to Libya, where traffickers demand steep fees to herd them onto a raft that will set sail to southern Italy. Too often the shabby rafts sink in the Mediterranean Sea and the migrants perish.
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CWN - The Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo has called upon Christians who fled the city during the Syrian Civil War to return.
“The lucky ones,” said Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart, “do not require specific assistance and can therefore return to Aleppo autonomously,” while “those who are poor ... need economic and moral support in order to return.”
He cautioned: "We still lack that security which is necessary for a lasting peace. Despite this, there seems to be less fear among the people of new attacks by ISIS."
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CWN - The Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate has announced that it cannot supply priests for all of the Chaldean communities living outside Iraq, and has urged those communities to find their own candidates for the priesthood.
Because of the enormous exodus of Christians from Iraq to Australia, the US, Canada, and other countries, the patriarchate explained, there are not “sufficient Chaldean priests to be sent in all the cities were new Chaldean communities are created.” The patriarchate notes that other Eastern Christian churches based in the Middle East are experiencing the same problem.
Chaldean bishops leading communities in the “diaspora” have been asked, therefore, to look for their own internal solutions to the shortage of priests. The patriarchate specifically suggested the ordination of married men, which is allowed in the tradition of the Eastern Catholic churches.
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CWN - Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office, has announced that Pope Francis will visit Cairo on April 28 and 29.
The visit—the Pope’s eighteenth apostolic journey outside Italy—follows invitations from President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the nation’s Catholic bishops, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar.
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Amidst a cathedral of trees once charred by the Aspen Fire, a small chapel is under construction in the mountain village of Summerhaven.
tucson.com - The 853-square-foot Byzantine Catholic chapel is being built on Tucson Avenue just east of the Mt. Lemmon General Store and Gift Shop. If construction proceeds on schedule, the chapel dedicated to Our Lady Undoer of Knots should open this fall for public use.
Other than services in the community center and other buildings, Mount Lemmon resident Bob Zimmerman said he doesn’t know of any other dedicated church building in Summerhaven. Zimmerman’s father opened a sawmill and juggled other endeavors on the mountain after falling in love with the area on a hunting trip in the 1930s. Bob Zimmerman, now 81, spent summers on Mount Lemmon as a child and moved back to Summerhaven in adulthood. He runs Mount Lemmon Realty, Sawmill Run Restaurant and the post office, he said.
“When I had the inn before it burned down, we had church in the ballroom,” he said. The family lost it in the 1970s to fire. “And on Saturday nights after dancing we would clean up and clear out for church the next morning.”