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Wosbald
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KFC apologises after German Kristallnacht promotion
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(Source: PA Media)


KFC has apologised after sending a promotional message to customers in Germany, urging them to commemorate Kristallnacht with cheesy chicken.

The Nazi-led series of attacks in the country in 1938 left more than 90 people dead, and destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and places of worship.

It is widely seen as the beginning of the Holocaust.

The message, heavily criticised for its insensitivity, was later blamed on "an error in our system".

The fast food chain sent an app alert on Wednesday, saying: "It's memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!"


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(Source: Twitter)


Around an hour later another message was sent with an apology, according to the Bild newspaper.

"We are very sorry, we will check our internal processes immediately so that this does not happen again. Please excuse this error," the message is reported to have said.

Germany takes the 9 November anniversary of Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) seriously, with numerous memorial events and discussions scheduled to reflect the Nazis' murder of more than six million Jewish people.

[…]

In a statement issued to Newsweek magazine, KFC Germany blamed the message on a bot.

The fast food chain said the "automated push notification" was "linked to calendars that include national observances".

It added that it "sincerely" apologised for the "unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message" and said app communications had been suspended while an examination of them takes place.

"We understand and respect the gravity and history of this day, and remain committed to equity, inclusion and belonging for all," the company finished by saying.


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Post by Damelon »

That’s a marketing blunder!
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Wosbald
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Strange news story of the day

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Damelon wrote:That’s a marketing blunder!
Tru dat. Sumptin' tells me heads are gonna roll.

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The Holy Finger at the Nelson-Atkins is an unusual piece of biblical history
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The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. (Courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Museum)

At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, one of the most unusual items is a finger bone said to be that of St. John the Baptist.

Nicknamed the Holy Finger of Kansas City, the bone is contained in a vial surrounded by an intricate gilded silver container — a reliquary — circa 1400, according to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art collection notes.

The reliquary is an early Gothic architectural work, with bells, pillars and the small cast figures of six saints. The finger bone is inside a glass cylinder mounted in silver.

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The reliquary with finger of Saint John the Baptist. (Courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Museum)

According to biblical history, St. John the Baptist was a Jewish prophet baptized by Jesus. He is believed by Christians to have been sent by God to announce the coming of the Messiah.

He is also known as the first cousin of Jesus of Nazareth and a pivotal figure in theological history who preached “Repent, for the kingdom is near,” according to Matthew 3:2.

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Aerial drone photography of The Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. (Courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Museum)

John the Baptist devoted his life to God as a disciple baptized many, which highlights his significance. The finger in the glass cylinder is reportedly from his left hand.

The rest of St. John the Baptist’s body is reportedly located all over the world. His right hand, the hand he used to baptize Jesus, is allegedly in the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Cetinje monestary in Montenegro.

A tooth, knuckle bone and arm in Bulgaria are also said to have belonged to St. John the Baptist.

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Exterior of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. (Courtesy of Nelson-Atkins Museum)

The reliquary holding the finger bone, which has not been verified, was purchased by the William Rockhill Nelson Trust. It was once part of the Guelph Treasure accumulated by the dukes of Brunswick beginning in the 11th century, according to the collection notes.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum is normally open six days a week and has free general admission policy, excluding ticketed exhibits.


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Nun’s incorruptible remains highlight rich heritage of Black Catholics in U.S., say experts
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The exhumed body of Sister Mary Wilhelmina Lancaster, foundress of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, lies in repose in the church at the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus in Gower, Mo., May 21, 2023. (OSV News photo/Megan Marley)

(OSV News) — The recent discovery of a Black American nun’s apparently incorrupt remains in Missouri highlights the rich heritage of Black Catholics in the U.S., experts told OSV News.

During an April 28 exhumation, the body of Benedictine Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster of the Most Holy Rosary — foundress of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, in Gower, Missouri — was shown to be little changed since her May 2019 death at age 95.

The congregation, which had sought to transfer the remains to its new shrine altar honoring St. Joseph, was stunned to find that except for a layer of dirt and mold, both body and religious habit were intact — despite a lack of embalming, an in-ground burial in a wooden coffin, and “a puddle of water” on the grave, the religious community said in a informational handout provided at its abbey.

Incorruptibility has long been regarded as a divine sign of sanctity in both Catholic and Orthodox tradition, and the bodies of more than 100 canonized saints have been seemingly untouched by decay.

Cleaned and protected with wax, Sister Wilhelmina’s remains are now on display for veneration at the monastery. Following a May 29 rosary procession, the body will be encased in glass at the altar shrine, the religious community stated, adding that once devotion to Sister Wilhelmina has become “well established,” her cause for canonization “may be introduced.”

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Spoiler
In a May 22 statement, the Diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph, Missouri, acknowledged the body’s condition has “understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions.” At the same time, the diocese stressed the need to “protect the integrity of the mortal remains … to allow for a thorough investigation.”

