Hundreds of volunteers from 18 countries have gathered in the northeastern French town of Verdun to keep alive the memory of those who fought under appalling conditions in World War I.

Re-enactors dressed in soldiers’ uniforms brought to life a big military encampment in the town and held a military parade Saturday, part of a series of events to mark the centenary of the end of the war.

Visitors could visualize soldiers’ daily life during the war through the reconstruction of field kitchens, First Aid posts and command posts.

Soldiers in khaki, grey or blue uniforms, depending on the country, and women wearing Red Cross nurses uniforms were presenting authentic objects and equipment from the 1914-1918 war.

Other volunteers were dispatched on key battlefield areas around Verdun. They didn’t re-enact any fighting out of respect for the sites, which have since become a symbol of peace.

Instead, German and Polish volunteers were sharing tips about military clothes and historic anecdotes with their French, Australian and English neighbors at the encampment.

The 10-month battle at Verdun – the longest in World War I – killed 163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers and wounded hundreds of thousands of others. Between February and December 1916, an estimated 60 million shells were fired. Entire villages were destroyed and never rebuilt.

The former battlefield still holds millions of unexploded shells, so that housing and farming are still forbidden in some areas.

Dozens of heads of state and government, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are expected in Paris to commemorate the Armistice that ended the war on Nov. 11.

World War I remembrance sites and museums have seen a strong increase in tourist numbers in recent years, boosted by the commemorations of the centenary. More than 1 million visitors were counted on the five main sites in and around Verdun in 2016, the year of the 100th anniversary of the battle.

Celine Guillin, visiting Verdun with her 8-year-old son, said the recreated encampment allowed visitors to be “very conscious of the hardness of life during the Great War. It was hard on soldiers, but also on their wives, their whole family.”

She pointed at a poster urging French women and children to work in the fields during the summer of 1914.

Jacob Withoos, 19, came from Australia as a volunteer within a group of 12 men.

“The main importance there is the remembrance,” he said. “War is never a good thing and we must ensure it doesn’t happen again. It’s great to have things like this so we can remember the men who sacrificed themselves in order to preserve freedom, and definitively ensure it doesn’t happen again to any future generation.”

French volunteer Michel Pascal said “this is modern history. We must not forget what we’ve been through.” Pascal was in charge of presenting an American corner in the encampment – composed of a small tent for two men, a backpack including mess tin and cutlery and a bayonet.

Caroline Hecquet, a volunteer from northern France, stressed all countries involved in World War I share a “common suffering.”

“Historical memory is in books: strategies, battles, great generals … But the memory of local people, it is fading,” she said. “People don’t know any more how objects were used, how clothes looked like. That’s what we want to pass on.”
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Pope Francis has “begged for God’s forgiveness” for the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

The pontiff said at a shrine in Knock, Ireland, on Sunday the scandal is an “open wound” and “firm and decisive” measures need to be taken to find “truth and justice.”

Francis also rebuked the church in Ireland for how in decades past Catholic-run Irish institutions took the children of unwed mothers and put them up for adoption.  He said the practice robbed the children of their innocence, leaving the children “abandoned” and “scarred by painful memories.”

Francis’ call for forgiveness comes as a letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano was published in the National Catholic Register.  In the 11-page letter, Vigano, the Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, accuses Francis and other Vatican officials of ignoring sexual abuse claims against U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who was forced to resign last month after a church investigation found claims that he had abused a minor were credible.   

Vigano says he told Francis in 2013 about claims that McCarrick bedded seminarians, but Francis lifted sanctions on McCarrick that Pope Benedict had imposed.

“He [Pope Francis] knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was serial predator,” Vigano wrote, adding “he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.”  

Francis wraps up his visit to Ireland Sunday with a huge outdoor Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Half a million people are expected to turn out to see the pope, but demonstrations are planned to urge Francis to take concrete action against the sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups in the Catholic Church.

Protesters are set to hold a demonstration while the pope says Mass. 

Meeting with abuse victims

On Saturday, Francis met for more than an hour with survivors of clerical abuse in Ireland and, by at least one account, uttered strong condemnation of members of the clergy who committed or covered up impropriety.

Paul Redmond, one of eight survivors who attended the meeting with the pope has told reporters that Francis called such clergy members “caca,” which translates to “human excrement.”

The pope met with eight survivors at the Papal Nuncio’s residence in Dublin. The Vatican has said it will not comment on what was discussed during the meeting, although the attendees are free to do so.

Pope Francis began the first papal visit to Ireland in almost 40 years by expressing the outrage he shares with the Catholic community over the “repugnant crimes” committed by priests who raped and molested children and the failure of church authorities to address them.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis told a state reception at Dublin Castle where some abuse survivors were in attendance.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.”

​Vetting the church

In an effort to address the world’s outrage about the abuse scandal, Francis noted measures taken by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, to deal with the crisis. Benedict did not admit the Vatican’s culpability, though, in fostering a system of cover-up, and Francis gave no new plan for steps he would take to punish bishops who fail to protect their parishioners.

Francis did say he was committed to vetting the church of this “scourge” regardless of the moral cost or amount of suffering.

Ireland has changed greatly since Pope John Paul II visited in 1979, becoming much more secular following clerical sexual abuse scandals that began to surface in 2005.

