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Korea Herald
29 minutes ago
- General
- Korea Herald
Pope Leo XIV surprises Catholic youth festival with unexpected popemobile salute
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV surprised tens of thousands of young Catholics on Tuesday and showed up unexpectedly at a Holy Year welcome ceremony, thrilling the kids and receiving a rock star's welcome in the first big youth event of his pontificate. Leo emerged in St. Peter's Square in his popemobile at the end of an evening Mass that kicked off the Jubilee of Youth, a weeklong celebration for young Catholics. The estimated 120,000 young pilgrims who had packed the square erupted in shocked cheers and chants, as Leo looped around the square and up and down the boulevard leading to it. For 20 minutes, Leo beamed, waved and clearly seemed to enjoy the outpouring of enthusiasm from his perch on the popemobile, as he took in the sea of cheering, flag-waving young people from around the world as the setting sun cast a golden glow over the basilica. In a brief off-the-cuff salute and blessing from the altar, he told the young pilgrims that they were beacons of light, hope and peace that the world needs today. 'The world needs messages of hope. You are this message, and must give hope to everyone,' he said in a mix of Spanish, English and Italian. 'We want peace in the world. We want peace in the world!' Leo, the first American pope, hadn't been expected to meet with the young pilgrims as a group until the weekend, when he was to preside over a vigil Saturday and Mass on Sunday in the highlight of the Jubilee week. Tuesday's Mass had been celebrated by the Italian archbishop who organized the Holy Year, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, but it was he who urged the kids to not leave the square at the end, because the pope 'had a surprise for us.' The crowd responded with the classic refrain from Catholic youth gatherings: 'This is the youth of the pope.' This week, downtown Rome has swarmed with energetic, singing and dancing masses of teenage Catholic scouts, church and Catholic school groups whose numbers are expected to swell to 500,000 by the weekend. It all had the vibe of a scaled-down World Youth Day, the once-every-three-year Catholic Woodstock festival that was inaugurated by St. John Paul II and maintained by every pope since. Tuesday began with groups of Catholic influencers — priests, nuns and ordinary faithful who use their social media presence to preach and teach the faith — passing through the basilica's Holy Door, a rite of passage for the estimated 32 million people participating in the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year celebrations. Francis met with some of the influencers earlier Tuesday and thanked them for using their digital platforms to spread the faith. But he warned them against neglecting human relationships in their pursuit of clicks and followers, and cautioned them to not fall prey to fake news and the 'frivolity' of online encounters.
5 hours ago
- General
Pope Leo XIV surprises Catholic youth festival with unexpected popemobile salute
VATICAN CITY -- VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV surprised tens of thousands of young Catholics on Tuesday and showed up unexpectedly at a Holy Year welcome ceremony, thrilling the kids and receiving a rock star's welcome in the first big youth event of his pontificate. Leo emerged in St. Peter's Square in his popemobile at the end of an evening Mass that kicked off the Jubilee of Youth, a weeklong celebration for young Catholics. The estimated 120,000 young pilgrims who had packed the square erupted in shocked cheers and chants, as Leo looped around the square and up and down the boulevard leading to it. For 20 minutes, Leo beamed, waved and clearly seemed to enjoy the outpouring of enthusiasm from his perch on the popemobile, as he took in the sea of cheering, flag-waving young people from around the world as the setting sun cast a golden glow over the basilica. In a brief off-the-cuff salute and blessing from the altar, he told the young pilgrims that they were beacons of light, hope and peace that the world needs today. 'The world needs messages of hope. You are this message, and must give hope to everyone,' he said in a mix of Spanish, English and Italian. 'We want peace in the world. We want peace in the world!' Leo, the first American pope, hadn't been expected to meet with the young pilgrims as a group until the weekend, when he was to preside over a vigil Saturday and Mass on Sunday in the highlight of the Jubilee week. Tuesday's Mass had been celebrated by the Italian archbishop who organized the Holy Year, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, but it was he who urged the kids to not leave the square at the end, because the pope 'had a surprise for us.' The crowd responded with the classic refrain from Catholic youth gatherings: 'This is the youth of the pope.' This week, downtown Rome has swarmed with energetic, singing and dancing masses of teenage Catholic scouts, church and Catholic school groups whose numbers are expected to swell to 500,000 by the weekend. It all had the vibe of a scaled-down World Youth Day, the once-every-three-year Catholic Woodstock festival that was inaugurated by St. John Paul II and maintained by every pope since. Tuesday began with groups of Catholic influencers — priests, nuns and ordinary faithful who use their social media presence to preach and teach the faith — passing through the basilica's Holy Door, a rite of passage for the estimated 32 million people participating in the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year celebrations. Francis met with some of the influencers earlier Tuesday and thanked them for using their digital platforms to spread the faith. But he warned them against neglecting human relationships in their pursuit of clicks and followers, and cautioned them to not fall prey to fake news and the 'frivolity' of online encounters. 'It is not simply a matter of generating content, but of creating an encounter between hearts,' Leo said in a speech that showed his ease in switching between languages. 'Be agents of communion, capable of breaking down the logic of division and polarization, of individualism and egocentrism.' 'It is up to us — to each one of you — to ensure that this culture remains human,' he said. 'Our mission — your mission — is to nurture a culture of Christian humanism, and to do so together' in what he called the only networks that really matter: of friendship, love and the 'network of God.' Pablo Licheri, who founded the Catholic Mass Times app, which provides locations and times for Catholic liturgies around the world and has registered 2 million downloads, said that he has been heartened by both Leo's message of unity and the enthusiasm of young Catholics like him who have descended on Rome. 'I was especially moved to meet so many fellow Catholic influencers in person and to pray together with others who share the same passion for spreading the joy of God's love,' he said after Tuesday's Mass.
