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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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risu.org.ua - Father David Nazar, Ukrainian-Canadian Jesuit, has been named rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. Archbishop Terry Prendergast (SJ) reports that on his Twitter https://twitter.com/archterentius/status/636587077929451520
David Nazar is Superior of the Jesuits in Ukraine and a former provincial superior of the English Canadian Jesuits.
Fr Nazar confirmed that appointment to RISU but official web page of Pontificio Istituto Orientale hasn't published news yet.
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CWN - Two churches in Damascus, including the church of Maronite Catholic Archbishop Samir Nassar, suffered mortar attacks on August 23.
The Fides news agency reported that 50 people were injured and an unspecified number were killed.
“Part of the war in Syria is to live under indiscriminate bombing, a kind of Russian roulette which is always unpredictable,” said Archbishop Nassar. “The survivors bury the dead without having been able to treat the wounded since they lack means and competence. They sink into silent prayer before the relics of martyrs, the seeds of faith.”
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CWN - At his August 26 general audience, Pope Francis spoke with Father Samir Yousif, a Chaldean Catholic priest who ministers to 5,000 refugees in five villages in the region of Amadiya in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Father Yousif, who was given a seat of honor with bishops at the audience, showed the Pontiff photographs of “scenes of unimaginable pain and desperation” suffered by refugees fleeing the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to the Vatican newspaper.
The priest expressed gratitude to the Pope for his appeals on behalf of Iraq’s Christian community and for the aid provided by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Italian bishops, and Caritas.
“We do not lack the hope to imagine that one day soon the Pope can come visit us in person,” Father Yousif added.
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CWN - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has established a security committee to address rising violence, including abductions and the expropriation of property, against Christians in Baghdad and other government-controlled areas, the Fides news agency reported.
The prime minister’s action follows a plea from Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako asking the government to protect the nation’s Christians.
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CWN - Two Catholic churches in Damascus were damaged in an August 23 mortar bombardment that killed nine people and wounded fifty, the Fides news service reports.
Maronite Catholic Archbishop Samir Nassar remarked to Fides that living in Damascus today is living “under indiscriminate bombing, a kind of Russian roulette.”
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15 August 2015
To my dear children and beloved young people,
Cordial greetings with my love, blessing and prayers!
Dear young people,
I am sending you affectionate, hearty greetings by way of this brotherly and fatherly letter addressed to you, which is rather a conversation with you, as I am in daily conversation with you in prayers, meditations, thoughts, trips and travels here and there, and in conferences, talks and meetings the world over, both at home and abroad.