Patriarch of Venice calls for prayers of reparation after Virgin Mary statue decapitated
By Hannah Brockhaus for CNA
November 27, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print
The decapitated statue of the Virgin Mary in the municipality of Marghera, Italy. Credit: Comune di Venezia.
Rome Newsroom, Nov 27, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- A statue of the Virgin Mary in a public square in a suburb of Venice, Italy, was vandalized Thursday night.
"The head was decapitated and the hands of the monument lopped off" in the early hours of Nov. 26, according to a notice from the City of Venice.
The statue is located in a greenspace at the center of a roundabout in the Venice municipality of Marghera. The act was caught on video surveillance cameras and the perpetrator has been identified and stopped by police.
Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, called the act of vandalism "a gesture that offends our city, our history and our values."
Brugnaro condemned the "cowardly act, which aims to hurt our sensibility" and said that workers had been instructed to quickly repair the statue.
In March, the mayor visited Venice's Basilica of Our Lady of Health to say a prayer consecrating the city to the Virgin Mary. The prayer was written by the Catholic Patriarch of Venice, Francesco Moraglia.
Moraglia said Nov. 26 that he was saddened by the vandalism of the Mary statue, calling it an offensive gesture "not only for Christians but for the whole city."
He also noted that the damage to the statue took place a few days after the feast day of Our Lady of Health, "a festival so dear and rooted in the hearts of Venetians."
Moraglia asked people to say a prayer of reparation "for the offense inflicted on the Mother of the Lord and also for those who have become protagonists of this insane gesture."
The local parish is organizing a community Rosary to be prayed at the statue on Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
"Believers and all people of goodwill should reflect and distance themselves from those who, out of superficiality and ignorance, or by deliberate choice, offend the dearest feelings of those who live and inhabit our city with them," the patriarch said.
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Pope commends North Macedonians for respect among cultures, ethnic identities
May 7, 2019 CNA Daily News 0
Skopje, North Macedonia, May 7, 2019 / 01:54 am (CNA).- Speaking to North Macedonian authorities Tuesday, Pope Francis commended the country for its tradition of peaceful coexistence among its variety of cultures and religious and ethnic communities.
The country's patrimony is "the multiethnic and multi-religious countenance of your people, the legacy of a rich and, indeed, complex history of relationships forged over the course of centuries," he said May 7 at the Mosaique Hall of the presidential palace in Skopje.
Speaking to the authorities, civil society, and the diplomatic corps, Francis noted it is the first time a pope has visited North Macedonia. He pointed to the land's time under both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, calling it "a bridge between East and West and a meeting-point for numerous cultural currents."
"This crucible of cultures and ethnic and religious identities has resulted in a peaceful and enduring coexistence in which those individual identities have found expression and developed without rejecting, dominating or discriminating against others," he said.
"They have thus given rise to a fabric of relationships and interactions that can serve as an example and a point of reference for a serene and fraternal communal life marked by diversity and reciprocal respect."
These features are "highly significant for increased integration" with Europe, the pope said. The country has applied to join both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Indeed, its name, North Macedonia, was adopted only last year in an agreement with Greece after a dispute over the use of the name Macedonia.
Pope Francis expressed his hope that North Macedonia's increased intregation with Europe "will develop in a way that is beneficial for the entire region of the Western Balkans, with unfailing respect for diversity and for fundamental rights."
He said that in North Macedonia "the different religious identities of Orthodox, Catholics, other Christians, Muslims and Jews, and the ethnic differences between Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs, Croats, and persons of other backgrounds, have created a mosaic in which every piece is essential for the uniqueness and beauty of the whole. That beauty will become all the more evident to the extent that you succeed in passing it on and planting it in the hearts of the coming generation."
"Every effort made to enable the diverse religious expressions and the different ethnic groups to find a common ground of understanding and respect for the dignity of every human person, and consequently the guarantee of fundamental freedoms, will surely prove fruitful," according to Pope Francis. "Indeed, those efforts will serve as the necessary seedbed for a future of peace and prosperity."
He welcomed North Macedonia's "generous efforts … to welcome and provide assistance to the great number of migrants and refugees coming from different Middle Eastern countries" in 2015 and 2016.
"With you, they found a secure haven. The ready solidarity offered to those in such great need … does you honour. It says something about the soul of this people that, having itself experienced great privations, you recognize in solidarity and in the sharing of goods the route to all authentic development."
The pope also pointed to the example of Mother Teresa, "one of your illustrious fellow-citizens, who, moved by the love of God, made love of neighbour the supreme law of her life."
"You are rightly proud of this great woman," he said. "I urge you to continue to work in a spirit of commitment, dedication and hope, so that the sons and daughters of this land, following her example, can recognize, attain and fully develop the vocation that God has envisaged for them."
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Patriarch of Venice calls for prayers of reparation after Virgin Mary statue decapitated - Catholic Mass Search
Patriarch of Venice calls for prayers of reparation after Virgin Mary statue decapitated - Catholic Daily
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