News Briefing: global

Pope abhors ‘ignoble’ attack
Pope Francis on Easter Sunday condemned a bomb blast on a crowded Syrian bus convoy that killed at least 126 people – including 68 children – outside Aleppo as an “ignoble” attack. “May [God] in a particular way sustain the efforts of those who are actively working to bring healing and comfort to the civilian population of Syria, the beloved and martyred Syria, who are victims of a war that does not cease to sow horror and death,” he said in his Easter Sunday message to tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in Rome.

“Yesterday’s was the latest ignoble attack on fleeing refugees,” he said. The blast hit buses carrying Shia Muslim residents as they waited to cross from rebel into government territory in an evacuation deal between the warring sides.

Prayers for gun-crime victims
Cardinal Blase Cupich (above) joined hundreds of parishioners in the violence-plagued Chicago neighbourhood of Englewood for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. At each of the stations, a family member of someone killed by gun violence led the prayers while others who had lost loved ones carried the large, wooden cross through the streets on a three-mile trek.

Cardinal Cupich told the crowd: “Let us today pledge that we will work with each other so that young people who are tempted to violence will put down their weapons and join us.” He expressed thanks for the presence of representatives of other Christian denominations, including the Revd Jesse Jackson, and also Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist participants, who joined the Catholic community in the Stations.

“The power of the people is tremendous,” parishioner Vincent Guider told a local reporter for ABC7 News. “But more importantly, the power of united coalitions of people – black, white, brown, Catholic, believer, non-believer, North Side, West Side, South Side.”

Chicago marked 2016 as the deadliest year in nearly two decades, data released by the Chicago Police Department show. There were 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents and 4,331 shooting victims. The city saw 480 murders in 2015, the most since 1997.

Migrant shelters across Mexico re-created the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week to bring attention to the struggles Central American migrants face trying to reach the United States. People staying at the shelters took part in processions in states including Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca.

The migrant shelter on Mexico’s southern border in Tenosique, Tabasco hosted a border crossing from the town of El Ceibo in Guatemala. The shelter coordinator, Franciscan priest Tomas Gonzalez, presided over the event. The shelter of Nuevo Laredo, on Mexico’s border with Texas, also held a Stations of the Cross event with the Bishop of Nuevo Laredo, Enrique Sánchez Martínez, in attendance.

Leaders of the Catholic Church in Tanzania have voiced their concern over recent killings and abductions, which they fear threaten peace and security in what has been one of the most stable African countries. In the latest incident, eight police officers were killed in the eastern region of Kibiti, by gunmen who fled into a forest. The murders marked the peak in a string of killings targeting politicians and security personnel. Nine officials aligned to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party have been killed since October last year, according to officials.

Bishop Issac Amani Massawe of Moshi in an Easter sermon urged the Government and security agencies to act to stem the killings. He also cited the killing of old women over allegations that they were witches, and of albinos by people seeking to use their body parts in rituals.

Hamel beatification move
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen in northern France has opened the canonical procedure for the beatification of Fr Jacques Hamel (above) as a martyr for the faith – a stature Pope Francis has already recognised verbally but which must now be officially confirmed by the Church.

Fr Hamel, 85, was killed last July at the altar of his parish church in a Rouen suburb by two Islamist extremists. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” were his last reported words before one of the men cut his throat.  

Making the announcement at Mass on Holy Thursday, Archbishop Lebrun called on parishioners to give testimony about Fr Hamel’s death and his life as a priest. “In fact, many people have not waited to write to the archdiocese,” he said. About 50 people – witnesses to the murder as well as priests, family and friends – will be interviewed. Pope Francis has waived the normal five-year waiting period and, at a Mass in Fr Hamel’s memory, said that the priest was a martyr. Another part of the diocesan investigation will be a review of Fr Hamel’s homilies and other material for confirmation of his doctrinal fidelity.

This year the dates of the Orthodox and Catholic Easter coincided. In his Easter message Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said: “We cannot abide in carefree idleness knowing that around us are people who have yet to discover the joy of life in God, people who are suffering, the afflicted, the lonely, the downcast or in pain by way of illness. Our sacred duty is to ensure that the name of Christ is praised in all places so that people, in seeing good deeds for the glory of God, may partake in the Orthodox faith and turn their hearts towards the Father who is in heaven.”

President Vladimir Putin meanwhile praised the Russian Orthodox Church, which, he said, “plays an enormous formative role in preserving our rich historical and cultural heritage and in reviving eternal moral values”. It is making a great contribution to “strengthening inter-ethnic and inter-religious accord” in Russia, he added.

US clinics to lose funding
President Donald Trump signed legislation on Thursday last week aimed at cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other groups that perform abortions, despite protests (above). The measure nullifies a rule completed in the last days of the Obama administration that in effect barred state and local governments from withholding federal funding for family planning services, regardless of whether they also performed abortions.

Planned Parenthood said that the new measure was “designed to undermine women’s health”.