From AP: When Sadhuram Berwal wanted to get married, his family went about it in the traditional Indian way, asking relatives, neighbors and local temple priests to suggest a young woman. But after an extensive search among women of his caste in his area, no suitable bride could be found. A larger factor had narrowed the field sharply: a skewed male-female ratio that is particularly pronounced in his home state of Haryana, in India’s north, due to sex-selective abortions in... Read more
From the Vatican: Pope Francis will visit Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic in November of 2015. Official word of the planned Apostolic voyage came through a two-sentence statement from the Press Office of the Holy See on Thursday. Details of the Holy Father’s three-nation African tour will be released in the coming weeks. Reuters notes: Pope Francis will visit Kenya in November, the Vatican said on Thursday, a country where Christians have recently been targeted by Islamist militants.... Read more
Here’s an intriguing glimpse at a side of the celebrated writer’s life that many may not know about, from Nancy Carpentier Brown: G.K. Chesterton is perhaps the most famous writer of the 20th Century, and yet we still know very little about him and his family life. One of the reasons is because his wife was a shy person—a Victorian English lady who valued her privacy and kept herself hidden from the world. Frances Alice Blogg Chesterton knew that her... Read more
Photo: Archdiocese of New York From The New York Daily News: There’s nothing like a papal visit to strike the fear of God into a slow-moving construction crew. Jeffrey Murphy, who headed the heavenly makeover of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, admitted Wednesday they picked up the pace of the three-year remodeling project after they got wind that Pope Francis was coming to New York City. “Everyone knew that this guy was showing up and we wanted it to look great,” the architect... Read more
From The Toronto Star: The Archdiocese of Toronto plans to sponsor 100 refugee families from Syria and Iraq with the launch of its Project Hope campaign. The archdiocese is asking its parishioners and 225 Catholic churches to step forward to help raise $3 million over the next 100 days as well as form 100 refugee sponsorship committees to help with the settlement of the refugees once they land here. The campaign to bring in 100 refugee families to the GTA within the... Read more
Ed Peters takes a longer and closer look at details of the new annulment process—and he has some serious reservations. After going over them, he concludes: At the pope’s request, a tiny group of experts, most from just one country, developed these new canons and explanations in a very short time. I find, however, the implications of some of these norms for marriage law in general, and for diocesan bishops in particular, stunning, and I join Dr. Kurt Martens of CUA... Read more
What does the pope know about the process? A lot, and much of it is personal: A good anecdote to help us understand Pope Francis’ interest in swiftly resolving cases of matrimonial nullity is the case of his niece María Inés Narvaja. In an interview previously published on Aleteia, she explains how Pope Francis, when he was still just Jorge Mario Bergoglio, took an interest in her marital situation. “I married my husband in a civil marriage first, and then... Read more
He had me with the Sign of the Cross. Stephen Colbert made the gesture in the first few moments of his debut on “The Late Show” last night. And that was it. I was willing to forgive him anything. There was a lot to forgive. The show was sprawling, outrageous and wildly unfocused. But it was also by turns smart (a conversation about Darfur?!), funny (Trump and Oreo cookies?!), and endearing (I loved seeing Colbert’s family in the front row, and the sincere tribute he paid to David... Read more
She couldn’t bow to him. So he bowed to her. I’m surprised this story hasn’t gotten more attention: The pontiff has drawn the attention of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, after bowing to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s bureau chief. Various Orthodox blogs released an image of the papal bow on Sunday, from Rivlin’s trip to Rome last week. According to the reports, when it came time for Rivlin’s trusted assistant, Rivkah Ravitz, to meet the Pope, she declined the traditional handshake, explaining that for religious reasons (adhering... Read more
The video says it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDYM56SCqw That little stunt cost her her job: A Hungarian camerawoman has been fired after she tripped refugees who were fleeing from police, her employer announced Tuesday. The incident, which was captured on video by a German correspondent Stephan Richter, occurred as dozens of refugees attempted to flee an overcrowded camp near the Hungarian-Serbian border, the WashingtonPost reports. Around the 15-second mark, the camerawoman, who was working for Hungarian broadcaster N1TV, appears to trip a man holding a... Read more
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