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Pope Francis has said he would like to visit his home country of Argentina in 2024. Since his election to the papacy in 2013, Francis has never returned to his home country of Argentina. In a March interview with La Nacion, he explained that a trip to Argentina had been planned in 2017 but had to be canceled because of elections. The pope does not travel to a country in an election year.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254162/pope-francis-says-he-wants-to-visit-argentina-in-2024-ganswein-to-leave-vatican-apartment
Pope Francis will receive the prime minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal, at the Vatican on Thursday morning. The two last met at the Vatican in March 2021 amid clashes between Ukraine and Russia in the Donbas region. Shmyhal has been Ukraine’s prime minister since March 2020. Francis has been outspoken in his support for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country on February 24, 2022. He frequently speaks of the “martyred” Ukrainian people and implores for peace between the two nations. In March 2022, he consecrated Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254163/pope-francis-to-receive-ukraine-s-prime-minister-on-thursday
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill April 20 allowing prisoners in the state to be sentenced to death without a unanimous jury verdict. Under the new law, a prisoner can be sentenced to death after eight of the 12 jurors recommend a death sentence, as long as the jury is unanimous that at least one aggravating factor — such as the crime being especially cruel or heinous — exists beyond a reasonable doubt. In that case, a judge has the option of sentencing the defendant to death or life in prison. If fewer than eight jurors agree on the death sentence, the jury’s recommendation must be for life in prison without the possibility of parole, and the judge must impose that sentence. The state’s Catholic bishops, represented by Michael Sheedy, executive director for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB), decried the change as a “setback.” Florida’s bishops have long advocated for an end to Florida’s death penalty and have called for sentences of life in prison rather than capital punishment. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, reflecting an update promulgated by Pope Francis in 2018, describes the death penalty as “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254167/bishops-condemn-florida-s-dropping-of-unanimous-jury-requirement-for-death-penalty-cases
Today, the Church celebrates Saint Mark the Evangelist, the author of the second Gospel and the patron saint of notaries. Mark is often depicted as a winged lion in religious art.
catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-mark-the-evangelist-444