THE CONCHO PADRE POST

Giza, Egypt, May 10, 2011(CNA).- Members of the Salafist Jihadi Islamist movement attacked three Coptic churches in the Egyptian city of Giza on May 7, killing a dozen people and injuring more than 200.

“We have no law or security – we are in a jungle,” said Giza’s Coptic Orthodox Bishop Anba Theodosius. “We are in a state of chaos. One rumor burns the whole area. Every day we have a catastrophe.”

But the Copts “will never leave our country,” the bishop added according to the Assyrian International News Agency,

The attack began on the evening of May 7 when a mob of 3,000 Muslims, thought to be followers of the hardline Salafist school of Islam, converged on St. Mina’s Church. Leaders of the mob accused members of the Coptic clergy of kidnapping a Christian woman who had married a Muslim man.

Their kidnapping story sounded like a familiar pretext, a variation on a story used to stir up tensions and justify violence against Middle Eastern Christians in the past. None of the parishioners had ever heard of the woman being “tortured” inside of their church.

When the mob said they wanted to “search” the church, the Christians refused. Afraid of what would happen next, they made emergency calls trying to get police protection. One priest said that six police officers showed up, but left the church as rioters and snipers began shooting parishioners.

When the army arrived, nearly five hours later, they made an attempt to seal off the neighborhood. But they did not stop rioters from attacking St. Mina’s Church, hurling Molotov cocktails at Coptic homes, and proceeding to two other churches in the area.

“The army was not able to control the situation,” Deacon Youssel Edward stated. “The mob was chanting ‘Islamic, Islamic.’”

According to local reports, the 3,000-strong crowd of Salafists prevented firefighters from reaching the nearby Church of St. Mary and St. Abanoub as they attacked it and shot parishioners. A third church, St. Mary’s, had its entire first floor burned.

When the violence ended 14 hours later, 12 people were dead and 232 were reportedly wounded. Hundreds of outraged Christians and sympathetic Muslims demonstrated in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Sunday, demanding better protection from the police and military for Coptic Christians.

Nabil Sharaf el Din, an Egyptian journalist, told a Coptic television station that the army “is either incapable, or is an accomplice to the Salafis.” He said that the Egyptian military, which took power after the Feb 11 resignation of former president Hosni Mubarak, could end up discredited if it fails to take a “stern position” with the hardline Muslim group.

Of the 3,000 people who reportedly stormed the three churches, 190 have been arrested. The military and civil courts have not reached an agreement on how to prosecute those accused of the attacks.

From Catholic News Agency

Vatican Spokesman Reflects on Beatification

VATICAN CITY, MAY 8, 2011 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II’s beatification was a “powerful return” of the Polish Pontiff, who is continuing his work of evangelization from heaven, according to a Vatican spokesman.

This was the evaluation given by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, in regard to the May 1 beatification of John Paul II.

The spokesman spoke of the event — which brought 1.5 million people to Rome and was broadcast around the world — on the most recent edition of Vatican Television’s “Octava Dies.”

Father Lombardi recounted what the Pope’s longtime secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, shared at the April 30 vigil: “When I saw the coffin holding his body being raised up from the open tomb,” the cardinal said, “I thought: Here he is, coming back to us!”

Father Lombardi said Cardinal Dziwisz thus “expressed the feelings that flooded the hearts of those who were present in that moment, and also of those who wanted to file once again past the remains of the new Blessed, in the center of the basilica, near Peter’s tomb, as they did in the days after his death.”

“Of course, for the believer,” the spokesman continued, “John Paul II had always been alive and present, but it cannot be denied that the days of his beatification have represented a powerful return for him among the people of God in prayer and celebration.”

Father Lombardi called them “days of grace” and spoke of the “meaning and importance of every beatification but in particular, of this one, in the life of the Catholic Church.”

The Jesuit reflected on the living legacy of John Paul II in the lives of the faithful.

“Among the innumerable people who had waited from the previous night, waiting to get into St. Peter’s Square,” he said, “there were many young families, with children born in the last decade, children who certainly didn’t know Pope John Paul II, but who are heirs of the generation of ‘his’ young people.

“John Paul II knew he had the mission of taking the Church into the third millennium, and at the end of the Great Jubilee he said to us, he said to all of God’s people: ‘Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!'”

Father Lombardi affirmed that the Church does go “into the deep sea of the third millennium but knows it can continue to count on the support of an effective intercessor who invites us not to be afraid.”

He concluded by echoing the prayer Benedict XVI addressed to his predecessor at the beatification: “Continue, we implore you, to sustain from heaven the faith of God’s people. You often blessed us. Today we pray: Holy Father, bless us!”

(From Zenit in Rome)

Pro-life author and speaker Abby Johnson, is coming to San Angelo. She will be giving a presentation at Holy Angels Church, at the corner of A&M Avenue and SAC Ave, next Saturday, May 14, at 1:00 p.m. The event is being sponsored by the Angelo Catholic School Foundation, Angelo Catholic School, and the Cursillo Movement. Johnson is a former director of Planned Parenthood, who has had a change of heart and is now strongly pro-life. She will recount some of her experiences when she gives her talk next Saturday.

The Concho Padre

On Sunday Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass near Venice for a congregation of 300,000, telling them to give hope to modern man by “listening to and loving the Word of God.”