As word has spread, hundreds of pilgrims have been flocking to the monastery to gently touch and pray before the body of a woman whose life story — along with those of three other African American nuns now on the path to sainthood — “embodies the fundamental truth that Black history is and always has been Catholic history in the U.S.,” said Shannen Dee Williams, associate professor of history at the University of Dayton, Ohio, and author of “Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle.”

Currently, six Black Catholics have active canonization causes: Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange (1784–1882), foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, of which Sister Wilhelmina was a member prior to founding her own order; Venerable Henriette Delille (1813–1862), foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Julia Greeley (born between 1833 and 1848; died 1918), a former slave who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; Sister Thea Bowman (1937–1990), who converted to Catholicism as a child and entered religious life as a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration; Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1776–1853), a former slave who became an entrepreneur and philanthropist; and Venerable Augustus Tolton (1854–1897), a former slave who became the first known black Catholic priest from the United States.

Williams told OSV News that Sister Wilhelmina — born in 1924 as Mary Elizabeth Lancaster in St. Louis — was “a descendant of enslaved Black Catholics” who grew up “during the Jim Crow era,” a period spanning the 1870s–1950s when various laws in Southern U.S. states enforced racial segregation.

In a pamphlet released after her death, Sister Wilhelmina said her parents had founded a Catholic high school for Black students until the archbishop at the time “put an end to segregation of Negroes in the diocese.”

Sensing a call to religious life since childhood, the future nun graduated from high school and immediately entered the Oblate Sisters of Providence.

One of eight historically Black orders in U.S. history, the Oblate Sisters stand as both “the nation’s and the modern world’s first Roman Catholic sisterhood established by African-descended women,” said Williams. “From the early 19th century, the Oblate Sisters of Providence preserved the vocations of hundreds of Black Catholic women and girls called to religious life, but barred admission into white orders solely on the basis of color and race in the U.S., Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The Oblate Sisters later “gave rise to three additional orders,” Williams said: the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary; and the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, which Sister Wilhelmina founded in 1995.

The community began with the assistance of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, as the Oblates of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The community moved to a rural area in the diocese of Kansas City–St. Joseph in 2006 at the invitation of Bishop Robert W. Finn, changing its name to the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. Originally established as a public association of the faithful, the community was elevated in 2014 to the status of Religious Institute of Diocesan Right. In 2018, the community’s priory gained official recognition as an abbey. The following year, the community established its first daughter house in Ava, Missouri. The sisters worship in Latin using the form of the Mass promulgated prior to the Second Vatican Council and chant the psalms using the 1962 Monastic Office.

Sister Wilhelmina’s establishment of an “interracial, contemplative Benedictine community” underscores the uniqueness of her story, which “bridges racial divides in the Catholic Church, especially within more traditional communities,” said Williams.

Sister Wilhelmina’s mysteriously preserved remains also reaffirm the universal call to holiness, said Father Stephen Thorne, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and a consultant and special projects director for the National Black Catholic Congress in Baltimore.

“In the midst of all the skepticism, disunity and sinfulness, people are still drawn to holiness,” Father Thorne told OSV News. “We need that.”

And as the nation’s Black Catholics prepare to gather in July for the National Black Catholic Congress — convened at various intervals since 1889 — Father Thorne said he is looking forward to reflecting more deeply on Sister Wilhelmina’s life.

“We will share it in sacred time” at the congress, he said. “It’s another reminder that all people are called (by the Lord), African American and Black people as well.”


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‘Incredible miracle’: Maui church unscathed by fire
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(Source: Nextar Media)

  • Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina survived the Hawaiian fires.
  • Reverend: An 'incredible miracle' the church survived.
  • Most of the destroyed city of Lahaina remains inaccessible.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (NewsNation)— The wildfires that have killed at least 99 people in Maui County, Hawaii, spared Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina while it destroyed thousands of structures around it.

The church, built in 1846, remains standing tall, untouched by the flames as a sign of hope for the people of Maui.

Reverend Monsignor Terrence Watanabe says it was an “incredible miracle” the church survived even as nearby buildings were destroyed.

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Spoiler
The church, built in 1846, remains standing tall, untouched by the flames as a sign of hope for the people of Maui.

Reverend Monsignor Terrence Watanabe says it was an “incredible miracle” the church survived even as nearby buildings were destroyed.

Watanabe said he believes everyone was shocked to see it still standing. He explained that spiritually, people always try to look for the presence of God in the world, whether it be a rainbow or people’s love for one another; but this was a whole other level of God’s presence.

Right behind the church once stood a convent, preschool and two classrooms that all burned down in the fire. But the church itself and the rectory right next door survived.

The pastor at the church returned to it two days after the blaze, and found that nothing was touched or damaged, Watanabe said.

[…]

[W]atanabe said it’s important for people to understand it’s OK to be angry at God, but the worst thing to do would be to give God the silent treatment and not talk to Him.

“The Lord’s calling us to walk on water and do the impossible,” Watanabe said. “But at the same time, to trust in Him. And yes, there are doing to be times of doubt and fear because this is a long range of work ahead of us.”


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