Romana

Social Project in La Araucanía (Chile)

Between January 3 and 13, Operaciones Llaima 2025 took place in the Araucanía region, some 700 kilometers south of Santiago. This social project, created by young people and launched for the first time in 2024 under the auspices of the Alborada University Residence and the Alameda Cultural Center, has impacted this year more than 300 families in Cajón and Vilcún, in the Araucanía region, through housing construction projects, dental operations of varying complexity, eye care, and donations of dignified and personalized clothing, among other activities.

The project benefited from the generosity of 45 volunteers from all over Chile, 15 private donors, and four supporting entities: the Los Andes Ophthalmological Foundation, the Banco de Ropa Foundation, the Ronald McDonald Children’s Foundation, and the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of the Andes. At the local level, also providing assistance were the La Granja Municipal School, the Las Rosas Foundation, the Municipality of Vilcún, the Cajón Family Health Center, the Lautaro Hospital, the Vilcún Hospital, and, thanks to two efficient officials who located the most critically ill patients, the Araucanía Sur Health Service.

Torreciudad Hosts the 1st Day for Families with Children with Disabilities (Spain)

On Saturday, May 3, Torreciudad hosted the 1st Day for families with children with disabilities. They came from Madrid, Catalonia, Huesca, Logroño, and Zaragoza, and among them were many who came on their own, as well as some who came in groups. From Barcelona, for example, there was a group from a parish and another involved in the Lázaro Project, promoted by the Ginesta Association. Prayer to the Virgin Mary for these families and their needs, for the Church, and, during that moment of sede vacante, for the future Pope was the highlight of a festive day. “It has been very heartwarming. Creating bonds always helps us, since we are sometimes a little lonely,” said the mother of a child with Down Syndrome at the end of the day. Another mother with three autistic children also said that she had been comforted by the experience.

The children enjoyed entertaining games and a workshop to make drawings and prayer cards, which were then presented to the Virgin Mary during the Mass celebrated by Fr. Angel Lasheras. After an outdoor lunch in the area of the Viñero hermitage, offered by the El Grado City Council, a festival with songs took place. Finally, the rosary was prayed in the cemetery of El Grado, where the son of the couple who organized the day is buried. He had Down Syndrome and died of leukemia at the age of 8, a few days after receiving his first communion.

Over 300 Young Women Participate in the Metro Achievement Center Summer Program (Chicago, United States)

On June 17, the Metro Achievement Center for Girls Summer Program began, with 306 girls aged 9 to 18 from the Chicago area taking part. In addition to academic support, mentoring, and personality enrichment activities, the program includes field trips and cooking, music, and dance classes. As a local television reporter said, Metro’s Summer Program is helping to bridge the social gap between rich and poor environments and shape a future generation of women leaders. A significant fact is that among young women who finish high school and have participated in Metro’s programs, 100% go on to college, despite their unfavorable socialbackground.

Metro will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2025, and the Summer Program will celebrate its 26th.

Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome): 3rd Conference on Lay Holiness

On the occasion of the Jubilee for the Sick and Health Care Workers (April 5-6, 2025), the third conference dedicated to lay holiness was held on April 3 at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, with the theme: “Holiness and the Health Care Professions.”

The day began with an address by Bishop Fabio Fabene, Secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He spoke about caring for the sick as an integral part of the Christian mission, embodied by saints and blessed who combined medical expertise with evangelical love. After two other addresses that helped contextualize the aim of the healthcare professions, one by Martín Luque, priest and professor of Spiritual Theology, and another by Chiara Mastroianni, mother and professor of Nursing Sciences, there were six more on six healthcare professionals the Church is considering for beatification or sainthood and who are currently considered servants of God: Vittorio Trancanelli, Ernesto Cofiño Jérôme Lejeune, José Gálvez Ginachero, Enzo Piccinini, and Stanisława Leszczyńska. The first four were presented to the public by their respective postulators: Enrico Solinas, Santiago Callejo, Rémi Bazin, and Salvador Aguilera López. Enzo Piccinini was presented by his daughter Chiara; and Stanisława Leszczyńska by her biographer Wlodzimierz Redzioch.

Gender Violence in the Spotlight: Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra (Spain)

In 2019, the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at the University of Navarra launched a research project on gender violence. The director of the group, Eleonora Esposito, recently participated as an expert on digital gender violence in the European Union working group that drafted the new EU directive on violence against women and domestic violence. The directive, which will come into force in 2027, in conjunction with the Digital Services Act, already in force since last year, marks a turning point by classifying four forms of digital gender-based violence as Eurocrimes for the first time, Professor Esposito said at a conference organized in Barcelona by the La Caixa Foundation in June.

