Eye Opener: Pope Francis misses Good Friday procession

Pope Francis will preside over Easter Vigil after skipping Good Friday at last minute, Vatican says

Pope Francis opens up in new memoir

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The Vatican confirmed Pope Francis would preside over the Easter Vigil service on Saturday night, after he decided at the last minute to skip his participation in the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum as a health precaution.

The Vatican’s daily bulletin confirmed Francis would lead the lengthy vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most solemn and important moments in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The service, which is due to begin at 7:30 p.m. local time and usually lasts two hours, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and includes the sacrament of baptism for eight adult converts.

The 87-year-old Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter that have made it difficult for him to speak at length.

He has canceled some audiences and often asked an aide to read aloud some of his speeches. But he ditched his Palm Sunday homily altogether and decided at the last minute Friday to stay home rather than preside over the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to “conserve his health” in view of the vigil service on Saturday and his even more taxing obligations on Easter Sunday. The pope is due to preside over a morning Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square and deliver his Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) speech praying for an end to global crises.

APTOPIX Italy Pope Good Friday — Faithful hold the cross as they take part in the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) torchlight procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday, in Rome, Friday, March 29, 2024.

Andrew Medichini / AP

While Francis also skipped the chilly Good Friday procession last year because he was recovering from bronchitis, his sudden absence from the event this year raised concern. His chair was in place on the podium, and his aides were preparing for his arrival when the Vatican announced five minutes before the official start time that he wasn’t coming.

In addition to his respiratory problems, Francis had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalized twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall. He has been using a wheelchair or cane for nearly two years because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, “Life: My Story Through History,” Francis said he isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign, and that he still has “many projects to bring to fruition.”

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Eye Opener: Pope Francis misses Good Friday procession

Eye Opener: Pope Francis misses Good Friday procession – CBS News

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Pope Francis did not take part in a traditional Good Friday procession in Rome. Meanwhile, Sean “Diddy” Combs has resurfaced in Miami after federal agents raided his homes. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener.

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French wine industry suffering multiple setbacks despite good harvest

France’s winegrowers are facing declining sales at home and abroad compounded by falling producer prices, despite achieving an above-average grape harvest last year.

The situation has been caused by rising inflation and the fact that the French are drinking less wine, the Agriculture Ministry said in its latest market analysis.

The 2023 grape harvest should actually have given France’s winegrowers reason to celebrate. At 48 million hectolitres, it was 4% higher than the previous year and 8% higher than the average for 2018-2022.

But between August and December 2023, exports of origin-protected (AOP) wines fell by 7% in volume and 5% in commercial value. Exports of other wines even fell by 16% and 11% respectively. The volume of cognac exported fell by 18% and that of champagne by 17%.

According to the ministry’s data, the producer prices of France’s winegrowers fell by 13% between August and December 2023 compared to the same period in the previous year and by 9% compared to the previous five years. Only producer prices for champagne increased by 10%.

Inflation both contributed to the decline in exports and also had a negative impact on domestic wine sales, the ministry said. Retail wine sales in France fell by 4% in 2023 after an equally large decline in 2022. Red wines, with a drop of 9%, were hit harder than white wine which saw a 4% fall and rosé which was down 2%.

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Good Friday in Latin America

Across Latin America, Roman Catholic faithful commemorated Good Friday with processions and ceremonies re-enacting the crucifixion of Jesus.

In the Guatemalan town of Antigua, devotees wearing purple and white carried a tree-ton religious float with a 300-year-old, life-size statue of Jesus bearing the cross during a procession. Brazilians lined the streets in the Complexo do Alemao favela to watch a Way of the Cross reenactment.

On a hill overlooking the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, men costumed as Roman soldiers tied men to wooden crosses as residents gathered to watch the reenactment of the crucifixion.

In Ecuador, thousands of penitents accompanied a statue of Jesus the Almighty in a march through the capital, while In Cuba, faithful marked Good Friday with a procession through the streets of Havana.

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Good Samaritan in Illinois stabbing spree said ‘human nature’ led him to intervene

Keith Fahrney was driving home from class in Rockford, Illinois, when he saw a woman being attacked by Christian Soto, the man accused of killing four people and injuring seven others during a stabbing spree Wednesday.

Fahrney, 51, said that, without thinking, he hit his brakes and ran over to help the woman, getting attacked himself.

After a night in the hospital, Fahrney is now back home and trying to process what happened.

“It’s very scary. You never think this is going to happen to you,” he said in a phone call Friday. “My stepdaughter when she called from Florida, she said, ‘Well, luckily, you’re the kind of person that just won’t take out your phone and start recording. You were the one that went over there and scared this guy off to protect her.'”