Pope Francis’ visit comes at a time when recent sexual abuse crises in the United States, Chile and Australia have reminded the Irish people of similar scandals at the hands of Irish priests and bishops.

The pope recently wrote a letter to the world’s Catholics, stressing that “no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

Two U.S. cardinals — Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on clerical sexual abuse, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington — were scheduled to attend the conference in Dublin but were absent because of further revelations of clerical sexual abuse in America.

Another U.S. cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, was recently forced to resign because of allegations of abuse and misconduct.

Sabina Castelfranco contributed to this report.
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Italy on Sunday disembarked all 150 migrants from a rescue ship that had been docked for five days in a Sicilian port, ending the migrants’ ordeal and a bitter stand-off between Rome’s anti-establishment government and its European Union partners.

The migrants, mainly from Eritrea, had been stranded in the port of Catania since Monday because the government refused to let them off the boat until other EU states agreed to take some of them in.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Albania had offered to accept 20 of the migrants and Ireland 20-25, while the rest would be housed by Italy’s Catholic Church “at zero cost” to the Italian taxpayer.

“The church has opened its heart and opened its wallet,” Salvini, from the right-wing League party, told supporters at a rally in Pinzolo in northern Italy on Saturday evening.

Interior minister investigation

Salvini, who has led a popular crackdown against immigration since the government took office in June, also announced that he had been placed under investigation by a Sicilian prosecutor for abuse of office, kidnapping and illegal arrest.

“Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace,” he said.

On Saturday, the United Nations called for reason from all sides after a meeting of envoys from 10 EU states in Brussels a day earlier failed to break the deadlock.

“Frightened people who may be in need of international protection should not be caught in the maelstrom of politics,” the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.

The agency appealed to EU member states to “urgently” offer relocation places to the rescued people, in line with an agreement at an EU summit in June, and in the meantime, urged Italy to allow “the immediate disembarkation of those on board.”

Rome had refused to back down, despite criticism from rights groups and the opposition, with Salvini saying he considered the attacks he received to be a “badge of honor.”

Ireland, Albania step up

The only help from within the bloc came late Saturday from Ireland, whose offer to take in 20-25 migrants followed a pledge from non-EU member Albania to take in 20.

Italy’s Foreign Ministry called Albania’s offer “a signal of great solidarity and friendship that Italy greatly appreciates.”

Before the breakthrough late Saturday, 13 migrants, seven women and six men, were ordered off the boat by doctors after a check-up carried out around midday.

They finally left the boat one-by-one some six hours later, stepping down a flight of steps to touch dry land for the first time since leaving Libya at least 10 days ago. The 13 were taken by ambulance to Catania’s Garibaldi hospital.

Italian media reported that among them there were three cases of suspected tuberculosis and two of suspected pneumonia. Medical officials on the spot did not confirm this.

The remaining 137 migrants disembarked in the early hours of Sunday to be taken to a reception center in the Sicilian city of Messina, from which they will be distributed to the Church dioceses as well as Ireland and Albania.

Flow of migrants slows

More than 650,000 people have reached Italian shores since 2014, and even though the numbers have fallen steeply in the last year, Rome says it will not let any more rescue ships dock unless the migrants are shared out around the EU.

“The next ship can turn around and go back where it came from because our limit has been reached,” Salvini said.

Earlier this week, Italy let 27 unaccompanied minors leave the vessel. Before that, another 13 people needing urgent hospital attention were allowed to disembark.

During their five days docked at Catania, the mostly young men on board sheltered from the sun under a large green tarpaulin that covered around half the deck, with clothes hanging from it to dry. Some occasionally waved to reporters gathered on the quayside.

Around 200 protesters gathered at the port Saturday, some waving left-wing flags, calling for the migrants to be allowed off. They later skirmished with police.
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Five people still have life-threatening injuries Sunday, a day after their tourist bus flipped over on a Bulgarian highway, killing at least 16 people and leaving 18 injured, authorities said.

Dr. Nikolay Gabrovski from Sofia’s emergency hospital spoke Sunday about the victims’ injuries.

Police said the bus was carrying 33 pilgrims from the village of Bozhurishte and a driver on a weekend trip to a nearby Orthodox monastery. It overturned Saturday and dropped down onto a side road below the highway about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Sofia, the capital.

Police said Sunday that 13 people died at the scene, among them a 13-year-old boy, and three of the injured died in the hospital. That updates comments from the health minister, who said Saturday that 27 people had been injured.

An investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov called an emergency meeting Sunday with senior law enforcement officials to tighten traffic controls on the roads during the peak summer tourist season.

The government has declared Monday a national day of mourning for the bus victims.

 
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More than 200 supporters of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement have staged a rally in the Swedish capital, chanting slogans and waving the group’s green-and-white flags.

A six-hour rally was approved by Swedish police, who deployed a strong security presence around Stockholm’s Kungsholmstorg Square. But after just a few hours, the crowds wilted and a march was canceled.

Police had warned of potential disturbances across the city but no violence was seen. Local media reported that a counter-rally drew about 200 people.

The neo-Nazi group is anti-European Union, anti-gay and anti-immigration. The rally took place ahead of Sweden’s Sept. 9 general election, in which immigration is a key issue.

The neo-Nazi march was among dozens of events held across Stockholm on Saturday, including an animal rights’ march that drew 500 people.

 
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