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| EWTN APPROVED TO BROADCAST IN UKRAINE - MARONITE BISHOP GREGORY MANSOUR IS GUEST ON “VATICAN INSIDER” - HOLY FATHER ATTENDS SCREENING OF “MARY OF NAZARETH” - BENEDICT WELCOMES EASTERN CATHOLIC BISHOPS FROM U.S. |
| Joan Lewis |
| With a B.A. in French at St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame, Indiana and a Diplome from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, Joan Lewis taught French for 5 years in the U.S. She moved to Rome and began an extensive journalism career, specializing in the Vatican. She was invited in 1990 to work for the newly-created Vatican Information Service in the Holy See Press Office as the English language writer and editor. While working for the Holy See, Joan was named a member of Holy See delegations to United Nations conferences: Cairo Population Conference, September 1994; Copenhagen Social Summit, March 1995; Beijing Conference on Women, September 1995; Istanbul Habitat Conference on Human Settlements, June 1996. SheI also attended two conferences in Doha, Qatar: May 2004, Christian Muslim Dialogue and November 2004: the Doha International Conference on the Family. Appointed Rome Bureau Chief for EWTN in the fall of 2005 Books Published: “JUBILEE 2000 IN ROME,” December 1999. Honors:
Dame of the Order of St. Sylvester - named by Pope Benedict on June 24, 2005
Dame of the Constantinian Order of St. George. Extra-curricular:
Member of the parish council at Santa Susanna’s Church in Rome. The Paulist Fathers have been serving the American community here since 1922. |
Friday, May 18, 2012
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| I have quite a bit of “food for thought” for you to digest this coming weekend, as you will see below - Vatican news, EWTN news, my guest on “Vatican Insider” and a panorama of the beautiful Maronite liturgy I attended yesterday afternoon in the basilica of St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls. I have interspersed some photos I took at St. Paul’s yesterday with the Holy Father’s speech today (see below) to these bishops. EWTN APPROVED TO BROADCAST IN UKRAINE EWTN announced today that on May 15th, 2012 the Ukraine`s National Council for TV and Radio, the main regulatory body for broadcasters allowed EWTN TV to broadcast in Ukraine. EWTN works in the country under the support by the Catholic Media Center. An official website of the National Council for TV and Radio in Ukraine said: "On May 15, at the meeting the Council decided to update a list of broadcasters whose programs are in accordance with the European Convention on Trans-Border Television and their broadcasting is not limited according to the chapter 42, part 1 of the Law of Ukraine on Television and Radio. Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) has been added to the list." MARONITE BISHOP GREGORY MANSOUR IS GUEST ON “VATICAN INSIDER” On Tuesday, at the start of the “ad limina” visit of the Eastern Catholic bishops of various rites and traditions, I attended a Latin Mass at the Altar of the Tomb of St. Peter that was celebrated by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches. I featured that in this column. Yesterday afternoon I went to a Maronite liturgy in the basilica of St. Paul, presided over by Bishop Gregory Mansour of St. Maron of Brooklyn of the Maronites. Earlier in the day we met at the North American College where we spoke for my interview for VI. You will not want to miss a minute of our conversation, be you of the Latin Rite or an Eastern Catholic tradition. Here are some photos of Bishop Mansour at that liturgy.    Both occasions were very special for me because an “ad limina apostolorum” visit is, as the Latin says, a visit “to the threshold of the Apostles.” Since all bishops on ad limina celebrate Mass at the tombs of Sts. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, these occasions took on a special meaning. HOLY FATHER ATTENDS SCREENING OF “MARY OF NAZARETH” Wednesday afternoon Pope Benedict attended a screening of "Mary of Nazareth," a co-production that focuses on three female protagonists: Herodias, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Nazareth, whose lives cross but who choose different paths. In remarks afterwards to his guests in several languages, he noted that, "Herodias remains locked within herself and her world, unable to raise her gaze to read the signs from God and not freed from evil. Mary Magdalene … is attracted by the appeal of an easy life rooted in material things and (she) uses various means to have her own way until the dramatic moment when she is judged and is faced