Authorities said the rampage began shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday and involved “multiple scenes” in Rockford and an area of Winnebago County.

Soto, 22, was arrested after police said he stabbed three people to death and fatally beat a 15-year-old girl who was watching movies with her sister and friend. He faces numerous charges of murder, attempted murder and home invasion.

The victims killed were identified as Jacob Schupbach, 23; Ramona Schupbach, 63; Jay Larson, 49, a mailman; and Jenna Newcomb, 15.

Seven others, including Fahrney, were injured.

Fahrney, who is studying to be an engineer, said he was on his way home when he saw a wild scene: two women with blankets and towels running down the street screaming for help.

“I drove maybe another 1,000 feet or whatever and noticed that there was this lady sitting in the middle of her yard with somebody standing over the top of her,” he said. “She looked like she was in distress as I was starting to pass her. So, I slammed on my brakes. I got out of the vehicle.”

Fahrney, who lives in Rockford, said he approached the woman and asked if she was OK. Soto then moved away from her, he said.

When Fahrney realized that the woman was covered in blood, he went to his vehicle to grab his cellphone and came face-to-face with Soto, who had jumped in the driver’s seat of Fahrney’s car and was trying to flee.

“I opened up my door, grabbed him, threw him out,” he said. “We kind of wrestled around for a couple of seconds and then I noticed that he was trying to like tap me in the head. … And at that time, I noticed that this liquid was running down my chest and I put my hand up to my head and there was blood. I realized that he had stabbed me or did something to me.”

During the fight, police arrived and arrested Soto after a brief foot chase, according to authorities.

Fahrney said Soto had stabbed him in the neck and slashed the back of his head. He received eight staples for his head injury and three stitches underneath his chin.

He said Soto did not say anything during the attacks but “looked very estranged like something had taken over his body.”

Sheriff Gary Caruana said Thursday that the woman “could have easily been deceased” if it wasn’t for Fahrney.

“The good Samaritan stopped that situation,” Caruana said at a news conference. “He did a tremendous job in helping.”

A motive for the attacks remains unclear. Winnebago County State’s Attorney J. Hanley said Soto admitted to the attacks and said he had taken marijuana that he believed was “laced with an unknown narcotic” before the rampage.

Soto appeared in court Thursday afternoon and was denied pretrial release until his next hearing.

Fahrney said he does not consider himself a hero and thinks “human nature” is what made him jump out and help.

“I’m just a guy that was trying to help somebody that needed help,” he said.

Fahrney said he hopes other people will do the same for someone who is in danger.

“In today’s world, people need to get off their phones. They need to stop recording,” he said. “People got to step in and start helping everybody else.”

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German bishop compares Navalny treatment to Jesus on Good Friday

A Catholic bishop in western Germany compared the treatment of late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to the trial of Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, in comments to mark the Easter holiday of Good Friday.

According to the Bible, Jesus was presented to the people and then taken back inside the governor’s palace, where he was hidden from public view.

“When the Russian dissenter and fighter for freedom and peace, Alexei Navalny, died weeks ago, this is exactly what came to my mind,” Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck said on Friday at a former colliery in Bottrop, north of Essen, according to a speech text distributed in advance.

“After he was arrested in the worst possible way, he was locked up inside, in detention centres, court buildings and ultimately in an inhumane gulag in the polar ice,” he said.

The rest of the world would see “his message of freedom” in eternity, the bishop said.

Navalny, the best-known Russian opposition figure, died on February 16 in a prison camp in the Arctic Circle in Siberia. It has not been independently established whether the 47-year-old died as a result of the prison conditions or whether he was killed.

On Good Friday, Christians all over the world commemorate the execution of Jesus on the cross.

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Filipino villager to be nailed to a cross for the 35th time on Good Friday to pray for world peace

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager plans to be nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.

Ruben Enaje, a 63-year-old carpenter and sign painter, said he and seven other villagers have registered for the real-life crucifixions, which have become an annual religious spectacle that draws hundreds of tourists in three rural communities in Pampanga province north of Manila.

The gory ritual resumed last year after a three-year pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. It has turned Enaje into a village celebrity for his role as the “Christ” in the Lenten reenactment of the Way of the Cross.

Ahead of the crucifixions, Enaje told The Associated Press by telephone Thursday night that he has considered ending his annual religious penitence due to his age but said he could not turn down requests from villagers for him to pray for sick relatives and all other kinds of maladies.

