Free Republic

A man named by Italian news agency Ansa as former construction company owner Adriano Trevisan, in his late 70s, was among almost 60 suspected or confirmed cases in Italy so far. The father-of-three died at a hospital in Padua, in the Veneto region in northern Italy, where he had been admitted along with another person who has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. A second patient - a woman - then died hours after in Lombardy, a region also in the north. The deaths have prompted local authorities in Lombardy and Veneto to shut schools, businesses...

White Double “REJOICE THEE, HAPPY PADUA, rich in thy priceless treasure!’ Anthony, in bequeathing thee his body, has done more for thy glory than the heroes who founded thee on so favored a site, or the doctors who have illustrated thy famous university! The days of Charlemagne were past and gone: yet the work of Leo III still lived on, despite a thousand difficulties. The enemy, now at large, had sown cockle in the field of the divine householder; heresy was springing up here and there, while vice was growing apace in every direction. In many an heroic combat,...

An Italian court has ruled that a 13-year-old boy be removed from his mother’s custody due to an alleged “personality disorder” linked to having “almost exclusively female role models”. Venice’s Court for Minors said the boy “tries in every way to show that he is different” and described his attitude as “effeminate in a provocative way”, according to local paper Mattino Padova. A social services report said the child from Padua, northern Italy, suffered a “personality disorder” and argued that he has difficulty forming relationships due to dependence on his mother. It also detailed an incident in which the boy...

Ahlam El Brinis has been criticised for wearing revealing clothesBorn and raised in the northern city of Padua a model of Moroccan origin hopes to become the first Muslim Miss Italy. Ahlam El Brinis, 20, has been selected for the semi-final of the Miss Italy beauty contest, which will take place in the coastal town of Jesolo (Venice) on September 20. But she faces some tough opposition for her decision. Instagram According to huffingtonpost.it Ahlam has received threats and insults on social media for taking part in the beauty pageant. She has been criticised for posing in revealing clothes...

Let’s face it, there is one route the finance guys have yet to try. You have to pray to a saint! Am I right?We had a problem. A BIG problem! Exactly, it was all about money. We were staring two mortgages in the face. Changing houses is easy if your bank goes along with the idea. We had found our new dream residence. Signed on the dotted line and then our bank refused us a bridging loan. We needed badly to sell our old house.I mused, stared at the sky. My wife was more practical.“We will ask St Anthony,”...

Victory! Something is changing. Some positive effects of the Charlie Hebdo atrocities are felt in Italy, with crackdown on the cult of Islam. First Massimo Bitonci, the mayor of the city of Padua, in the region of Venice (Veneto), Northern Italy, simply and clearly said: "No more mosques in Padua. The city council will not grant any more public space for the building of mosques and Islamic places of worship." Padua's councillor Marina Buffoni sent the city's police to Muslim meeting places, to confiscate posters and images of women in burka. She said: "These posters showed women completely covered...

On St. Anthony of Padua "One of the Most Popular Saints in the Whole Catholic Church" VATICAN CITY, FEB. 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today at the general audience in Paul VI Hall. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, After presenting two weeks ago the figure of Francis of Assisi, this morning I would like to speak about another saint belonging to the first generation of Friars Minor: Anthony of Padua or, as he is also called, of Lisbon, referring to his native city. He is one of the most popular...

The Anelli estate in Padua is a cluster of crumbling high-rise flats. It was built in the 1980s to house the city's considerable student population. These days it is home to several hundred African immigrants. It has a reputation for crime, drugs and prostitution, and is a constant source of angry complaints from local Italian residents. This summer, after riots between opposing gangs, the left-leaning mayor of Padua took a drastic decision to seal off the estate - with a metal wall. It is 85m (290ft) long, 3m (10ft) high and it stretches along one side of the estate. "It's...

The authorities in the historic northern Italian city of Padua have erected a steel wall around a housing estate notorious for drug-dealing. The wall, surrounding six apartment blocks, is three metres (10ft) high and runs for 84 metres (275ft). The area sealed off is home to some 1,500 people, many of whom are immigrants from Africa. Veneto regional governor Giancarlo Galan condemned what he called the new "Berlin wall". Padua's Socialist mayor, Flavio Zanonato, described it as an "enclosure" needed to help tackle the drug dealers. Police are keeping the estate under surveillance, with checkpoints at the new barrier. Italy's...

The great Anthony of Padua has a universal appeal in the Catholic Church (he is truly a "catholic" saint). His statue can be found in churches the world over. He is most famous as the patron of lost articles. God knows how many times I've invoked his intercession in that area. But he has earned another title for his gift of converting the "sheep who had wandered" with his preaching - malleus haereticorum - or "the hammer of heretics." While he is known for being a saint of the Italian city of Padua, St. Anthony was actually from Portugal, and...

ROME, JUNE 24, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Next week the Roman film studios Cinecittà will finish shooting the first movie on St. Anthony of Padua. Antonello Belluco, director of the movie and a native of Padua, said that he wanted to make "a film in which all -- believers and nonbelievers --" recognize that it is "a gift" that the saint wanted to give them. For Belluco, what is important is that "Anthony the man" be highlighted, even "before the saint." Anthony was a man of "strong, immense and free spirituality, full of joy in face of all of life's events." Jordi...

THE MARIAN DEVOTION OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA St. Anthony of Padua is one of the most famous disciples of St. Francis of Assisi. He was a famous preacher and worker of miracles in his own day, and throughout the eight centuries since his death he has so generously come to the assistance of the faithful who invoke him, that he is known throughout the world. This brief article about St. Anthony of Padua appeared in the August/September edition of the Herald of the Immaculate , and forms part of the Home Page of St. Francis of Assisi.St. Anthony's Life...

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian pensioner committed suicide after his wife fell into a coma, but just hours after he killed himself the woman woke up, Italian media reported on Saturday. Recalling the end of "Romeo and Juliet," the 70-year-old man, Ettore, who had sat by his wife's bedside for four months after she slipped into a coma following a heart attack, finally gave up hope and gassed himself in the garage of his family home. Less than a day later, his wife, Rossana, woke up in her hospital bed in Padua and immediately asked for him. The northern town...

Italy Thwarts Basilica Attack Plot Tue Aug 20, 2:43 PM ET A Moroccan man is shown walking in the San Patronio Basilica in Bologna, northern Italy, in this picture taken from a home video seized Monday by Italian authorities and made available Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2002, during a press conference. Four Moroccans and an Italian, left, whose names were not made public, were arrested Monday under the suspiscion of terrorism after they filmed themselves near the central altar and the frescoes in the basilica. (AP Photo/Gianfilippo Oggioni, HO) By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer ROME (AP) - Italian police arrested...

June 13, 2003Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor of the Church Psalm: Friday Week 26 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading I2 Cor 4:7-15 Brothers and sisters:We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;perplexed, but not driven to despair;persecuted, but not abandoned;struck down, but not destroyed;always carrying about in the Body the dying of Jesus,so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.For we who live are constantly being given up to deathfor the...