U.S.

Bishop blesses Southern California communities with hilltop benediction

LOS ANGELES — Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell of Los Angeles climbed a high summit in the San Gabriel Valley April 23 to bless the most populous counties of Southern California and beyond during this pandemic. Asked by Terry Barber, founder and president of Virgin Most Powerful Radio, why he was on this high point, Bishop O’Connell replied: “Because I am asking the Lord for a restoration of life. … We must extend the healing power of Jesus.” Bishop O’Connell, who oversees the San Gabriel pastoral region of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, invoked the power of God “to bring us out from the darkness of the pandemic to the light of the Lord’s glory.” The evening began with the Rosary and continued with canticles of praise and ended with the bishop’s blessing of the four corners of Southern California as he held up the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament.

Sainthood cause for Dorothy Day picking up steam in U.S.

WASHINGTON — The sainthood cause for Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, believes it could have all of the documentation prepared at some point next year to send to the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes. It would represent the culmination of an effort begun informally in 1997, but in earnest in 2002. After that, the process is largely in the Vatican’s hands — but also in God’s. Robert Ellsberg, publisher of Orbis Books, a ministry of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, said the Claretian Fathers, through their magazines U.S. Catholic and Salt, began hailing Day as a saint shortly after her death in 1980. Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, who voiced opinions on Day’s canonization in the 1980s, invited Ellsberg and his family to attend a Mass he was celebrating to observe the centenary of Day’s birth. After the Mass, according to Ellsberg, Cardinal O’Connor approached him and asked whether he really thought Day should be made a saint. When Ellsberg said yes, the cardinal asked him to gather some others who knew Day for a conversation with him.

WORLD

Foundation approved to promote example, works of Pope John Paul I

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis approved the establishment of the John Paul I Vatican Foundation to preserve and promote the writings, thinking, example and study of “the smiling pope.” The pope also appointed as the foundation president Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, who, like Pope John Paul, is from Italy’s northern Veneto region. The Vatican made the announcement April 28. Born Albino Luciani in 1921, Pope John Paul I served only 33 days as pope. He died in 1978 at the age of 65, shocking the world and a Church that had just mourned the death of St. Paul VI. St. John Paul II said his predecessor’s importance was inversely proportional to his brief pontificate, and Cardinal Parolin said this pope “was and remains a point of reference within the history of the universal Church.”

Vatican releases book of pope’s homilies, prayers for ‘difficult times’

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican published a free downloadable book of Pope Francis’ prayers and homilies responding to the trial and suffering of the coronavirus pandemic. Titled “Strong in the Face of Tribulation,” the book also contains suggestions for Catholics who are unable to receive the sacraments due to restrictive measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The book, which was released April 21, is available in English, Italian, Spanish and French and will be updated several times a week “with new homilies and other interventions made by the pope,” said Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication. “This book is intended to be a little help offered to all, so as to know how to discern and experience God’s closeness and tenderness in pain, in suffering, in solitude and in fear,” Tornielli wrote in the book’s introduction. Due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus, he said, the world is “facing a state of affairs that until just a few weeks ago would have seemed unimaginable, like the premise of a science fiction film.” Download the document at https://bit.ly/35hn9Fn

— Catholic News Service