By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — When St. John Paul II initiated preparations for the Holy Year 2000, he believed “the church in every corner of the earth must remain anchored in the testimony of the martyrs and jealously guard their memory” in order to journey with faith, hope and confidence into […]
‘Please hear us, please help us,’ Nigerian bishop pleads’
By Kimberley Heatherington OSV News WASHINGTON — “Death does not announce any day,” cautions a Nigerian proverb. It’s advice the Catholic faithful of the Diocese of Makurdi — in Nigeria’s Benue state — are grimly familiar with as they and their Christian neighbors endure a sustained campaign of terrorism now stretching into a second decade. […]
Family martyrdom
Parents and their seven children, murdered by Nazis along with eight Jews they sheltered, will be beatified By Paulina Guzik OSV News KRAKOW, Poland — Urszula Niemczak keeps a regular schedule. At least twice a week she carefully checks whether winter decorations or fresh flowers growing in the summer on a historical gravesite of Józef […]
Beatification for Polish nuns murdered by Soviet soldiers
By Jonathan Luxmoore Catholic News Service WARSAW, Poland — Ten Polish nuns have been approved for beatification as martyrs 76 years after they were killed while resisting rape and facing other atrocities by Soviet soldiers in the final months of World War II. “This will show how courage and devotion are linked to saintliness. It’s […]
Vatican says 20 ‘missionaries’ died violently in 2020
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — Attacked because of their faith, killed in a robbery, murdered in a general climate of violence or struck down by someone with obvious mental difficulties, the 20 missionaries who died violent deaths in 2020 were witnesses of the Gospel, said Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency. […]
Simple Christians: Ordinary Trappist martyrs gave extraordinary witness
By Junno Arocho Esteves Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY — After Islamic terrorists stormed the Algerian monastery he called home, Trappist Father Christian de Cherge felt compelled to put pen to paper and write down his testament. Father de Cherge, prior of the Monastery of Notre Dame de l’Atlas, said he held no ill will […]