with her own life. Her encounter with Jesus opens her heart and changes her existence.” But, stated Benedict “the center is Mary of Nazareth who possesses the wealth of a life that has been a ‘Here I am’ for God. She is a mother who would have always wanted to keep her son at her side, but she knows that He is God. Her faith and her love are so great that she can accept Him leaving to accomplish His mission. Her life is a constant ‘Here I am,’ said to God from the Annunciation until the Cross." The Pope explained that, "The three experiences are a paradigm of how one can build their life around selfishness, being locked within oneself and material things, being guided by evil, or rather upon the presence of a God who came and stays with us, who awaits us with kindness if we make a mistake and asks that we follow Him, that we trust in Him. Mary of Nazareth is the woman of a full and total "Here I am" to the divine will. In her "Yes", repeated even when faced with the sorrow of the loss of her child, we find complete and profound beatitude." BENEDICT WELCOMES EASTERN CATHOLIC BISHOPS FROM U.S. Pope Benedict Friday welcomed the final group of U.S. bishops who have been coming to Rome over the past six months on their “ad limina” visits. He addressed the bishops of Region XV, which is composed of Eastern Catholic bishops on their first ever “ad limina” visit as a region. The multi-ritual Eastern Catholic Churches include the Armenian, Chaldean, Melkite, Maronite, Syriac, Ukrainian, Byzantine, and Ruthenian traditions. 
The Pope noted that, over those months, he had addressed the U.S. bishops “on a number of pressing spiritual and cultural challenges facing the Church in your country as it takes up the task of the new evangelization.”
He told the Eastern bishops that they and their faithful “embody in a unique way the ethnic, cultural and spiritual richness of the American Catholic community, past and present. Historically, the Church in America has struggled to recognize and incorporate this diversity, and has succeeded, not without difficulty, in forging a communion in Christ and in the apostolic faith which mirrors the catholicity which is an indefectible mark of the Church. In this communion, which finds its source and model in the mystery of the Triune God, unity and diversity are constantly reconciled and enhanced, as a sign and sacrament of the ultimate vocation and destiny of the entire human family.
He praised their “unremitting efforts, in the best traditions of the Church in America, to respond to the ongoing phenomenon of immigration,” and “to continue, with great generosity, to welcome waves of new immigrants, to provide them with pastoral care and charitable assistance, and to support ways of regularizing their situation.” He said he knew the issue of immigration reform “clearly a difficult and complex issue from civil, political, social, economic, and “above all from the human point of view.” “It is thus of profound concern to the Church, since it involves ensuring the just treatment and the defense of the human dignity of immigrants. In our day too, the Church in America is called to embrace, incorporate and cultivate the rich patrimony of faith and culture present in America’s many immigrant groups, including not only those of your own rites, but also the swelling numbers of Hispanic, Asian and African Catholics.”
The Holy Father pointed to “the commitment to foster Catholic unity, saying “it is necessary not only for meeting the positive challenges of the new evangelization but also countering the forces of disgregation within the Church which increasingly represent a grave obstacle to her mission in the United States.”
“I urge you,” said Benedict XVI, “to remain particularly close to the men and women in your local Churches who are committed to following Christ ever more perfectly by generously embracing the evangelical counsels. I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women in your country, and to join them in praying that this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the Church, as well as to their founding charisms.”
In closing remarks, the Pope mentioned the forthcoming Year of Faith and emphasized that,”with the progressive weakening of traditional Christian values, and the threat of a season in which our fidelity to the Gospel may cost us dearly, the truth of Christ needs not only to be understood, articulated and defended, but to be proposed joyfully and confidently as the key to authentic human fulfilment and to the welfare of society as a whole.”   Write to Joan at:
joansrome@ewtn.com
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