Global briefing: Evangelical festival cut short in Washington DC by hot weather

Tens of thousands of evangelical Christians braved heat and humidity to attend a daylong rally on the National Mall in Washington D.C. last Saturday, although the festival was cut short after several people had to be treated for heat stroke. The event featuring Christian singers, poets and preachers targeted younger evangelicals. In a video appearance, Pope Francis told the young people they are restless, and a young person who is not restless is an old person. “I invite you to encounter the One who can give you a response to your restlessness,” Francis said. Prayers were offered for an end to racism and for victims of killings in Ferguson, Missouri, Orlando, Dallas and those murdered in Nice, France.

A group of around 200 young Catholics from Iraq will be attending the 25-31 July World Youth Day (WYD) at Krakow in Poland where a number of them will recite the Our Father in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, before Pope Francis.

“We will be thinking of our people’s suffering as we recall Christ’s Passion during the Way of the Cross and that, even under very difficult conditions like those we are experiencing in Iraq, Christian hope and joyful community with the Church is still possible,” Chaldean Bishop Basil Salim Yaldo told the Pro Oriente Foundation in Vienna. “We will understand that one does not have to flee or emigrate and it is wonderful to experience Christian joy in our native country. This will be a very important moment for us as we will see our faith confirmed in unity with the World Church.” Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil and around a dozen young priests and seven Women Religious will also be accompanying the group.

Most of the young Iraqi Catholics are from Baghdad, Kirkuk and Erbil.

Murdered campaigner buried
Friends and relatives carry the coffin of the environmental activist Lesbia Yaneth Urquia in Marcala, who was murdered in the Honduran department of La Paz. Her death brings to three the number of prominent campaigners murdered this year. Urquia was a member of the Council of Indigenous of Honduras (COPINH) and had been working to stop a hydroelectric project in the western La Paz department.

In March, the leading activist Berta Cáceres was shot dead in her home after receiving death threats relating to her opposition to a dam on the Gualcarque River.

Less than two weeks later, another COPINH member, Nelson García, was shot dead during a violent eviction by the Honduran security forces. The auxiliary bishop of San Pedro Sula, Romulo Emiliani, said after Cáceres’ murder that the crimes cause “concern and shame” for Honduras.

New nuncio for Mexico
Pope Francis has named a new apostolic nuncio to Mexico. Franco Coppola, born in Lecce, Italy, in 1957, will replace Christophe Pierre who held the post for nine years. Archbishop Coppola has previously served in Burundi, Colombia, Lebanon, and is the current nuncio to the Central African Republic and Chad. Archbishop Pierre has been appointed nuncio to the United States.

Coppola’s appointment comes after a papal visit that brought scrutiny to the church hierarchy and Coppola will be charged with bringing Pope Francis’ more progressive brand of Catholicism to the Mexican episcopate. Religious analyst Bernardo Barranco Villafán wrote in an opinion piece in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada that Coppola will be a “transmission line for the Pope’s priorities in Mexico”.

The Church in Turkey had not been threatened in any way during the attempted coup last weekend, or when the Government regained control, the general-secretary of the Turkish bishops’ conference, Fr Anton Bulai OFM, told KNA on the telephone from Istanbul on 16 July. “It was not anti-Christian or anti-religion. We are, therefore, remaining calm but keeping a close watch on how things develop and how people react,” Fr Bulai said. The bishops would not be commenting as the situation was “delicate”, the spokesman of the bishops’ conference, Rinaldo Marmara, said. According to the Vatican, there are approximately 46,000 Catholics in Turkey which has a population of 79 million people.

Coleridge warning
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane has warned that Australia faces the risk of “ungovernability” after the conservative coalition’s narrow return to office in the Federal (General) Election on 2 July and the rise of smaller parties. He urged political leaders to restore a sense of national calm and confidence as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull begins to govern with a slender majority. “What’s happening in Australia is just a classic illustration of what is happening more broadly,” Archbishop Coleridge told his diocesan weekly, The Catholic Leader, on 15 July. “We see it going on in the US, in Europe and Britain. There is a serious question about the workability of traditional models.” Archbishop Coleridge said same-sex marriage would grab media headlines in months to come, but it remained unclear whether there would be political backing for the Government’s proposal for a plebiscite on the issue.

A Catholic-Orthodox Commission set up to examine the life of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac (pictured in 1946), held its first meeting at the Vatican on 12-13 July. The Commission was created at the request of Pope Francis to carry out a “re-reading together” of the Croatian cardinal’s life to “clarify some questions of history,” according to the Vatican press office. Before the Second World War, Stepinac helped Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. While he welcomed the pro-Nazi Croatian state, declared in 1941, he later protested against its genocidal policies and atrocities committed against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. However, when the communists took power in 1945, he was convicted of collaborating with the Nazis. He died under house arrest in 1960 and was beatified as a martyr by St John Paul II in 1998. The commission brings together Croatian Catholic and Orthodox Serb leaders. It will not interfere with the ongoing canonisation process.