Catholic bishops and aid agencies have joined the relief effort in the US state of Texas, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall last Friday.
A record 30in (75cm) has fallen on the city of Houston already and forecasters say that the situation is likely to deteriorate, with the area expected to receive a year’s rainfall within a week.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston told Catholics to stay at home on Sunday and not to worry about missing Mass. “Your safety and the safety of your loved ones is paramount during this emergency,” he said in a message to parishioners.
“We will be sending in rapid response teams to help out impacted St Vincent De Paul councils and we are coordinating nationally with the Knights of Columbus, Knights of Malta and Catholic Charities USA, the Vincent de Paul’s Elizabeth Disco-Shearer told the Catholic News Service .
The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has posted a list on its website of charities helping to deal with the disaster. Cardinal DiNardo, who is also president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged “all people of goodwill to closely monitor future calls for assistance for victims and survivors in the days ahead.
The floods have left thousands of people homeless and at least nine people are reported dead. Officials say those numbers may rise.
The two highest-ranking officials of the Catholic Church in The Philippines have called for an end to the “waste of human lives” and for the public to withdraw its support from drug shootings, following the killing of nearly 80 people over one week in mid-August. The surge in police shootings prompted the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, to call on the faithful to “reflect, pray and act”. The head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of The Philippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, urged the nation to stop supporting the police killings of alleged drug offenders. “We knock on the consciences of those manufacturing and selling illegal drugs to stop this activity, and we knock on the consciences of those who kill even the helpless,” Cardinal Tagle said in a statement read out in churches.
Peter Kohlgraf, who succeeds Cardinal Karl Lehmann as Bishop of Mainz, in Germany, was consecrated bishop at Mainz Cathedral on Sunday. Thirty bishops and more than 5,000 people attended the ceremony.
The Diocese of Mainz was founded in 304 and is one of the oldest in Germany. It is the only Catholic diocese in the world – other than Rome – which bears the title of a Holy See. Aged 50, Kohlgraf is now the youngest bishop in Germany. Two weeks before his consecration, Kohlgraf invited journalists to his future offices and to the flat in which he had already moved, which is close to Mainz Cathedral. “A bishop need not live on a rubbish dump but his lifestyle must correspond to what he preaches,” he told the reporters at the time.
Terrorist threat to Pope
A new video from supporters of Islamic State shows extremists threatening to target Italy and tearing up photographs of Pope Francis. The video, which also shows the destruction of a Catholic church, was filmed in The Philippines, where militants have been fighting the government for control over the city of Marawi. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the video was worrying but added that the level of security in the Vatican was high already.
More aid for addicts urged South Africa’s Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier has called for greater support for recovering drug addicts and has urged people to channel their resources into “helping with this insurmountable social challenge”.
He is backing the establishment of a new centre for the after-care of post-rehabilitation drug addicts, the Napier Centre 4 Healing, in KwaZulu Natal province. The centre is expected to open to its first residents next year.
The cardinal said the current statistics at state rehabilitation facilities were “alarming”, with a success rate of less than 2 per cent. Much of the burden on society created by broken families, crime and community tensions can be traced to substance abuse, he noted.
Bishop condemns Trump
President Donald Trump has been criticised after he cancelled a programme that allowed youngsters escaping violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to settle in the US, leaving more than 2,500 children waiting for approval.
The chair of the Migration Committee of the US bishops’ conference, Bishop Joe S. Vásquez, said that the administration had “unnecessarily chosen to cut off proven and safe alternatives to irregular and dangerous migration for Central American children”.
Anger at church closures
Coptic anger over the official closure of some churches in Egypt has increased following a recent statement by Anba Macarius, the Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Minya.
He criticised government officials for failing to allow 15 local churches closed for security reasons to reopen. The bishop said: “Security officials explained that the sentiments of Muslim villagers should be respected, implying that Coptic sentiments, yearning for a place to pray, are not worthy of the same respect.”
Underlining that Egypt’s constitution guarantees the right to freedom of worship, he claimed that “it has become customary for local security apparatuses to monitor the activity of Coptic communities so as to ensure that no Christian prayers are held, even if this implies official use of force against congregations or clerics”. Minya, situated 155 miles south of Cairo, has the largest population of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Islamic State has targeted them several times in recent months.
Pope Francis is to meet members of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference during a visit to Colombia next week, where this statue (above) was photographed on sale in the capital, Bogotá. The bishops, led by their president, Archbishop Diego Padrón Sánchez, have accused Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, of trying to install a “military dictatorship”. In August, Maduro called on the Pope to help “prevent Trump from sending troops” to Venezuela.
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