Seventy-six year old Paride Taban, Bishop Emeritus of Taban, South Sudan, has won the U.N. peace prize 2013 for his efforts to foster reconciliation in this conflict-torn part of the world. The decision was motivated by his work at the Holy Trinity Peace Village in Kuron, in the east of South Sudan. Founded by Bishop… Read more »
During this Year of Faith, Local Churches around the world are striving to make the most of catechesis in the work of evangelization. In view of this, Sunday catechism classes for children in Pakistan have taken on an online dimension. The Archdiocese of Karachi recently launched a new web site (http://cssmk.org), which offers visual and… Read more »
Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization, has published its annual Freedom of the Press Report on 179 countries throughout the world. Democratic nations hold the first places with regard to press freedom, with the northern European countries of Norway, the Netherlands and Finland topping the list, while countries with dictatorships (notably North Korea, Turkmenistan and… Read more »
A Moment with Mary: the holy rosary prayed live from St. Peter’s Square. This new initiative has been made possible thanks to the traditional instruments of social communication and the new social networks. The rosary, which is recited Monday-Friday, from 4:00-4:30 p.m. (Rome time), uses the social networks, TV channels and the Internet to connect… Read more »
“Happiness can be measured,” says John Helliwell, co-author of the first-ever “World Happiness Report”–a document measuring this state of soul in 150 countries throughout the world. The fruit of 30 years of research, the report reveals that happiness varies according to cultures and individuals. According to its findings, the world’s happiest people live in northern… Read more »
Two significant events recently took place in the Republic of Georgia (an ex-member of the Soviet Union): the consecration of the Church of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, set on a hilltop outside the town of Akhaltsikhe, and the inauguration of a nearby Benedictine monastery. The latter, the country’s first Catholic monastery, was founded… Read more »
UNICEF is one of the 5 humanitarian organizations that receive financial support from the UE for various programs. This year, the European Union is adding to its annual donation of €930,000, 2 million euros deriving from its 2012 Nobel Peace Prize money to fund 4 projects under its Children of Peace Initiative. The program will… Read more »
Half of the food produced in the world (about 2 billion tons) winds up in the trash, even though a large part of it is still edible. This troubling information emerged in a report by Great Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers. According to the report, one of the causes of this waste is the failure… Read more »
According to the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), the World Giving Index–the largest study of charitable behavior across the globe–registered a 2% drop in financial donations to charity in 2007-2012, a fact in part influenced by the current world economic crisis. The Index is based on an average of three measures of giving behavior: the percentage… Read more »
The Pope sent out his first twitter message at the end of his general audience on Wednesday, 12 December 2012. To underscore the universality of the gesture, he was flanked by 5 children representing the world’s continents.Immediately after blessing the crowd the Pope pressed a tablet screen and sent out the message: “Dear friends, I… Read more »