The need for prayers has also deepened in an alarming period of wars and conflicts worldwide, he said.

“If these wars worsen and spread, more people, especially the young and old, would be affected. These are innocent people who have totally nothing to do with these wars,” Enaje said.

Despite the distance, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have helped send the prices of oil, gas and food soaring elsewhere, including in the Philippines, making it harder for poor people to stretch their meagre income, he said.

Closer to home, the escalating territorial dispute between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea has also sparked worries because it’s obviously a lopsided conflict, Enaje said. “China has many big ships. Can you imagine what they could do?” he asked.

“This is why I always pray for peace in the world,” he said and added he would also seek relief for people in southern Philippine provinces, which have been hit recently by flooding and earthquakes.

In the 1980s, Enaje survived nearly unscathed when he accidentally fell from a three-story building, prompting him to undergo the crucifixion as thanksgiving for what he considered a miracle. He extended the ritual after loved ones recovered from serious illnesses, one after another, and he landed more carpentry and sign-painting job contracts.

During the annual crucifixions on a dusty hill in Enaje’s village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga and two other nearby communities, he and other religious devotees, wearing thorny crowns of twigs, carry heavy wooden crosses on their backs for more than a kilometer (more than half a mile) often in the scorching summer heat. Village actors dressed as Roman centurions later hammer 4-inch (10-centimeter) stainless steel nails through their palms and feet, then set them aloft on wooden crosses under the sun for about 10 minutes as a large crowd prays and snaps pictures.

Other penitents walk barefoot through village streets and beat their bare backs with sharp bamboo sticks and pieces of wood. Some participants in the past opened cuts in the penitents’ backs using broken glass to ensure the ritual was sufficiently bloody.

Many of the mostly impoverished penitents undergo the ritual to atone for their sins, pray for the sick or for a better life, and give thanks for miracles.

The gruesome spectacle reflects the Philippines’ unique brand of Catholicism, which merges church traditions with folk superstitions.

Church leaders in the Philippines, the largest Catholic nation in Asia, have frowned on the crucifixions and self-flagellations. Filipinos can show their faith and religious devotion, they say, without hurting themselves and by doing charity work instead, such as donating blood, but the tradition has lasted for decades.

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What is a good debt-to-income ratio?

Keep your DTI ratio as low as possible to secure the most favorable borrowing terms.

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Debt-to-income (DTI) ratios probably aren’t something many people think about often. But it’s important not to discount this ratio and the impact it can have on your financial stability. After all, your DTI ratio typically plays a significant role in your ability to access loans – or lack thereof.

Calculated by dividing your total monthly loan payment obligations by your gross monthly income (income before taxes and deductions), this ratio gives lenders an idea of whether or not you can afford to take on more debt; and if you can, how much risk they accept when they loan money to you. In turn, your DTI ratio plays an important role in whether or not you will qualify for new loans and the interest and payment terms you’ll qualify for if you do. But, what is a good DTI ratio?

Find out how you can pay off your debts now.

What is a good debt-to-income ratio?

You’ll typically need a DTI ratio below 43% to qualify for loans with the best terms, according to Money. That said, some lenders may require a lower ratio for loan approvals. That means, if you earn $60,000 per year ($5,000 per month), you shouldn’t have more than $2,150 in monthly loan payment obligations (43% of $5,000).

But that doesn’t mean you should add debt to your budget until you reach a 43% DTI ratio. The lower this number is the better. Moreover, if your ratio is too high, you should take action to reduce it immediately. You never know when you’ll need a new loan and a high DTI ratio could hamper your chances of approval.

Have a DTI ratio over 43%? You may qualify for debt relief help here.

What to do if your debt-to-income ratio is too high

A high DTI ratio is a cause for concern because it can limit your borrowing options and lead to strain on your budget. But there are ways to bring your ratio down. Since the ratio compares your total debt to your total income, you could reduce your it by paying off some debt or increasing your income.

On the other hand, if you have a high DTI ratio, getting ahead of your debts may be easier said than done. After all, a high ratio means a significant portion of your income is already being used to make your minimum payments – leaving little left for extra payments toward principal. If that’s the case for you, it may be time to reach out to a debt relief service.

Debt relief services – like debt management and debt forgiveness programs – typically help borrowers by negotiating their interest rates and payment terms or their principal balances with their lenders. Their goal is usually to modify your debts in such a way that you can pay them off in a reasonable amount of time without stretching your budget too thin. And as you pay your debts off, your DTI ratio will fall.

Why is it important to maintain a good debt-to-income ratio?