Recently, the doctoral thesis of another ICS researcher, Cristina Bastidas, on Discourse, Narratives, and Identity in Contexts of Gender-based Violence: Analysis and lines of intervention for Latin American women in Navarra (the result of conversations with thirty victims of gender-based violence), has also aroused interest in the Spanish press. In an interview, the author said she hopes that this research, carried out with the help of the Association for Foreigners in Navarre (APROENA) and the Caja Navarra Foundation, will help to identify more precisely possible risk factors, causes, and consequences, ultimately leading to recommendations that will help prevent or mitigate this scourge.

Family Rosary (Bogotá, Colombia)

During a party for their children, two parents talked at length about the importance of instilling habits of piety in children. The idea was suggested to create a meeting space on some weekends to pray the Rosary together. In October 2024, after three months of failed attempts, the first meeting was finally held. Since then, the family rosary has become a practically fixed monthly event and is increasingly well attended. Currently, families from the Cerros, Iragua, Atavanza, and Santa Francisca Romana schools in Bogotá take part, but the goal is to continue inviting more families to this experience of family communion. It is also an opportunity for mutual support and open and sincere dialogue about the foundations of the faith and the challenges facing the Church and the family today.

Associazione Tempo Insieme: Giving Time, Receiving Love (Milan, Italy)

Tempo Insieme (“Time Together”) was born from the desire of five women who at one point had channeled their volunteer efforts into visiting the elderly in a nursing home where Fr. Elia Acerbis (1929-2018), a priest of Opus Dei, had been transferred due to his precarious health condition. Those five women have now become a network of about twenty volunteers in Milan and the surrounding area who are committed not so much to medical care as to human relationships: companionship, listening, even friendship, with elderly, sick, or lonely people.

The volunteers’ common experience is that the time they give to these people is repaid in the form of love. The gratitude of an elderly art lover who goes to exhibitions twice a month with her new young friend, or that of a sick mother who can count on someone to take her children to the park or sometimes pick them up from school, helps them feel useful and not obsess over their own problems.

The training of volunteers is a central focus at Tempo insieme. At least twice a year, training sessions for them are held on how to relate to vulnerable people and time for reflection led by psychologists and priests.

National Youth Day (La Serena, Chile)

A group of 17 university and high school students who take part in educational activities at Opus Dei centers went on a pilgrimage with 4,000 other young people to the first National Youth Day, which took place in January in the city of La Serena under the slogan “Young Pilgrims of Hope.” The opening Mass on the 22nd, the Eucharistic adoration vigil on the 25th, and the closing Mass on Sunday the 26th, celebrated by Archbishop René Rebolledo of La Serena and President of the Chilean Episcopal Conference, were the three main highlights of the event. For all the members of the group, the pilgrimage was an opportunity to grow in faith, to open themselves to others, and to discover that they were accompanied by other young people who share the same desire to bring Christ to their peers.

Strathmore University, Winner of the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition (Nairobi, Kenya)

The John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition consists of a mock hearing in accordance with the rules of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system, which involves the exchange of written communications and adversarial hearings before members of special panels on international trade law issues. It has been organized annually since 2002 by the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) and is aimed at students and young professionals. This year, the final round, held in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 10 to 14, saw the victory of the Strathmore University team, composed of Anthony Kigochu Mburu, Javier Delmar Mario, and Clare Wangeci Kaira. The latter won the award for best speaker.

Catamarã School Parents’ Association: a Chapel for the Community of Cruzeiro (São Paulo, Brazil)

In 2024, Catamarã School launched Catamarã Social, a volunteer program for families of the school’s students. After an initial project in 2024 that consisted mainly of renovating a nursing home, this year another more ambitious project was undertaken: the construction of a chapel for the community of Cruzeiro, a marginal town in the state of São Paulo. Fifty volunteers joined the local community between May 1 and 4, taking advantage of the long weekend to build the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There was no shortage of help from a large number of sponsors, as well as eleven construction professionals and a local artist who sculpted the image of the Sacred Heart. Every day, the volunteers had the opportunity to attend Mass and a formation talk.

On Sunday, May 4, the chapel, measuring 5 meters by 12 meters and featuring a slender tower, was completed. The community of Cruzeiro celebrated Mass there for the first time two days later.