A competition-record crowd of 32,510 watched Krasnodar take Real Madrid to penalties in their UEFA Youth League play-off, the Spanish side eventually winning 3-0 on spot-kicks.

The eight group stage winners and eight play-off victors discovered their UEFA Youth League round of 16 opponents when the draw was made on Friday.

"A natural-born striker" according to his coach at Krasnodar, ex-USSR star Igor Shalimov, Ivan Ignatyev is top scorer in this season's UEFA Youth League.

Chelsea and Barcelona contested the 2018 UEFA Youth League final in Nyon on Monday.

Tickets are on sale for April's finals in Nyon – your chance to see the stars of tomorrow.

The "jewel of La Masia", Ansu Fati scored his first Barcelona goal aged just 16 on Saturday.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

Fin24 took to the streets of Cape Town and Johannesburg asking people to share their views on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's Budget Speech.

With SA bonds now rated as junk or non-investment grade, life for ordinary South Africans just got worse.

Ahead of the Black Friday sale, Fin24 presenter Moeshfieka Botha talks to Vincent Hoogduijn, the CEO of e-commerce at Media 24, about discounts, spending your money wisely and Black Friday FOMO.

Fin24 presenter Moeshfieka Botha talks to Grant Brown, MD of online fashion retailer Zando, about the benefits of online shopping and why you should draw up a #BlackFriday wish list.

Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping events of the year, can be likened to "pushing kids into a candy store wondering what’s going to happen" says a debt expert.

Budget 2018 initiatives to stimulate industrialisation in various sectors of the economy is a welcome issue, says Zweli Mkhize, former ANC treasurer general.

Watch our live studio analysis as Fin24's Moeshfieka Botha unpacks the 2018 Budget Speech with a number of prominent political commentators and analysts.

A 25-year-old woman has revealed how she has cut her food waste and managed to travel.

By Bishop W. Shawn McKnight

The November General Assembly of Bishops in Baltimore was a difficult but perhaps unavoidable experience for us to move forward as a Church. I was very disappointed to learn that the Holy See found it necessary to insist that the USCCB not take action at this time on the proposals presented by our conference leadership. My frustration, shared with many other people, is this: We have known about the scandal of Archbishop McCarrick since the end of June, and our Church must take immediate, decisive and substantive action in light of the deep wound the scandal has caused.

I am not so concerned about the time it is taking to punish the perpetrator. Pope Francis immediately required the Archbishop to resign from the College of Cardinals when Cardinal Dolan announced the New York review board found a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against him. I’m okay with the fact that further penalties (which could include McCarrick’s return to the lay state) will take more time for a complete canonical process. McCarrick isn’t going anywhere and he is already living a life of imposed prayer and penance.

But much more is needed than simply meting out a just punishment. How could his rise to such an influential position in the Church have happened? I am concerned how the national conference of bishops and the Holy See answer that question. An internal investigation of the McCarrick scandal without the use of competent and qualified lay investigators will hardly be considered transparent and credible. We need and must utilize the best and brightest people to do a top-notch investigation and study of the problem. Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta is the most qualified Catholic clergy to lead such an investigation, but without knowing that his collaborators include competent laity, the public may not perceive his eventual report as independent and complete enough to be believed.

At the time of this writing, there has not been one bishop, archbishop or cardinal in either the Holy See or the United States who has come forward on his own to repent publicly of his sins of omission or commission with regard to Archbishop McCarrick’s series of promotions over decades. Please, be men, not cowards, and come clean on your own! There doesn’t have to be a formal and long, drawn out investigation for a bishop to exercise a little compunction and concern for the well-being of the whole Church. An independent and transparent investigation is all the more necessary when culpable hierarchs exhibit an incapacity to do the right thing on their own.

The laity are the only ones who can keep the hierarchy accountable and get us out of the mess we bishops got ourselves into. My singular focus throughout the Baltimore meeting was to advocate and push for greater public involvement of the laity at all levels of the Church. Why can’t we have well qualified, nationally known and trusted lay experts named to the special task force announced by the president of the USCCB? We are too insular and closed in as a hierarchy, and so are some of our processes at the USCCB. The Second Vatican Council gave us not only the freedom but the obligation to utilize and engage the gifts and talents of the laity in the life and mission of the Church.

Beyond the McCarrick scandal, we have more work cut out for us with regard to putting into place protocols and institutional structures to build credibility in the hierarchy’s handling of sexual abuse cases going forward. History proves that we bishops are not capable of policing ourselves adequately on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. Why not include the laity to assist us with this problem? The document the Missouri Province of Bishops presented to the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People on Oct. 6 was intended to offer a set of principles for the USCCB to consider as it was developing proposals for the full body of bishops, including the involvement of the laity. We Missouri bishops wanted something valuable to come from our November meeting.

