Pope: UN organizations “impotent” in facing Ukraine war (Crux) Pope Francis on Wednesday said that the international organizations, such as the United Nations, have proven to be useless in stopping violence and atrocities in the war in Ukraine. Speaking about the massacres in the recently freed city of Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, the pope denounced the “increasingly horrendous cruelties [that] are also committed against civilians and defenseless children. They are victims whose innocent blood cries out to the heavens and implores: Put an end to this war, silence the weapons, stop sowing death…”
Pope may visit Lebanon in June (AP) Pope Francis will visit Lebanon in June, the president’s office said Tuesday, in an apparent show of support for the country experiencing an unprecedented economic meltdown. Francis has held special prayers for Lebanon and has repeatedly said he plans to visit the small country since the economic meltdown began in October 2019…
U.S. nun kidnapped (CNS) Armed attackers broke into the convent at Holy Family Parish in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, and kidnapped an American nun sometime between late April 4 and daybreak April 5, said the U.S. head of the sister’s congregation. Sister Ann Lacour, U.S. congregational leader for the Marianites of Holy Cross, based in Covington, Louisiana, said 83-year-old Sister Suellen Tennyson was kidnapped “because she’s American…”
States proposing new restrictions on abortion pills (The New York Times) Medication abortion is the new front in the nation’s five-decade-long fight, as both sides anticipate that by summer the Supreme Court could overturn or pare back the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade. Supporters of abortion rights, who argue that women should be able to make their own reproductive choices, see the pills as a workaround in states that have already moved to ban or severely restrict abortion. To anti-abortion activists, who believe ending a pregnancy is murder, the pills are a back door to be locked shut with new restrictions and heavier criminal penalties. In the first three months of this year, legislators proposed more than 100 restrictions on medication in 22 states…
Catholic college, others to give honorary degrees to President Zelensky (CNS) A Catholic college founded by Ukrainian women religious has teamed up with 15 other schools to confer honorary doctorates on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Manor College in Jenkintown north of Philadelphia announced April 1 it will award an honorary doctor of humane letters degree to Zelenskyy, the first such degree for the school since its establishment in 1947 by the Sisters of the Order of St. Basil the Great…