Times
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Times
Naming sporting event after IRA leader is obscene
Imagine the outcry if a youth football tournament in England were named after one of the London Bridge terrorists. Or if a community sports facility in Manchester bore the name of the Arena bomber. It would rightly be condemned as grotesque, inflammatory and utterly incompatible with the values of a decent society. And yet in Northern Ireland, we are expected once again to swallow the farce of honouring IRA terrorists under the guise of 'commemoration'. The latest insult comes in the form of a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) youth tournament named after Joe Cahill, one of the founding figures of the Provisional IRA, whose record includes gun-running from Libya and lifelong justification of armed violence. Cahill was a convicted terrorist whose career spanned decades of bloodshed. He was unapologetic about the IRA's campaign of bombings and killings, which left thousands dead and many more lives shattered. Naming a 'Joe Cahill Gaelic Competition' for under 12s is obscene. Worse still, this act of glorification is happening at a time when the UK government is preparing to pour £50 million of taxpayers' money into the redevelopment of Casement Park, the GAA's flagship stadium in Belfast. Public money should never be used to prop up organisations that celebrate terrorism. It sends a damaging signal to victims, to wider society and to young people learning history through the prism of sport. How can we say we are building a shared future when one section of that future is lionising men who tried to destroy the very notion of peaceful democracy? This is not about cultural expression or historical memory, it is about rewriting the past to sanctify those who waged war against the people of Northern Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant. It is about embedding the message that political violence is not only excusable but honourable. For years now, Sinn Féin has walked this morally repugnant line, from honouring hunger strikers to naming playgrounds and GAA events after known terrorists. It is part of a calculated political strategy: to cloak murder in martyrdom and to push their narrative unchallenged into the mainstream. If the GAA wants to be a truly inclusive sporting body, it must reject the impulse to lionise gunmen, no matter how prominent they were within republican folklore, and stand with the victims of terror. And the UK government must stop pretending that these issues are separate from its financial support. You cannot fund an organisation with one hand and ignore its moral failures with the other. £50 million buys responsibility, not silence. Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee is a non-affiliated peer
Indian Express
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Marjorie Taylor Greene calls crisis in Gaza ‘genocide,' first Republican lawmaker to do so
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that a 'genocide' is taking place in Gaza, making her the first Republican in the US Congress to use the term to describe the humanitarian crisis unfolding there. In a social media post on Monday evening, Greene wrote: 'It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that October. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,'. Her comments reflect a growing shift in tone among some Republicans, and stand in contrast to the position of most of her party, which has consistently supported Israel since the conflict began. Over the past several weeks, Greene has gradually increased her criticism of how the war is being handled. Earlier this month, she said Israel had bombed a Catholic church in Gaza and that the area's population was being wiped out. She had also tried to remove $500 million in US military aid to Israel from the annual defence spending bill. That proposal failed, with only six members of Congress supporting it two Republicans and four Democrats, including Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American in Congress. Greene had previously clashed with Tlaib over Gaza. Two years ago, she led a failed effort to censure the Democrat for comments made at a pro-Palestinian rally, accusing her of antisemitism and support for terrorism. Greene's comments this week were also a direct response to remarks made by Florida Republican Randy Fine. In a social media post last week, Fine dismissed images of starving children in Gaza as 'Muslim terror propaganda' and wrote: 'Release the hostages… until then, starve away.' Fine, a first-term lawmaker and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has defended Israel's military actions and framed criticism of its operations as unfair. Greene rejected that position. On Sunday, she said in a post that she could 'unequivocally say' that the killings in Israel on 7 October were horrific 'just as I can unequivocally say that what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific.' I can unequivocally say that what happened to innocent people in Israel on Oct 7th was horrific. Just as I can unequivocally say that what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific. This war and humanitarian crisis must end! — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 27, 2025 President Donald Trump, who was in Scotland on Monday to open a new golf course, also spoke about the crisis. He said he believed there was real starvation in Gaza and called for more aid. 'That's real starvation stuff I see it, and you can't fake that,' Trump said after meetings with European leaders. 'We have to get the kids fed,'. Though Greene made her recent comments before Trump's remarks, others in the pro-Trump faction of the Republican Party have since echoed similar concerns about the need to protect civilians. (With inputs from The New York Times)
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Human dignity must be protected from rise of AI, Pope says
Pope Leo XIV has told the Vatican's first Mass for Catholic social media influencers that human dignity needs to be protected online as the world faces the "challenge" of artificial intelligence (AI). "Nothing that comes from man and his creativity should be used to undermine the dignity of others," the Pope said in St Peter's Basilica. He said the developing technology should be used for the "benefit of all humanity" during comments at the Vatican's Jubilee of Youth, a week-long gathering for young worshipers which is held every 25 years. It is the latest in a string of interventions the Pope has made on the subject of AI since he was elected in May. During Tuesday's speech, the Pope called on the world to protect "our ability to listen and speak" in a "new era". "We have a duty to work together to develop a way of thinking, to develop a language, of our time, that gives voice to love," the Pope said. He also urged social media influencers to seek out "those who suffer and need to know the Lord" with their content. "Be agents of communion, capable of breaking down the logic of division and polarisation, of individualism and egocentrism," he added. During his first Sunday address in May, Pope Leo XIV suggested that the development of AI, and other advances, meant the Church was necessary for the defence of human dignity and justice. Pope Leo XIV, who studied maths at Philadelphia's Villanova University in 1977, is the first pontiff from the United States. Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Leo served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982. Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a priest and a prior in his home city. He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges. Pope names Chinese bishop as he keeps historic Vatican-Beijing accord Pope Leo XIV calls for unity at inaugural mass and meets Zelensky Pope calls for journalists to be released from prison