And so, I was disappointed that even the mild proposals up for consideration at the Baltimore meeting had to be pulled from a vote. It was a rather harsh reminder to me of what many lay people have been saying throughout our Diocese: We bishops are ineffectual in our attempts to address the problem of abuse of power by the hierarchy. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People has had a marked impact on lowering the number of incidents of abuse by clergy since 2003. But with the aggravation of the McCarrick scandal, the laity and clergy are now rightfully asking that we get it all out, once and for all, and respond with an urgency that this crisis deserves. We literally have people dying because of the harm caused by predator clergy, and survivors of abuse are further victimized when we fail to take swift action. Seeing certain retired bishops who were notoriously responsible for covering up clergy sexual abuse at this year’s General Assembly in Baltimore as welcome guests was a slap in the face to all who have been wounded by the clergy. This example of episcopal arrogance and clericalism evidences the fact that we still don’t get the problem.

The whole Church is needed to solve our problem which the whole world knows about. What more do we have to hide? If we are going to move forward, we need to have authentic communion and a genuine synodal process. And this requires transparency and better communication between the clergy and the laity, between the USCCB and its own members, and between the USCCB and the Holy See. We need to become the Church Christ founded us to be.

Some of the most poignant comments I heard during the listening sessions in our Diocese were in response to the question asking for people’s dreams for their children and grandchildren. People spoke of a Church where their children and grandchildren would find the love, mercy and hope of Jesus Christ, a community filled by God’s graces and led by holy priests. Despite our current lethargy, I believe we are witnessing the rebirth and renewal of our Church in our day. And I feel very blessed to be part of that renewal with each of you. We are better together.

 

 

Bishop McKnight's column was first published at Making Connections, his column on the website of the Diocese of Jefferson City.

By Bishop Arthur Serratelli

Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher who lived four centuries before Christ, proposed the scientific theory of horror vacui. Based on his observations, he concluded that nature fills every empty space with something, even if it is only air. In his works Gargantua and Pantagruel, the Renaissance priest, doctor and scientist Rabelais popularized this idea with the phrase Natura abhorret vacuum (“nature abhors a vacuum”). Where there is a void, either mass or energy rushes in to occupy the empty space. In truth, this theory applies not merely to physics, but to life.

For the last thirty years, the secularization of culture and the banishing of God from the public forum have created a great religious void. More and more Americans have been abandoning the practice of religion. Since 1990, the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has tripled from eight percent to twenty-two percent. 

Today there are about five million fewer mainline Protestants and three million fewer Catholics than there were ten years ago. For every new convert to Catholicism, six others leave the Church. Young people between the ages of 18 and 30 are much less interested in religion than their parents. As Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research for the Pew Research Center, has observed, “the country is becoming less religious as a whole, and it’s happening across the board.”

Nonetheless, the human person is innately religious. More than just being a material creature on the same level as irrational animals, the human person has reason and is always in search of meaning. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” And, so into the void created by abandoning religion as a source of meaning, other forms of discovering meaning have rushed in. 

In an attempt to respond to the spiritual dimension of human life, some people are turning to New Age beliefs. New Age adherents, now nearly one-fourth of the population, have replaced the personal God of revelation with a spiritual energy that animates the cosmos. They are making use of crystals, tarot cards, astrology, psychics, and even yoga as a spiritual exercise to tap into this impersonal energy in order to manage their lives and find self-fulfillment. 

For New Age adherents, there is no absolute truth. All beliefs are of equal value. And, since they deny the existence of sin, they do not accept the need for a Redeemer. At best, New Age adherents trade the transcendental for the immanent, the spiritual for the physical. At worse, they reject God and unwittingly fall into the hands of the Adversary. 

And, then there are others who reject God and consciously choose to turn to one form or another of the occult. It is astounding to realize that there are almost 1.5 million people who are involved in Wicca, a pagan form of witchcraft. Ever since the Garden of Eden and our first parents’ sin of attempting to be like God, people have been looking for ways to have the same knowledge and power as God himself. Today there are more witches than Presbyterians, more people involved in the occult than there are Muslims in the United States. 

The more individuals extol themselves as self-sufficient and exalt reason over faith, they turn from God and enthrone Satan. Attempting to control their lives through the use of the occult, they hand themselves over to Satan who uses them to destroy the peace and harmony God plans for us. Satan is the great deceiver. He makes people believe that they have absolute control of their lives. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “[Satan’s] logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment, then evil is good and good is evil.”