“Dear brothers and sisters! I have come among you as the Bishop of Rome and successor of Peter’s ministry to confirm fidelity to the Gospel and communion,” he told those gathered in San Giuliano Park in Mestre, an industrial town on the other side of the lagoon from the famous island city of Venice.

“As in the past, when those churches were known for apostolic zeal and pastoral dynamism, so today we need to promote and defend the truth with courage and unity of the faith. You must give an account of Christian hope for modern man, often overwhelmed by vast and disturbing issues that arise in crisis and shake the very foundations of his being and his activity.”

In a grand pastiche of the byzantine splendor of the city’s St. Mark’s basilica, the organizers of today’s Mass had erected a domed sanctuary draped with golden mosaics printed on cloth.
There, the Pope gave a commentary on today’s gospel, which recounts the disappointment of two disciples after the crucifixion of Jesus. They shared their gloom while walking towards the town of Emmaus near Jerusalem.

Pope Benedict connected these disciples’ feelings to present attitudes.

“The disciples of today are moving away from the Jerusalem of the Crucified Jesus and the Risen Lord, no longer believing in the power and the living presence of the Lord,” he explained. The problems of evil, pain and suffering, of injustice and oppression, lead today’s Christians to similarly say, “we were hoping that the Lord deliver us from evil, pain, suffering, fear, injustice.”

The Pope suggested that the solution to such despair was the same today as it was for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus – listening to Jesus and receiving him “in the breaking of bread.”

First, he said, it is necessary to be “listening to and loving the Word of God, reading it in light of the Paschal Mystery, for it warms our hearts and enlightens our mind, and helps us to interpret the events of life and give them meaning.

“Then, you must sit at the table with the Lord, to become his guests, so that his humble presence in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood we restore our eyes of faith, to look at everything and everyone through the eyes of God, in light of his love.”

The Pope concluded by calling upon the Catholics of the region to uphold the Christian values of their forebears and to set “new missionary objectives” for themselves including building “bridges of dialogue between peoples and nations.”

After the Mass, in scenes reminiscent of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Venice in 1985, Pope Benedict crossed Venice’s Grand Canal in a gondola river boat. His destination was the church of Our Lady of Good Health, where he delivered a speech to leading figures from civil society.

Sunday was the second and final day of the Pope’s first papal visit to Venice and surrounding areas, where tradition holds that Saint Mark the Evangelist brought the Christian gospel.

On Saturday Pope Benedict visited the historic town Roman port town of Aquileia.

(Catholic News Agency)

It really was remarkable to see the Holy Father make his way from the airport in Gorizia, more than 11 miles away from Aquileia, in the Pope-mobile. He was greeted along the route by the faithful, to whose spirit I really would not do justice by calling them “enthusiastic”.

Pope Benedict wasted no time in establishing the themes and the tone of the visit, right from the get-go. In Aquileia, the Holy Father’s first public remarks were at the Piazza del Capitolo outside the Basilica of Aquileia. Often these greetings are really just an exchange of official pleasantries, but this time, Pope Benedict praised the Church of Aquileia in a prose that waxed rhapsodic.

He recalled the ancient roots of the Church, the Aquileian Church’s pivotal role in the evangelization of central Europe and also – this is poignant – in the defence of the true faith against the Arian heresy – a false teaching in the early centuries of the Church, which denied the full divinity of Christ. In this connection, Pope Benedict mentioned the great bishop Cromatius of Aquileia, by name. He was, said Pope Benedict, diligent and attentive as St Augustine of Hippo or St Ambrose of Milan – and St Jerome, a figure not known to praise often or lightly, called him “Holy and learned among the bishops.” So, Pope Benedict celebrated the way in which he worked to serve the Church: a perfect synthesis of learning and loving care for his flock.

But the Holy Father didn’t stop with the praise of Aquileia’s past glories: he also encouraged the faithful of Aquileia and all her daughter Churches in equally thrilling language:

“Dear brothers and sisters,” he said, children and heirs of the glorious Church of Aquileia, I am now among you to admire this rich and ancient tradition, but above all, I am here to confirm you in the deep faith of your fathers: in this hour of history,” he said, “rediscover, defend, and professes with warmth of spirit this fundamental truth.”

These were themes the Holy Father developed in his remarks to the organizers of the 2nd Ecclesial Assembly of Aquileia, shortly after the greeting in the square. He showed the organizers of the event – which is to take place in just under a year, so the Pope’s remarks really are offering guidance – that he has a firm grasp on the challenges to the faith. In many respects, the Church in Aquileia is facing the same challenges the Church is facing almost everywhere: the often exasperated search for economic well-being in a period of severe economic and financial crisis, practical materialism, and a dominant trend of subjectivism.
The Pope said, “In the complexity of these situations, you are called to promote the Christian meaning of life through the explicit proclamation of the Gospel, carried with gentle pride and great joy in the various areas of daily life. From faith lived with courage springs, today as in the past, a rich culture built upon the love of life, from conception until its natural end, the promotion of human dignity, high regard for the family based on faithful marriage open to life, commitment to justice and solidarity…” and he concluded with a reference to the 1st letter of Peter: “The cultural changes taking place,” he said, are calling you to be committed Christians, “ready to answer whoever asks you the reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15).”

(Chris Altieri – Vatican Radio)