UDON THANI, Thailand: In a remote Catholic school in Thailand, Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, 77, kneels in a chapel to pray at the beginning of the school day.
The Catholic nun is also counting down the days when she will be reunited with her cousin, Pope Francis.
Or, as she calls him, Jorge. They grew up together in Argentina.
Sister Sivori, who has lived in Thailand for more than 50 years, will travel with Pope Francis as his personal translator when he visits the Southeast Asian nation from Wednesday to Saturday.
“For me, it’s a pleasure that he’s coming ... I never thought that he will be coming to Thailand,” the soft-spoken nun told Reuters in an interview.
“I’m happy for the people. I want the people to see him, to be close to him.”
The cousins, whose grandfathers were brothers, grew up in a big Catholic family in Argentina.
Sivori said they weren’t close as children, since Jorge Mario Bergoglio — as the Pope was known then — was six years older than she.
She joined the Catholic ministry young, and her calling as a missionary brought her to Thailand, where she has lived since 1966 and worked in schools across the country.
Now, she is a vice principal at St. Mary’s School in the northeastern province of Udon Thani, about 600 kilometers from Bangkok, the capital.
The cousins have grown closer since Bergoglio became Pope Francis in 2013.
On every journey home to her family in Argentina, Sivori first stops by the Vatican in Italy to see him for a few days.
The last time they saw each other was in 2018, when they bonded over their love of books.
“He took me up to the big room with plenty of books. He told me to choose, he would ask ‘Do you want this one?’,” she said.
“When we talk, we feel like brother and sister. For me, of course I know that he’s the Pope ... but we talk simply.”
She will travel to Bangkok ahead of the pontiff’s arrival and shadow him during his visit, at his request.
In the Buddhist-majority country, Pope Francis will meet King Maha Vajiralongkorn, the supreme Buddhist patriarch, Catholic leaders and students, before flying on to Japan.
Sivori brings out an envelope of handwritten letters and postcards from the Vatican and reads them fondly.
“When I meet him, I’ll call him by his name, Jorge. Pope Francis just came after,” she said.
“I’m proud of him.”
Pope Francis to reunite with cousin on visit to Thailand
Pope Francis to reunite with cousin on visit to Thailand
- Sister Sivori, who has lived in Thailand for more than 50 years, will travel with Pope Francis as his personal translator
- The cousins have grown closer since Bergoglio became Pope Francis in 2013
US immigration agents’ training ‘broken’: whistleblower
- The fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis in January reignited accusations that agents enforcing Trump’s militarized immigration operation are inexperienced
WASHINGTON: A former US immigration official said Monday that training for federal agents was “deficient, defective and broken,” adding to pressure on President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown.
Ryan Schwank resigned this month from his job teaching law at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) training academy in Glynco, Georgia, after he said he was instructed to teach new recruits to violate the US Constitution.
The fatal shooting of two American citizens in Minneapolis in January reignited accusations that agents enforcing Trump’s militarized immigration operation are inexperienced, undertrained and operating outside law enforcement norms.
The administration scaled back the deployment after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight by officers sparked mass protests and widespread outrage.
Schwank told a forum hosted by congressional Democrats on Monday that he “received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.”
“Never in my career had I received such a blatantly unlawful order,” he said.
He said that ICE cut 240 hours from its 584-hour training program, curtailing subjects such as the US Constitution, lawful arrest, fire arms, the use of force and the limits of officers’ authority.
“The legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective and broken,” he said.
As a consequence, poorly trained, inexperienced armed officers were being sent to places like Minneapolis “with minimal supervision,” he said.
The lawyer’s comments coincide with the release of dozens of pages of internal ICE documents by Senate Democrats that suggest the Trump administration cut corners on training, the New York Times reported.
Schwank said he resigned on February 13 after more than four years working for ICE, and that he felt duty-bound to report inadequacies with the new training program.
