Editorial

DEAR friend, I am reading Long Walk to Freedom, the famous autobiography by Nelson Mandela, who exactly 60 years ago, on 5 August 1963, was arrested and later sentenced to prison...

DEAR friends, in the English language the word war comes from a Germanic root, werso, which means chaos. We should certainly not be surprised by this, because war has always created chaos, even before human beings began to write their history.

DEAR friend, the Rector of the Basilica is often asked for a friar to travel to a diocese in Italy or abroad with a Relic of St. Anthony so that the many people who cannot afford to come to Padua might have the opportunity to venerate their dear Saint. Two or three times a year I also happen to be Saint Anthony’s travelling companion. Now you may not believe it, but one of the questions I am most often asked by the faithful is whether I believe in miracles or not...

DEAR friend, bears are a protected species in Italy and, as they had completely disappeared in the north-eastern region of Trentino, three specimens were imported from Slovenia about two decades ago. Since then, the number of bears has increased from three to about one hundred, posing a danger for the safety of the population in that region. In particular, a few months ago, a 17-year-old female bear, identified as JJ4, which had previously attacked two hikers, killed a young man, Andrea Papi, while he was jogging in the woods...

DEAR friend, with the feast of St Anthony approaching, I decided to pick up a book I had not read for years: The Book on St Anthony’s Miracles. It is an extensive collection of his prodigious deeds written by the Franciscan friar Arnaldo de Serrano around 1370...

DEAR friend, you will certainly know, even if you have not visited them yet, about the shrines of Guadalupe, Fatima, Lourdes, Medjugorje… Perhaps, however, you may never have heard of the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni, India, which is visited annually by more than 20 million pilgrims, many of whom are not even Christian...