American Kielce Gussie does 1st reading at Pope Francis’ funeral
American Kielce Gussie, who works as a journalist at Vatican News, did the first reading in English — several verses from the Acts of the Apostles — at the funeral of Pope Francis. Image via ABC News.
(ROME) — American Kielce Gussie, who works as a journalist at Vatican News, did the first reading in English — several verses from the Acts of the Apostles — at the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday.
Gussie, originally from Florida, completed her undergraduate degree in theology at Mount St. Mary’s University.
The university featured her in an article in March 2019, saying that she planned on incorporating her faith with media.
“While in Rome, Gussie will pursue an internship with either EWTN or Catholic Bytes,” Mount St. Mary’s University said in 2019. “After completing her Licentiate, she hopes to continue working in Rome with a Catholic media company. Her goal is to incorporate her Catholic faith with media directed toward youth evangelization. Assistant Professor of Communication Mary Catherine Kennedy, Ph.D., is confident that Gussie will succeed. ‘Kielce is a go-getter. She came to the Mount with an idea of what she wanted to pursue after graduation,’ Kennedy said. She has paired her communication classes with her theology classes to pursue work in the Church. Her ambition and desire to serve others is spectacular, and I expect her to do well in her graduate studies in Rome.'”
(LONDON) — Munich police said at least 30 people, including several children, were injured after a “vehicle drove into a group of people” in the center of the city on Thursday morning.
“The driver was able to be secured on site and currently poses no further danger,” police said in a post in German on social media.
The incident is being treated as a “suspected attack,” Bavarian state Premier Markus Söder told journalists.
A 2-year-old child was critically wounded in the attack, according to a spokesperson for the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital.
“Doctors are currently fighting for the toddler’s life,” the spokesperson said.
The suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker residing in Munich, police said.
The suspect was already known to police because he “was listed as a witness due to his previous work as a store detective,” not because he was a known criminal, police said.
Authorities have not yet suggested a motive or named the suspect.
Florian Volm, a spokesperson for the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, told ABC News that the Bavarian Central Office for Extremism and Terrorism of the Attorney General’s Office is “investigating today’s incident to find possible motives.”
Police said the incident occurred in the area of Dachauer Street and Seidle Street in the heart of Munich, close to the city’s central train station.
The incident occurred at Stilgmaierplatz, where a rally organized by the Verdi trade union was taking place from 10:30 a.m. local time, police said. The event was accompanied by police and therefore officers were already on site.
A Munich Police spokesperson told ABC News that the suspect overtook a police vehicle with his car before accelerating and plowing into the back of the demonstration. Police believe he acted alone.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter told reporters that “many people have been injured, including children. I am deeply shocked. My thoughts are with the injured.”
“The police have arrested the driver of the vehicle, but the exact circumstances are still unclear,” Reiter added.
Police said a “major operation” was underway, urging residents to avoid the area in order to assist emergency responders.
Images from the scene showed police and medical responders working near a damaged vehicle surrounded by belongings and debris. Police cordoned off the area of the incident as helicopters circled above. Police have not identified the suspect or the vehicle involved.
Thursday’s vehicle crash came less than two months after a car plowed through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing two people and injuring nearly 70 others, local officials said at the time.
ABC News’ Helena Skinner, Felix Franz and Dada Jovanovic contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of northern Gaza on Tuesday in a rare protest against Hamas, with marchers calling for the terror group to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel and give up control of the strip to end the war.
Videos from the northern city of Beit Lahiya — which has been devastated by a heavy Israeli bombardment and intense fighting by between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces over the past 17 months — showed hundreds gathered on the streets, some chanting anti-Hamas slogans. Shouts of “Hamas out” could be heard in videos posted to social media.
The gathering followed an appeal for a demonstration spread on social media channels. ABC News is unable to verify its origin or the identity of the original poster.
Some marchers held signs displaying demands, including “Enough displacement and homelessness,” “Stop the war” and “We refuse to die,” as seen in videos circulating on social media.
Videos filmed by a local journalist and verified by ABC News showed Gazans chanting, “We want to live, we want to live,” in Arabic as a man addressed the assembled crowd.
“We are here today to deliver a message to the entire nation,” he said. “We are a peaceful people, a peaceful people, a peaceful people. We want to live. This is the least of life’s demands.”
“We want to live,” he continued. “Deliver it to the entire nation and the leadership. We want to live. People don’t have money to move — meaning to move their things when evacuating — there is no empty space in Gaza. Where will we go?”
The Associated Press reported that some videos appeared to show Hamas members dispersing the crowd.
A call across the Gaza Strip for more protests circulated on social media on Wednesday. In a video statement on Wednesday, speaking in Hebrew, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz addressed the protests.
“The IDF will soon operate forcefully in additional areas in Gaza and you will be required to evacuate and lose more and more territory,” Katz said in the statement directed at residents of Gaza. “The plans are already prepared and approved. Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia: Demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages — this is the only way to stop the war.”
