Weekly News Round-Up: August 3, 2018

Noel Ocol

August 3, 2018
Source: Sony Pictures
Noel-Blog
Welcome to S+L’s Weekly News Round-Up. As part of my job, I come across many interesting Catholic news stories on a daily basis. Some of them I'll cover on Perspectives Daily, and the others I’d like to share with you on this blog.  This column is where I’ll point out some of the more interesting news pieces that I’ve come across over the past week! Enjoy!
Now, I'm sure that you've probably heard the news that the pope has made a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding capital punishment. In case you haven't, the death penalty is no longer acceptable in any circumstance and the Catechism will be changed to forever reflect that fact. One of the most well-known advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, Sr. Helen Prejean, made famous by the 1995 movie, Dead Man Walking, spoke to America Magazine about this development.
This development of the Catholic position on capital punishment will undoubtedly fuel intense debate over the next few weeks, especially since a recent Pew Research poll is showing an increase in support for capital punishment in the US. Interestingly,  53% of Catholics in the US support the death penalty. You can read the entire report here.
And while we are on the topic of the death penalty, I thought I might share an interview we did with Sr. Helen Prejean on our show WITNESS with Fr. Thomas Rosica.
Moving along now to our next topic: Have you ever wondered why you see old pics of former popes wearing red shoes and why Pope Francis doesn't? I know it's a rather frivolous topic compared to the last one, but it's very interesting nevertheless. Aleteia has the story here.
Now here's an interesting story that started making the rounds on social media yesterday. Have a look at the picture below of  a marble pillar inside a church. Do you see the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph?
Source: EpicPew
Apparently, the scene from St. Matthew's gospel is there if you look carefully enough or if you read the entire story posted on EpicPEW here. The story is taken from the pages of a book called: "Tony's 50,000 Co-incidence Miracles"  Miracle or not? You decide.
That is it for this week. I hope you enjoyed the articles just as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you.
See you next Friday!