A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
-
A Catholic priest reputed for rescuing homeless and impoverished children on the streets of Omaha, Nebraska, is expected to soon be declared Venerable by the Vatican, placing him on the path to canonization. Father Edward J Flanagan, who died in 1948, was an Irish-born priest whose saintly life has been narrated in a recent documentary, “Heart of a Servant — the Father Flanagan Story.” In a follow-up interview after the film’s premiere on July 26 in Sligo, Ireland, Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin, Ireland, told CNA that there is a good reason to hope that Flanagan will soon be declared Venerable by the Vatican. Reflecting on the life of the heroic Catholic priest, Doran told CNA that Flanagan “rescued children from homelessness and poverty in Omaha and provided a place for them that they could call home.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255370/irish-born-founder-of-boys-town-father-flanagan-may-soon-be-declared-venerable
Three pro-life activists who took part in an October 2022 “rescue” in a Washington, DC, abortion facility were each found guilty of felonies that could land them up to 11 years in prison and fines as much as $350,000.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255394/three-more-pro-lifers-guilty-on-face-act-charges-face-up-to-11-years-in-prison
A Catholic priest in China was convicted of “fraud” and “impersonating religious personnel” on September 13. Father Joseph Yang Xiaoming of the Wenzhou Diocese in Zhejiang, China — south of Shanghai — was found to be in violation of the law after he refused to register with the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255391/chinese-priest-convicted-of-fraud-for-refusal-to-recognize-state-sanctioned-church
A Christian legal group has filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who is serving a prison sentence under the regime of President Daniel Ortega for criticizing the dictatorship’s human rights violations. Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, began serving a 26-year, four-month prison term in February, charged with being a “traitor to the homeland.” The regime’s police trapped him in his chancery for more than two weeks in August 2022 and entered by force in the middle of the night to take him to Managua and hold him under house arrest. Álvarez later refused to leave the country with 222 other political prisoners who were being deported by the dictatorship to the United States, including four priests, a deacon, and two seminarians. ADF International announced the filing of its petition September 14, saying there are “no effective avenues for legal recourse available in Nicaragua” under Ortega, who has effectively ruled the country as a dictator for years.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255390/legal-group-pleads-for-imprisoned-bishop-alvarezs-rights-before-human-rights-commission
Today, the Church celebrates Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a mystic who was perhaps most famous for his ability to fly. Despite being moved from one friary to another, because of the disruption he caused by his ecstasies and the persecutions he endured from some of his brothers who were envious of his gifts, he remained profoundly inundated by the joy of abandoning himself to Divine Providence. He died on September 18, 1663 and was canonized in 1767 by Pope Clement XIII. He is the patron of air travelers and students preparing for exams.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-joseph-of-cupertino-598