The Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin at the Theological Faculty of Triveneto meets with journalists and talks about immigration, the Pope’s trip to Cuba, relations with China, and the threat of terrorist attacks at the Vatican.
1. At Al Hussein Cultural Center theater, the musicians of the National Music Conservatory made distinguished musical performances with Rose Al Wir singing mellifluously by reciting hymns of peace, love, passion and resurrection. Following every hymn there was an interlude of people standing at the podium conveying messages for Easter celebrations this year. Their words were abounding of sadness but full of hope. A Syrian young man took the podium and said: “The world marks nowadays the 5th anniversary of the war in Syria. War against whom?
Amid continued violence by ISIS and other militant Islamist groups, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a declaration stressing that dialogue with Islam must be sought “now more than ever.”
The council emphasized that “killing in the name of a religion offends God, but it is also a defeat for humanity.”
The declaration was released April 22, and is the second of its kind issued by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.
The Catholic Center for Studies and Media (CCSM) in Jordan, on Thursday, April 23, expressed its solidarity with the brotherly Armenians who currently mark the centenary of the genocide to which they were subjected because of their Christian faith in 1915.
At St. Martha’s House this morning Francis called on faithful to “think of our brothers whose throats were slit on the beach in Libya”; “the young boy who was burnt alive by his companions” and “those Ethiopians”.
At a time when Christians of all denominations are being attacked by radical Muslims in many first parts of the world, it is the centenary of what has been called the first genocide of the 20th century: the slaughter of between 1 million and 1.5 million Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks and Kurds in 1915, with sporadic violence against the remaining Armenian refugees for the next decade.
Pope Francis called on Sunday for the international community to act "decisively and promptly" to prevent tragedies like the capsizing of a boat with 700 migrants on Saturday evening. The pontiff also said Christians cannot communicate Christ's resurrection if they are focused on vanity or selfishness.
Those who will be attending the 2015 Ostension are well aware of the fact that the image they will have before them for just a few brief instants is the subject of much controversy and discussion. But this is not going to stop hundreds of thousands of people from considering the journey to Turin worthwhile.
The possibility of a visit to Havana at the end of the Pope’s trip to US cities – Philadelphia, Washington and New York - is being looked into.
A hundred years passed since the death of nearly one and a half million Armenians, without counting the other minorities who knew the same fate, and the issue remains a debate for Turkey. Pope Francis himself did not hesitate to use this term of International Law, “genocide”, to refer to this massacre, despite Turkey’s reaction. In an interview for “Vatican Insider”, Aram I, Catholics of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Silicy who lives in Lebanon, gives an analysis which clearly describes its peaceful but clear position.
