Minister under fire
The Canadian Bishops’ Conference has denounced a speech by the nation’s foreign minister as “erroneous, confusing and misguided” for suggesting that sexual reproductive rights have become a cornerstone of the nation’s foreign policy.
In a 29 June letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (above), Bishop Douglas Crosby of Hamilton, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed “profound concern” over a speech Freeland gave to the country’s House of Commons on 6 June.
He criticised her equating of women’s rights with abortion and sexual reproductive rights and her claim these rights “are at the core of Canadian foreign policy”.
The bishops also criticised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for committing C$650 million to support abortion funding overseas when only $119.25 million was pledged to help 20 million people who risk starvation in South Sudan, Yemen, eastern Nigeria and Somalia.
Bishop Crosby’s letter vehemently disagreed that abortion is “at the core” of Canada’s foreign policy, which has affirmed “international peace, just order, free trade, foreign aid and global stability”.
Priests and lay people of the Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, in Imo State, Nigeria, are still holding out against fully obeying the directive of Pope Francis regarding accepting Bishop Peter Okpaleke as the ordained diocesan bishop.
More than 160 priests partially complied with the Pope’s directive on sending an individual letter of apology to him, expressing allegiance to the Holy See, by the deadline of 9 July, but they still will not accept Bishop Okpaleke taking up office. Five years of protest have followed Bishop Okpaleke’s appointment by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Opponents argue that Ahiara is in Mbaise, a predominantly Catholic region of Imo State which produces a large number of priests, and that Bishop Okpaleke was unnecessarily brought from neighbouring Anambra State.
President Joseph Kabila (above with his wife, Olive) had a meeting last week with the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference and assured him that elections will be held to end the country’s political stalemate. Archbishop Marcel Utembi of Kisangani met Mr Kabila when he visited his region. “The president has kept repeating that the elections would be held,” Archbishop Utembi said. However, no date was mentioned. Last Sunday, the president of DR Congo’s electoral commission announced that a vote to replace President Kabila will probably not be possible this December, so violating the deal that let Kabila stay on past the end of his mandate for an extra year.
The northern French diocese of Rouen, which last year lost Fr Jacques Hamel in a shocking murder in his own church by Islamist radicals, will soon have another Fr J. Hamel among its priests. A seminarian named Julien Hamel was ordained a deacon on 2 July and, after his final year of seminary studies, is due to become the first priest ordained in the diocese since the Islamist attackers slit Fr Hamel’s throat as he was celebrating Mass.
Church groups in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have joined a government initiative to plant millions of saplings to combat climate change and conserve water. All nine Catholic dioceses in the state joined a 12-hour tree planting drive on 2 July. The government claimed 60 million saplings were planted in one day, many on the banks of the River Narmada.
In Indonesia, Church officials urged the government to expand to 50 years a moratorium to protect forests and peatlands, that it first signed seven years ago. Foreign companies, particularly in mining industries and palm oil production, have been accused of environmentally devastating practices in Indonesia.
Myanmar’s Catholic Church has expressed disappointment over the refusal of the government to grant visas to a UN fact-finding team to investigate alleged human rights abuses by security forces against the Rohingya minority.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, has called on the government to work with the international community to investigate crimes reported by the UN in a “truly independent” way that results in “justice and accountability”. He felt “allegations of ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity should be fully and independently investigated”.
Sarah host warning
Beer instead of wine, or fruit and honey to add flavour to the host, are invalid ingredients of the Eucharistic celebration, the Vatican says. In a letter, signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has sent out a letter warning diocesan bishops that such liturgical abuses are to be stopped, and that the host must contain at least some gluten.
Help for flood victims
Caritas Bangladesh, the social arm of the Catholic Church, has joined the response to Bangladesh’s disastrous floods which have left about one million people stranded and displaced tens of thousands of families across the east of Bangladesh. Daniel Snal, disaster management officer at Caritas Sylhet, said “between 300,000 and 400,000 people have been stranded by floods in the northeastern Sylhet region”.
In anticipation of the Pope’s visit to Colombia from 6 to 11 September, the local diocese has announced that they are expecting 285,000 people to attend Mass on Sunday 10 September. The Vatican confirmed last weekend that Francis will beatify two Colombian martyrs during his visit. Bishop Jesus Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve was one of the Church’s staunchest critics of the National Liberation Army (ELN). Jaramillo was kidnapped by the ELN in 1989, tortured and shot. Along with Jaramillo, Francis will beatify Fr Pedro Ramirez Ramos, the “martyr of Armero”, who was one of the first victims in 1948 of what would become the five decades-long Colombian civil war.
Pope Francis has named Colombian-born Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama, 58, as Bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina. The appointment is the first time a Latino has been appointed as an ordinary in a southern diocese outside of Florida and Texas.
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