It would be foolish to close our eyes to the unmistakable increase of the devil’s activity in our society. Lack of civility. Hate speech. The tearing down of people’s good name. The blood shed on our streets. The breakdown of family life. The widespread extolling of vices contrary to the gospel. The delight in exposing the sins of others. Abuse in all its forms. Abortion. The persecution of the Church. All these are born of anger, hatred, envy, pride, greed and lust. They cause division and are the fingerprints of the Evil One.

On the day after his election to the papacy, Pope Francis shocked the cardinals who had placed him on the Chair of Peter. He said, “Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil. When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.” The Pope courageously acknowledged the reality of Satan that day and many other times thereafter. And the Pope provided the only way to banish the devil from our midst: professing faith in Jesus. Professing our faith means quite simply staying close to Jesus within the Church, attending Mass at least each Sunday and Holy Day, receiving the sacraments and practicing charity. In other words, the only permanent antidote to evil in the world is the presence of God who leaves in us no room for evil.

A searing report and federal oversight over Title IX enforcement in Chicago raises the question: Is it an outlier, or just the first to get caught?

After a fire devastates a Bangladesh slum, the OM team distributes food, cooking items, plastic tarps and hope to hurting families.

One young woman gets the chance to learn to read and write when OM opens a school for children and adults in rural Bangladesh.

A poor family's dreams are dashed by a father's illness but brought back to life by OM Bangladesh's tailoring programme.

One father in Bangladesh struggles to find believing husbands for his two daughters, after all three have come to faith in Jesus.

OM team members and former electrical training programme students help a disabled man get back into business after two teenagers steal his motorised rickshaw.

One girl’s dream comes true, as she is now able to go to a village primary school, started by OM.

Winning a rickshaw in a race sponsored by the OM sports ministry team in Bangladesh changes Anwar's life and his family's life.

One woman’s risk of exploitation decreased when she learnt to read and write through OM's adult literacy programme in Bangladesh.

A Bangladeshi woman sees God answer prayer in an unlikely way. Her new faith teaches her to trust that God hears her.

Young entrepreneur Nayef is taking the skills he learned at OM's computer training centre and starting his own business to provide for himself and his family.

Massive distribution efforts by OM teams in Bangladesh over more than 10 years sowed gospel seeds and made the Bengali New Testament a #1 best seller.

OM worker Andrew is encouraged to see the vibrancy of Jesus followers in Bangladeshi villages as one changed life impacts others.

The Indianapolis archbishop has ordered Catholic high schools in the city to dismiss teachers who are married to someone of the same sex, or sever ties with the archdiocese.

An executive order signed this week is meant to address concerns of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. But the legal underpinnings of that order apply to elementary and secondary schools, too.

Fortino struck twice after Sergio Romano had opened the scoring to seal a 3-0 victory for Italy in their third-place play-off against Colombia, who lost goalkeeper Juan Lozano to a red card.

"The moment has finally arrived," said Spain captain Kike as he ended an international career that brought two FIFA Futsal World Cup triumphs and five UEFA Futsal EUROs.

Slovenia's 1-0 first-leg defeat of Spain ended a string of streaks held by the European champions, including 27 straight wins and unbeaten runs of more than a decade.

Azerbaijan have earned a FIFA Futsal World Cup debut after they, Italy, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Ukraine came through their play-offs to reach the finals.

Saskia perseveres through language learning and connects with a young Albanian girl who becomes a follower of Jesus.

All three property sectors – residential, commercial and industrial – are currently experiencing a so-called buyers’ market in the Western Cape, says David Maynier, Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities.

The portfolio comprises three properties in the capital Bucharest, and one in Timisoara, a city in the west of the country.

These places give new meaning to the term "golden years". And no fewer than four of the five top retirement villages listed in the 2019 Estate Ratings report by New World Wealth are in the Western Cape.

The Cape Town metro scooped the highest prices paid for residential property in South Africa this year, says the MD of Seeff Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl.

Blok has recently launched its latest development, FOUR ON O.

Property experts weigh in on the Monetary Policy Committee of the SA Reserve Bank's decision to lower interest rates.

The Leonardo opened its doors on Tuesday 3 March. Developers of the 234-metre tall building said the 240-suite hotel and residences were ready for occupation and some residents were already in the process of moving in.

While its "business unusual" in the SA residential property market, it is also the best buyer's market in a decade, says the chair of the Seeff Property Group.