Did Adoration save a city from violence?
The city of Juarez in northern Mexico was once considered one of the most dangerous in the world, with 3,766 murders recorded in 2010. Five years later, the number had dropped to 256.
Fr Patricio Hileman, one of the missionaries who arrived in the city three years ago, told Radio Maria Argentina that at that time, “40 people a day were dying because two drugs gangs were fighting”.
These were the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels. Sinaloa’s former leader Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán Loera was recently extradited to the United States.
In 2013, one of the parishes asked the missionaries to open a Perpetual Adoration chapel.“We put up 10 little chapels in a year,” Fr Hileman said.
“Two months after the first chapel was opened, the pastor calls us and says to us: ‘Father, since the chapel was opened there has not been one death in Juárez, it’s been two months since anyone has died.’
“At that time they were going to close the seminary because there were only eight seminarians, and now there are 88.”
Fr Hileman said “that is what Jesus does in a parish” when people understand that “we find security in Christ”.
A Netflix drama points to God-given values
Writing on his Word on Fire blog, Bishop Robert Barron examines the acclaimed Netflix drama The Crown, about the start of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Though describing the series as “Downton Abbey on steroids”, he argues that it powerfully illustrates the importance to society of values “grounded on God”.
“The film-makers emphasise the sacred, ordination-like dimension of Elizabeth’s coronation”, Bishop Barron said. The monarch was the “personification of this dimension of the society’s moral life”.
The Queen later resists her own feelings and popular opinion to “follow the precepts of the Lord,” he explained. “Nothing,” Bishop Barron concluded, “can be permitted to violate the God-given moral values upon which a society is rightly constructed. God bless the makers of The Crown for helping us to see this in a most dramatic way.”
The Jesuit who gave computers language
The National Catholic Register has paid tribute to Fr Roberto Busa (1913-2011), a Jesuit priest who created the Index Thomisticus – a project considered to be the beginning of computational linguistics.
Fr Busa convinced an initially reluctant Thomas J Watson, founder of IBM, to sponsor the research, sliding a card towards him that read: “The difficult, we do it immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.” This was the start of work that would eventually lead to hypertext and hyperlinks – that is, the ability for computers to understand the written language.
✣Meanwhile…
✣ Arnold Schwarzenegger described himself as a “huge fan” of Pope Francis after meeting him at the end of the Pope’s weekly audience.
In a tweet accompanying a photograph of the former California governor in conversation with the Pope, Schwarzenegger called Pope Francis “a steward for all of God’s creatures”. Schwarzenegger starred in such classic films as The Terminator and Kindergarten Cop.
✣ Orthodox Christians in the remote Siberian town of Sosnovka are now able to worship in a church made entirely of snow, following the efforts of a local man. Aleksandr Bityokhin, 41, designed and built the church, which stands at nearly 10ft, in 45 days. “I decided it would have 12 arches,” he said, “in honour of the 12 Apostles.” Before Bityokhin set to work, the nearest church was dozens of miles away. “It’s like a fairy tale,” a neighbour, Galina, said. “It’s so beautiful.”
✣ A Russian Orthodox priest is planning to dive seven miles to the depths of the Pacific Ocean in order to plant an Orthodox cross at the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fr Feodor Konyukhov will accompany explorer Artur Chilingarov in a purpose-built submarine. Fr Konyukhov is a seasoned adventurer. In May he orbited the earth in a hot air balloon.
✣The week in quotations
A dark moment in US history Cardinal Blase Cupich on Donald Trump’s refugee policy Statement
Love is the motor of any ecumenical effort Vatican official Cardinal Kurt Koch Prayer service at St Paul’s Outside the Walls
We are grateful to Fra’ Matthew for his generous response to the Holy Father Interim Order of Malta leader Fra’ Ludwig von Rumerstein CNS
The Pope, this Pope, not the one before him, or the one before that Archbishop Charles Scicluna on where to seek ‘the will of Jesus’ National Catholic Register
✣Statistic of the week
2 Groups have sponsored a refugee in Britain since July 2016 Source: Home Office
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