News Briefing: The Church in the World

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has praised Pope Francis for his appointment in November 2014 of Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah to head the Vatican congregation that oversees the liturgy, despite differences that have since then emerged between the cardinal and Pope Francis. Writing a laudatory afterword to Cardinal Sarah’s new book, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, Pope Emeritus Benedict writes: “We should be grateful to Pope Francis for appointing such a spiritual teacher as head of the congregation that is responsible for the celebration of the liturgy in the Church.”

However, last July, the 71-year-old cardinal, who is Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, said priests should start to celebrate Mass ad orientem – facing east, in the manner of the pre-Second Vatican Council “Old Rite” liturgy. Soon after, the Vatican released a statement saying there would be no such changes.

Then, in October, Francis appointed several new members of the Congregation, replacing more conservative figures with pastoral moderates. “Cardinal Sarah is a spiritual teacher, who speaks out of the depths of silence with the Lord, out of his interior union with him, and this really has something to say to each of us,” Benedict writes. “With Cardinal Sarah, a master of silence and of interior prayer, the liturgy is in good hands.”

Europe conference date
The Vatican and the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (Comece), will hold a conference on “Rethinking Europe” in Rome late in October. The initiative comes at a time when European integration, which has enjoyed Catholic support since its inception as an antidote to war and nationalism, faces unprecedented challenges from eurosceptics. Pope Francis is expected to attend and deliver a speech. Comece President Cardinal Reinhard Marx cited the Brexit vote and rise of nationalist movements as signs of a crisis in Europe.

Bishop Bernard Fellay (above), head of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), has expressed confidence in Pope Francis’ opening towards his ultra-traditionalist movement, and has said that he expects any difficulties with a recent Vatican ruling on SSPX marriages to be worked out.

Bishop Fellay said the proposal to ensure the validity of marriages in SSPX congregations, which would have diocesan priests conduct the actual ceremony while priests of the Society said the nuptial Mass, was “a new step in the right direction” and was evidence that Rome was slowly admitting that SSPX practices were Catholic. The Swiss bishop said this in an interview given to SSPX media before seven French SSPX priests were discharged after protesting against the Society’s acceptance of the new policy, but which was issued several days after that.

Bishops reject Maduro review
The Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference has rejected a proposal from the Government of President Nicolas Maduro for a constituent assembly to review the country’s constitution. The president of the conference, Archbishop Diego Padron, said the constitution was adequate. What was needed was not reform to the constitution, “but to fully apply it”, he said. “What the people demand is food, medicine and security.” Archbishop Padron urged the Government to call elections, end the clampdown on its opponents and halt the slide into catastrophe. More than 40 people have died in street protests. Bishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Barinas, on the border with Colombia, said: “If we see our children dying and malnourished, then the bishops must speak.” Caritas Venezuela reported that malnutrition has reached humanitarian crisis level in the country, with a recent report showing that over 11 per cent of children under five are suffering from moderate or acute malnutrition.

Russia’s £3.7m for Bethlehem
The Russian government is to finance reconstruction work in the historic centre in the town of Bethlehem, the head of the Russian Representative Office to the Palestinian National Authority has announced.

Funding of £3.7 million has been allocated to the Star Street Reconstruction Project which will cover not only the street itself, running through the old town of Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity (above), but the adjacent buildings as well. Work is scheduled to start in September 2017, and will be undertaken in collaboration with the Palestinian authorities and the municipality of Bethlehem. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that, “the development of humanitarian ties has always played an important role in cooperation between Russia and Palestine”. In 2016, according to President Putin, more than 300,000 Russians visited the West Bank, where Bethlehem is situated.

The Japanese bishops have published an updated version of their 2001 message on “life”, which has incorporated mention of LGBT people for the first time. In Reverence for Life: A New Look, the Japanese bishops say: “Without exception, the Church must accompany all people with respect, so that everyone has the necessary help to realise God’s will for them in life”.


Romero murder case reopens
A judge in El Salvador has re-opened the case of murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero (above), nearly four decades after he was shot dead in San Salvador in 1980. The primary suspect is former soldier Alvaro Rafael Saravia. Charges against him were dismissed in 1993 due to an amnesty law that has since been ruled unconstitutional.

The leadership of the Brazilian bishops’ conference has issued an unusually strong statement, referring to the “amazement and anger” that they, “with the bishops and communities of the whole country”, feel at “the serious accusations of political corruption being examined by the Supreme Court”. The statement came on 19 May, two days after a leading newspaper published the text of recordings said to show President Michel Temer, and the right-wing candidate in the 2013 presidential elections, Aécio Neves, involved in corrupt payments to politicians. Mr Neves has been suspended from his post as senator, and the Federal Supreme Court has opened an investigation into Mr Temer, who claims the tape has been doctored.

James Roberts