Pope Francis has received dozens of soccer jerseys and game balls during his eight-year pontificate but he got a new football-themed toy on Wednesday: his very own foosball table. Francis played a round on the table that was presented to him at the end of his general audience by representatives of a Tuscany-based table football association, Sport Toscana Calcio Balilla in Altopascio. The mayor of Altopascio, Sara D’Ambrosio, wrote on Facebook that the table was designed to be inclusive and work well for people with physical disabilities to encourage their participation in sport.

Hypocrites are afraid of the truth, fearful of who they really are and incapable of truly loving, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.
What hypocrites do “is like putting make-up on your soul, like putting makeup on your behaviour” and hiding the truth, the pope said Aug. 25 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.
All this pretending, he said, “suffocates the courage to openly say what is true and thus the obligation to say the truth at all times, everywhere and in spite of anything can easily be evaded,” he said.
The pope continued his series of talks on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and focused on the dangers of the law by looking at the apostle Peter’s “inconsistency” at Antioch.
Gentile Christians were free from the Jewish law, but there was pressure from people from Jerusalem that caused Sts. Peter and Barnabas to draw back from what the Gospel said.
That is why, in his letter, St Paul condemns St Peter “to his face because he clearly was wrong” by trying to appease critics who still observed Mosaic law and to justify his hypocritical behavior.
“Peter had been eating with the Christians of pagan origin without any difficulty; however, when some circumcised Christians from Jerusalem arrived in the city, he then no longer did so, because he did not want to incur their criticism,” Pope Francis said.
“Watch out. The mistake was paying more attention to the criticism, to make a good impression than the reality of the relationships,” the pope said.
This was serious in St Paul’s eyes, because other disciples imitated St. Peter, and, even though he did not mean to, “Peter was, in fact, creating an unjust division within the community” by not being transparent or clear about what he was doing, Pope Francis said.
In his letter, St. Paul “wanted to remind the Christians of that community that they were absolutely not to listen to those who were preaching that it was necessary to be circumcised, and therefore be ‘under the law’ with all of its prescriptions,” Pope Francis said.

Advocates, political leaders and a Maronite Catholic bishop gathered on Zoom for a virtual seminar to express support for Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch, who came under pressure after calling for the Lebanese army to take control of the southern part of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is engaging in skirmishes with Israel.
Card Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch, also said Aug. 8 that the Lebanese Armed Forces should enforce a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that requires the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon. He said Lebanon does not wish to be involved in military actions that elicit destructive Israeli responses. Afterward, an image of the patriarch with a noose super-imposed on his neck circulated on social media.
Rai has “no political agenda,” Maronite Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles told those on the Aug. 12 Zoom call, sponsored by In Defense of Christians, a Washington-based nonprofit advocating for the protection and preservation of Christians and Christianity in the Middle East.
The cardinal’s remarks con-sistently are on behalf of the people of Lebanon, who are saying, “We want to eat. We want to survive,” Zaidan said.

BAL When Theresa Buck was still in high school at Mount de Sales Academy in the Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, she took a standardized assessment test meant to give some indication of the kind of career that would best suit her talents, personality and interests. Topping the list of potential careers, according to the assessment? Ministry as a woman religious.
An exercise completed more than two decades ago turned out to be more than prescient. Not only did the former parishioner of St Agnes Parish in Catonsville enter the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in rural Ala-bama, she recently was entrusted with leadership of the inter-nationally known monastery.
Today with the religious name of Mother Mary Paschal of the Lamb of God, she was elected abbess July 29, taking on the same post that was once held by Mother Angelica, founder of both the monastery and the glo-bal Catholic communications net-work known as EWTN.
The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration are a contemplative community of cloistered nuns whose charism is centered on adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Established in France in 1854, the religious community has monasteries that act autonomously.

After days of increasing dis-belief, America watched on Aug. 16 as President Joe Biden officially abandoned Afghanistan. We listened to his awkward speech as he publicly dismissed a 20-year American investment in blood and treasure while putting at risk untold thousands of Afghan lives.
“America has spent $2trn in Afghanistan; more than 2,000 American lives have been lost, not to mention countless Afghan ones. And yet, even if Afghans are more prosperous now than when America invaded, Afghanistan is back to square one. The Taliban control more of the country than they did when they lost power, they are better armed, having seized the weapons America showered on the Afghan army, and they have now won the ultimate affirmation: defeating a superpower.”
But that “defeat” is not the only result of the U.S. pull-out. More than a few of us walked away from Biden’s broadcast stunned, well-aware of our country’s international disgrace. Even worse, we also knew that for many Afghanis – including a little-known community of Christian converts – the worst is yet to come.

