News Briefing: global

Author shot by raiders
A senior Kenyan bishop has urged the Government to quell the violence in Laikipia County, where armed raiders shot and injured Kuki Gallmann (above), the conservationist and author, on 23 April.

Bishop Philip Anyolo, the chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Church was extremely disturbed by the violence. “We abhor the violence which is causing much suffering in Laikipia and other parts. We condemn in the strongest terms any killings that have occurred,” Bishop Anyolo told The Tablet.

Ms Gallmann, 73, the Italian- born environmentalist and author of the best-selling memoir I dreamed of Africa was shot in the stomach and hip by armed raiders and critically wounded when patrolling her 100,000-acre Laikipia Nature Conservancy in Laikipia West.

Since late last year, herders have been invading white-owned private ranches in the region in search of water and pasture for their livestock. Armed raiders killed a British man, Tristan Voorspuy, in Laikipia in March. Political temperatures have risen this month as parties conduct primaries for elections in August. “Politicians need to desist from inciting the people,” Bishop Anyolo said.

Pope starts charity run
Pope Francis gave the starting signal for the Rome-Wittenberg Peace Run initiative after noon prayers on Sunday 23 April. Around 50 runners set off on the roughly 2,000-km run from Rome. They aim to reach Wittenberg, credited as the place where Martin Luther started the Reformation 500 years ago, on 8 May. The motto of the charity run is “For Peace, Democracy and Tolerance and against Xenophobia.” One participant, Stuttgart Protestant pastor Matthias Vosseler, said the run was an illustration of good ecumenical relations and of solidarity. Groups of two to three runners will alternate every 15 kilometres in the manner of a relay. From Rome, they will run to Verona and from there via Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Augsburg, Erfurt and Halle to Wittenberg.

Clinton vote surprise
A new poll conducted by the American National Election Study (ANES) indicates that Hillary Clinton (above) may have won the Catholic vote in last year’s presidential election, with 48 per cent of Catholics supporting her compared to 46 per cent for Donald Trump. Exit polls conducted by the networks on election day indicated that Mr Trump won the Catholic vote by a margin of 52 to 45 per cent. The ANES is considered the “gold standard” for polling surveys by many academics, although it does not get much attention in the media because its methodology requires substantially more time than same-day exit polls.

The exit polls showed a sharp divide between the voting behaviours of white and Latino Catholics, but that divide was even greater in the ANES study. It reports that Mrs Clinton took 74 per cent of Latino Catholic votes, compared to 67 per cent in the exit polls. While the exit polls suggested Mr Trump won 60 per cent of the white Catholic vote, the ANES study indicated he garnered 56 per cent.

On the eve of Pope Francis’ trip to Egypt this weekend the Holy See expressed deep concern over the “terror, violence and death” that is currently blighting the Middle East. Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, made the comments on 20 April in an address to the Security Council. Citing the “recent use of chemical agents in Syria” and the “Palm Sunday terrorist bombings in Egypt”, Archbishop Auza repeated Pope Francis’ prayer after these events: “May the Lord convert the hearts of the people who are sowing terror, violence and death,” he said and “may he grant the leaders of nations the courage  to prevent the spread of conflicts and to halt the arms trade”. Francis’ April 28 and 29 visit would again stress that there is no greater antidote to violence and hatred than dialogue and encounter, he said.

Amoris Laetitia under scrutiny
Six lay scholars from around the world met in Rome on 22 April to discuss Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia.

Although in the exhortation Pope Francis “does not directly contradict the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage, he does so indirectly,” Professor Claudio Pierantoni, an Italian who teaches in a university in Chile, stated at the conference, named “Seeking clarity to Amoris Laetitia, one year later”.

The situation in the Church today is “very serious” because the Pope is “defending heretical points,” the Italian professor said. He was the most outspoken of the six speakers but none was supportive of the position that Pope Francis has taken on Communion for the divorced and remarried.

Arkansas put to death two men on Monday night in the first back-to-back executions in the United States since 2000. Jack Harold Jones and Marcel Wayne Williams were among eight inmates set for execution in April before the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug expires at the end of the month. On 13 April Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida and Chairman of the US bishops’ conference’s committee on domestic justice and human development, issued a statement in response to the scheduled executions, saying: “May those in Arkansas who hold the lives of these individuals on death row in their hands be moved by God’s love, which is stronger than death, and abandon the current plans for execution.”

As the religious persecution of Christians rises throughout the world, it is important for other Christians to stand in solidarity with the victims, Cardinal Donald Wuerl (above) of Washington said on April 20 at the launch of a report on anti-Christian persecution.

Christians in the United States and elsewhere must raise their voices on behalf of “the millions who are suffering”, he told a symposium held in connection with the release of “In Response to Persecution, Findings of the Under Caesar’s Sword Project on Global Christian Communities”. “Make it difficult for others to ignore,” the cardinal said. Daniel Philpott, a professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame and the principal author of the report, expressed surprise that few persecuted Christians had resorted to violence. Given the situations that so many of them face, he said, such a reaction might be “understandable”.