FAITH/STORIES

IMUS, Philippines - On a recent Sunday morning, Nemie Anciado squinted against the searing sun shining on the doorway of the crowded Our Lady of the Pillar Cathedral.

Anciado has been a longtime custodian at the cathedral, where Archbishop Luis Tagle served as bishop from 2001 until his recent appointment as head of the Manila archdiocese.

Anciado said he has mixed feelings about Tagle’s new assignment. He said he’s sad to lose him and happy that “he will be able to grow in his new position.”

"Quotes From Mother Teresa"

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VATICAN CITY - The feast of All Saints calls on Catholics to see the church as the communion of saints -- as Christ meant it to be -- and not to focus on it as an earthly institution with members who sometimes sin, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"We are called to see the church, not in its temporal and human aspect, marked by fragility, but as Christ wanted it, that is, as the communion of saints," the Pope said Nov. 1 before reciting the Angelus for the feast of All Saints.

VATICAN CITY - Thanking the 300 delegates who joined him for a peace pilgrimage to Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI said they represent billions of people -- believers and nonbelievers -- committed to making the world a better place.

The gathering was "a vivid expression of the fact that every day, throughout the world, people of different religious traditions live and work together in harmony," the Pope told the delegates Oct. 28, the morning after they had gone by train with him to Assisi.

ASSISI, Italy - A common thread ran through many of the speeches and invocations of this year's "prayer for peace" encounter in Assisi: the uneasy sense that the world is facing not merely conflicts and wars, but a much broader crisis that affects social and cultural life in every country.

Environmental damage, the rich-poor divide, erosion of cultural traditions, terrorism and new threats to society's weakest members were cited as increasingly worrisome developments by speakers at the interfaith gathering in the Italian pilgrimage town Oct. 27.

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing the 300 participants, echoed those points in his own analysis of the state of global peace 25 years after Blessed John Paul II convened the first Assisi meeting.

"Carmelite Saints"

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VATICAN CITY - In a quiet modification of a traditional format, the Vatican has dropped most of the individual private meetings between Pope Benedict XVI and bishops making their "ad limina" visits to Rome.

The unannounced change was instituted earlier this year, apparently in an effort to reduce the scheduling burden on the 84-year-old pope and to help cut through the backlog of "ad limina" visits, which are supposed to be made every five years by heads of dioceses.

In place of one-on-one meetings, the pope now usually holds more freewheeling sessions with groups of 7-10 bishops at a time, lasting about an hour. That is expected to be the format for U.S. bishops when they begin their "ad limina" visits in early November.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed three saints and said their lives demonstrated that true faith is charity in action.

"These three new saints allowed themselves to be transformed by divine charity," the pope said at a canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square Oct. 23.

"In different situations and with different gifts, they loved the Lord with all their heart and they loved their neighbor as themselves, in such a way as to become models for all believers," he said.

ROME - Thousands of Catholics in Rome celebrated the first feast of Blessed John Paul II Oct. 22 and the promoter of his sainthood cause said he has received several reports of healings that could be the miracle needed for the late pope's canonization.

Msgr. Slawomir Oder, the postulator of Pope John Paul's sainthood cause, told Vatican Radio, "I have received several very significant testimonies and am waiting for the complete documentation" that would allow him to judge which would be the most appropriate to submit to the Vatican.

"I was particularly struck by the healing of a little girl who was in an almost desperate situation and another very touching testimony regarding the healing of a priest," he told the radio Oct. 22.

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. - The compact car lifted a trail of dust as it traveled slowly along the 18-foot-tall chain-link fence, attracting the attention of the U.S. Border Patrol agent sitting in his green and white SUV.

When the vehicle stopped and two women got out, he was concerned contraband might be tossed over the fence into the United States to the waiting vehicle. Instead, the women began throwing items into Mexico.

The two women were Franciscan Missionaries of Mary who come to the fence periodically and toss whatever they can get to give the needy families of Puerto de Anapra, one of the poorest and most violent suburbs of Ciudad Juarez.