At the end of his weekly public audience – and after unexpectedly taking a phone call in front of the cameras and the thousands of pilgrims who’d gathered in the Paul VI Hall to listen to him – Francis had his usual meet and greet with those who had listened to him preach. Among those waiting were actor Jonathan Roumie and producer Dallas Jenkins, the face and the mind behind The Chosen, the largest crowd-funded media project of all-time, a multi-season series about the life of Christ that went live on Easter 2019 and has captured over 300 million viewers world-wide.
The show’s two seasons are freely available worldwide through a dedicated app, YouTube and the streaming service Peacock. The first eight episodes were funded through the donations of 19,000 people who helped raise the $10 million needed. The “sells” of that first season funded the second, and money is now being raised for a third. “Sales come from licenses, the pay it forward campaign, through which people can help others around the world to watch the show, DVDs, and merchandise related to The Chosen,” said Neal Harmon, the CEO of Angel Studios. “We’ve had people from every corner of the world expressing gratitude, because they somehow know about the show. It takes you by surprise: Most people don’t watch it the first time they hear about it, but once they do, they can’t stop talking about it!” he told a small group of Rome-based news outlets, including Crux.

With more than 5.5 million people fleeing Venezuela in recent years because of lack of opportunities, the Salesians in the South American country are warning that the people don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. “We do not see effective responses against the coronavirus, although the situation was already very complicated before,” warned the religious order. “Moreover, the popula-tion is losing hope. They do not see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
An estimated 87% of the population of 28.5 million is currently living in poverty, and essential goods such as food and medicine are scarce.
“People are coping. If they feel unwell, they take something and carry on, because many do not have access to medical care,” warn Salesian missionaries working in Caracas, speaking about Venezuelan’s inability to address the COVID-19 pandemic or get treatment when symptoms arise.
“The salaries paid are ridiculous,” the letter adds, noting a pensioner receives less than one dollar a month in pension.
“The poorest people cannot afford food and health care,” they add.
The Salesian missionaries in Venezuela have been working for years alongside the most vulnerable population, focusing their efforts in offering education and training to children and young people, while working hand in hand with the bishops’ conference in their efforts of dialogue and national reconciliation.
“In Venezuela, we need to dialogue, we need to find an expression of the popular will,” they wrote in a statement released this week in Spanish news outlet Religion Digital. “Those who should have the last word are the people, the citizens … It is necessary to give security to choose, to speak.”
The warning from the religious community comes after talks between the government of Nicolas Maduro and the opposition were held in Mexico to try to reach an agreement that would allow the country to leave the economic, political and social crises behind.
Venezuelans are expected to elect governors and mayors in November, but opposition forces say the electoral conditions are grossly unfair and have yet to decide whether they will participate. During the conversations held in Mexico, the biggest demand from the opposition was for Maduro to guarantee its participation in a “free and transparent” election process.

With time running out to rescue civilians fleeing the Taliban, Afghan Christians and others whose names appear on U.S. government lists of qualified evacuees are being turned away at the airport in Kabul, representatives of aid organizations and others told CNA  on August 25.
“I was told by contacts from various groups working to rescue those still in danger in Afghanistan—who must remain anonymous — that the State Department at least at a certain point was not implementing the lists that they require the organizations to compile — even though they have sent them multiple times,” Faith McDonnell, director of advocacy at Katartismos Global, an Anglican non-profit ministry group based in Manassas, Virginia, told.
“It seems at present as if no one is getting any priority unless they have some sort of special connection inside the airport,” she said.
Looming over the deepening humanitarian crisis is a dead-line for civilian evacuation operations at the Kabul airport to give way to the transport of the remaining 5,400 U.S. military personnel out of the country in order to meet a target date of Aug. 31, set months ago by the Biden administration, for a full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

After a 57-year stretch of loyalty to the same company, papal travel is set to change this fall with the closure of Italy’s national airline Alitalia, which has taken four popes to a total of 171 countries on all continents.
Founded on Sept. 16, 1946, Alitalia is the flag carrier and largest airline in Italy, making it a natural choice for Paul VI, whose 15-year reign set the stage for the pope as a globe-trotting figure.
It was Paul VI’s predecessor, Saint John XXIII, who made history for becoming the first pope of 20th century to leave the Rome area after his election when he visited a prison during Holy Week in 1958, and he later took a train to the Holy House of Mary in Loreto, but Paul VI took papal outings to new heights when he began traveling internationally as a means of both pastoral care and carrying out Vatican diplo-macy. In total, Paul VI took nine international trips with Alitalia, which would transport three other popes to 162 locations in the subsequent years.

Pope Francis has appointed Lorenzo Fazzini, an Italian journalist, author and father of four, to be managing director of the Vatican Publishing House.
The 43-year-old is the first layman to head the office, which is now operated by the Vatican Dicastery for Communication. He replaces Conventual Francis-can Father Giulio Cesareo, who had been appointed in 2017.
The Vatican made the announcement Aug. 23. Fazzini has degrees in modern literature and religious studies, has authored eight books and has written for several newspapers, including the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano and the Italian bishops’ conference’s daily, Avvenire. Since 2012, he has been director of EMI, a publishing house for 15 Italian missionary institutes that work all over the world.