A man has been arrested by police in Mississippi after two women Religious were found stabbed to death in their home.
Sister Margaret Held, 68, a member of the School Sisters of St Francis in Milwaukee, and Sister Paula Merrill, 68, a member of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, had worked as nurses at the Lexington Medical Clinic.
Police officers discovered the women’s bodies after co-workers called asking to check on them after they failed to report for work at the clinic.
“These were just two wonderful, faith-filled women who just brought so much life to this poor little section of Mississippi. They and so many of the Sisters who have come down here throughout the years are the unsung heroes,” said Franciscan Fr Greg Plata of St Thomas the Apostle church in Lexington.
“They just bring the light of Christ to this area here. Both were extremely loved by the people in the area.
“These two sisters wouldn’t hurt a flea. It’s almost incomprehensible that someone could perpetrate such violence against them,” the priest said.
Dr Elias Abboud, the clinic’s owner, told The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, that the deaths were “a loss to the community. They were loved by everybody.” Authorities have released few details about the crime, but police suspect that robbery was a motive.
Bishop Joseph Kopacz of Jackson said: “They absolutely loved the people in their community,” he said. “We mourn with the people of Lexington and Durant and we pray for the Sisters of Charity, the School Sisters of St Francis and the families left behind.”
Mercy does not mean being nice, Pope tells bishops
Church leaders might have great plans and theories, but if they lack mercy, their “pastoral work will be cut off midway”, Pope Francis has said.
In seminaries, parishes, bishops’ conferences, clergy meetings “and even our way of doing theology”, he said, “it is about learning to show mercy.”
In a 28-minute video message to Church leaders from North and South America meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, Pope Francis said that “mercy is learned from experience – in our own lives first.” He added “It is learned from sensing that God continues to trust in us and to call us to be His missionaries, that He constantly sends us forth to treat our brothers and sisters in the same way that He has treated us.”
“Our peoples already have enough suffering in their lives; they do not need us to add to it,” the Pope told the bishops.
Being merciful is not about being generically nice, Francis added, but about looking for ways to help people recognise their sins and accept God’s mercy. In showing mercy to sinners, God shows He trusts that they will change, the Pope said. “Far from a merely beautiful word, mercy is the concrete act by which God seeks to relate to his children,” he added.
‘Don’t wear habits on the beach’
The deputy mayor of Nice has said that nuns wearing habits are no more welcome on his beaches than women wearing burkinis.
Rudy Salles, speaking to the BBC’s World at One, said the burkini was a “provocation” because religion was for the home and the church, “not the street”. Asked if nuns would be allowed to wear habits he said: “No. The same.” Most French mayors have refused to lift their burkini bans despite a court ruling that they are illegal.
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