January 18, 2023

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - Sister Andre Randon, a French nun and the oldest person in the world, died on Tuesday at the age of 118. Randon became the world’s oldest person on April 19, 2022, when Kane Tanaka of Japan died at the age of 119. Born in 1904 in Alés, France, Sister Andre converted from Protestantism to Catholicism when she was 19. She joined the Daughters of Charity — founded by Saint Vincent de Paul — in 1944. She took the name Sister Andre in honor of her deceased brother. In 2021 she tested positive for COVID-19. She was isolated from the other residents but displayed no symptoms. For her 115th birthday in 2019, Sister Andre received a card and a blessed rosary from Pope Francis, which she used every day. When she turned 116 in 2020, the Vincentian nun shared her “recipe for a happy life” — prayer and a cup of hot cocoa every day. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253376/oldest-person-in-the-world-french-catholic-nun-sister-andre-dies-at-118 Unidentified individuals on January 15 desecrated the Blessed Sacrament in a Catholic church in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. Our Lady of the Abandoned Parish in the San Rafael del Sur area reported the desecration on its Facebook page January 17. The parish encouraged all the local faithful to “turn to prayer” and announced an act of reparation for the desecration. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253374/blessed-sacrament-desecrated-in-church-in-nicaragua At the end of his Wednesday audience, Pope Francis asked for people to join him in praying for persecuted Christians around the world. The pope said on January 18 that he was praying for Father Isaac Achi, a Catholic priest who died after bandits set fire to his parish rectory in northern Nigeria. Armed bandits attacked the parish residence at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Kafin Koro, Niger