Tuesday’s protests came amid Israel’s renewed offensive on the devastated strip, which began last week and ended a two-month ceasefire that began in January.
Israel is demanding the immediate release of all remaining hostages — consisting of 59 people, 24 of whom are still believed to be alive — taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack into Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the campaign would resume with “full force,” adding that further “negotiations will only be done under fire.” Israel intends to fully dismantle Hamas and remove it from power in Gaza, Netanyahu has said.
As of Tuesday, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 792 people had been killed and 1,663 others injured since the resumption of Israeli military action last week.
The latest casualties bring the total death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, to 50,144, with another 113,704 wounded, the ministry said.
Around 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel during the Hamas attack, with 251 people taken back into Gaza as captives, according to the Israeli government.
(VATICAN CITY) — Pope Francis marked multiple firsts for the papacy, becoming the first Latin American pope and the first from the Southern Hemisphere when elected in 2013.
He was also the first head of the Roman Catholic Church born outside of Europe in over a millennium.
Following his death on Monday at the age of 88, the selection process to elect the 267th pontiff will soon begin.
Ahead of the secretive gathering of eligible cardinals for the vote, questions swirl over whether the next pope will similarly come from outside Europe, such as Asia or Africa, and potentially be another history-making leader.
“I do think it’s fair to say that election of an archbishop from Asia or Africa is certainly a real probability now. That is not unthinkable at all,” Bruce Morrill, the Edward A. Malloy chair in Roman Catholic studies and distinguished professor of theology at Vanderbilt University, told ABC News. “That’s very different from when, let’s say, someone like John Paul II was elected. It was a big deal back in 1978 because he wasn’t Italian.”
“To move a couple papacies later to a man from Argentina — clearly, it’s reflecting more than ever a global church,” he added.
The election of someone from the Global South would be a “move in that direction of how to be a global church,” Jaisy A. Joseph, an assistant professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, told ABC News.
“That move from a Eurocentric church to a truly global church — I think that’s what Francis really inaugurated,” she said.
Pope Francis’ successor could be someone who continues his progressive legacy and mirrors his pastoral approach, or someone who counters it with a more conservative approach, experts say.
“Is he going to be someone who really strongly continues the primary emphases of the Francis papacy, or do they want to go with someone that they would see as bringing a balance or a certain pendulum swing, to use that language, in counter or contrast of priorities from the Francis papacy?” Morrill said.
Such a swing occurred when Pope Francis was elected, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, Morrill noted.
“Is he going to be someone who really strongly continues the primary emphases of the Francis papacy, or do they want to go with someone that they would see as bringing a balance or a certain pendulum swing, to use that language, in counter or contrast of priorities from the Francis papacy?” Morrill said.
Such a swing occurred when Pope Francis was elected, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, Morrill noted.
“If the electors are going to turn to someone and discern the way to go is to continue, strongly, the priorities of the late Pope Francis, Tagle fits the bill,” Morrill said.
“He’s likewise someone who smiles readily and has this warm pastoral way,” he added. “That’s what makes him the figure that we would think of as providing the most continuity.”
If elected, Tagle would be the first Asian pope.
Should the voting cardinals move in a more conservative direction, a potential pope could be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, Morrill said. Such a move would make for the first Black pope in modern history.
“There would be archbishops, cardinal archbishops in Sub-Saharan Africa that are much more focused on preservation or guarding of the strict traditional practices and teachings of the church,” Morrill said.
One name that comes to mind for Morrill is Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 65, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Other conservative candidates from Africa that could gain recognition include Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, 76, and Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, 79, according to Miles Pattenden, historian of the Catholic Church at Oxford University.
Cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to participate in the secret conclave inside the Sistine Chapel to choose the next pontiff, a gathering that typically commences between 15 to 20 days after the pope’s death.
A two-thirds majority is required to elect a pontiff.
Francis appointed roughly 80% of the cardinals who are eligible to vote for his successor, which could impact the selection of the next pope, Morrill said.
“He was advancing and choosing more and more people from Asia and Africa, and so that does all feed these distinct probabilities or possibilities,” Morrill said. “But there really is no way to make any solid prediction.”
The Pew Research Center found that under Francis, voting-age cardinals from the Asia-Pacific region increased 10%, and those from Sub-Saharan Africa went up 8%, while those from Europe decreased 51%.
In all, there are 53 cardinal electors from Europe, 23 from Asia, 18 from Africa, 17 from South America, 16 from North America, four from Central America and four from Oceania, according to the Vatican.
For Phyllis Zagano, the senior research associate-in-residence in Hofstra University’s Department of Religion, it’s unclear at the moment how that shift in makeup will impact the election of the next pope.
“The College of Cardinals has expanded significantly under Pope Francis, who has included cardinals from the farthest reaches of the world,” Zagano told ABC News. “Whether that will make any difference in the election of his successor remains to be seen.”