There are a few reasons why it’s important to maintain a good DTI ratio, including:

You never know when you will need a loan: You never know when a surprise expense will pop up – and when one does, you may need a loan to cover it. If you maintain a good DTI ratio, you’ll have a higher probability of approval when the need for a loan arises.
Loan terms are typically better for applicants with a good DT ratio: Loan terms are typically better for low risk borrowers than they are for high risk borrowers. Since those with a low DTI ratio have a higher percentage of their income available to pay for new loans, lenders take on less risk when funding those loans than they would if the borrower had a high ratio. So, you’ll likely enjoy access to lower interest rates and more flexible terms when you seek borrowing options.
You’ll be more financially stable with a lower DTI ratio: Having a lower DTI ratio isn’t just to ensure you have access to loans in the future; it can also help improve your financial stability. After all, the higher your ratio, the more of your income you spend on loan payments and less money you have available for saving and investing. By maintaining a low ratio, you will keep some money in your budget free for retirement and other savings.

The bottom line

If you’re looking for a loan, you’ll likely need a DTI ratio of 43% or lower to qualify for reasonable terms. But, the lower it is, the better. That’s not just the case in terms of your ability to borrow, but also in terms of your financial stability. If your ratio is higher than 35%, it’s likely time to act. Consider contacting a debt relief provider to learn more about your options.

Joshua Rodriguez

Joshua Rodriguez is a personal finance and investing writer with a passion for his craft. When he’s not working, he enjoys time with his wife, two kids, two dogs and two ducks.

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Good Samaritans help after Florida traffic accident

Good Samaritans help after Florida traffic accident – CBS News

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A group of good Samaritans lept into action after a scary car crash in Daytona Beach, Florida, helping flip an SUV back upright.

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Prepare to flick off your incandescent bulbs for good under new US rules that kicked in this week

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Get ready to say goodbye to the once ubiquitous incandescent light bulb, pioneered by Thomas Edison more than a century ago. You can thank — or blame — new federal energy efficiency regulations that went into full effect Tuesday. Quite possibly without you even noticing.

The Energy Department rules, which date back to the Obama administration, have been whipsawed in the political process for years. Some conservatives and Republican lawmakers long denounced them for interfering with consumer choice and placing undue burdens on business. Under former President Donald Trump, the Energy Department scrapped them in 2019; the Biden administration subsequently revived them.

Yet by the time Aug. 1 rolled around, the critics had gone quiet, possibly because companies and consumers have already started voting for better lighting efficiency with their wallets.

Here’s what you need to know.

WHAT CHANGES UNDER THE NEW RULES?

The rules establish strict new efficiency standards for bulbs used in homes and businesses and bans the manufacture and sale of those that don’t meet those requirements. Practical incandescent bulbs, which trace their origin to an 1880 Edison patent, can’t meet those standards. Neither can halogen bulbs. The rules also ban imports of less efficient bulbs.

But those requirements carry a bit less heft than they would have several years back, largely because advances in LED technology and manufacturing have dramatically lowered prices and improved quality. LED stands for “light emitting diode,” a semiconductor device that converts electricity directly into light.

Between 2015 and 2020, for instance, the percentage of American households that reported using LED bulbs for most or all of their lighting jumped more than tenfold — from 4% to 47%, according to the Energy Information Administration, an independent federal statistics agency.

SO DO I HAVE TO THROW AWAY MY OLD INCANDESCENTS?

Fortunately not. The rules don’t affect bulbs that you already own; they also exempt special purpose incandescents such as those used inside ovens.

But suppose you discard — or give away — your halogen and incandescent bulbs. Odds are good that replacing them with LED bulbs could save you a fair amount of money.

As the rules reinforce existing market changes, the Energy Department believes that U.S. consumers can save almost $3 billion annually on their utility bills. Similarly, it projects that the rules could cut carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over the next 30 years.

WHY DO LED BULBS SAVE ENERGY AND MONEY?

Incandescent bulbs create illumination by running an electric current through a filament that heats it until it glows. Edison’s first practical light bulb used a carbonized cotton thread for that purpose; modern bulbs use tungsten filaments in an inert gas.

But incandescents are not very efficient. Only roughly 5% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb produces light; the remaining 95% or so is lost as heat. This is why you let an incandescent bulb cool off before unscrewing it.

They also burn out frequently, requiring replacement roughly every year.

The light-emitting components in LED bulbs, by contrast, are manufactured via the same process used to make computer chips, which makes them extremely efficient. They generate almost no heat and use up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs while lasting up to 25 times longer, according to the Energy Department.

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