Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna (pictured) has said that Pope Francis is leading the Church into the future in the manner of Jesus Christ. “One really gets the impression that he is marching ahead. That was Jesus’ experience,” Schönborn told Christ & Welt, a supplement to the German weekly Die Zeit, on 11 January. The disciples “did not understand him [Christ] and quarrelled among themselves. He, nevertheless, went ahead … I very much have the feeling that Francis is the lone spiritual forerunner today and has many in his tow”.
Meanwhile the pastor of the Lutheran community in Rome, Jens-Martin Kruse, said he had thanked Pope Francis for the way in which he lived his faith, “which, in my perception, can quite definitely be described as that of an Ecumenical Primate”. Interviewed by domradio.de following his farewell visit to Francis after 10 years as head of the Lutheran community in Rome, Kruse said Rome today under Pope Francis was an “ecumenical laboratory … with all the traffic lights set at green”.
Wrecked cathedral heartbreak
After several failed attempts, the Bishop of Marawi, Edwin de la Pena, was able to visit his desecrated cathedral this week, almost three months after a five-month conflict in the city in the southern Philippines ended.
Entering the ruined city centre and the remnants of the cathedral on 11 January, Bishop De la Pena described the experience as “heartbreaking”. He first knelt before the altar where for 17 years he had celebrated Mass and then stood in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary that was beheaded by Islamic State-inspired gunmen who attacked the city on 23 May last year. On the wall above the altar was a crucifix, disfigured by the gunmen but since restored by government soldiers. The bishop said that although his priority was to attend to the needs of the community, he hoped people would help rebuild the church.
More than 8 million people visited Fátima in Portugal in just the first 10 months of 2017, the centenary of the Marian apparitions there. Figures for November and December have not been made available, but these are already record-breaking numbers. Pope Francis visited in May, increasing the flow of tourists, but according to Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, tourism levels rose all through the year and not only during traditional peak seasons. The association of local businessmen described it as an historic year for the town, which revolves almost entirely around the shrine. Around 5.5 million people visited in 2016.
Euthanasia accusation
The Belgian Catholic Church’s Cathobel news agency published an article on 9 January saying that the government’s Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission had violated its statutes by failing to refer suspected legal abuses for investigation. “It’s shocking that, 15 years since its creation, this commission has not referred a single file to prosecutors or condemned a single doctor,” the report said. Auxiliary Bishop of Mechelen-Brussels Jean Kockerols told Catholic News Service the Church had long been aware the commission was “not working as it should”.
The weekly publication of the Mexican Episcopal Conference, Desde la Fe, published an editorial criticising the “bombardment” of radio and TV airways during the pre-campaign for Mexico’s presidential and congressional elections on 1 July.
Following electoral reform, the pre-campaign, which runs from 14 December 2017 through to 11 February 2018, is intended to allow political party members to select a candidate to represent their party, replacing the opaque processes that parties used in the past.
However, the editorial says that, instead: “Campaigns are using resources for motives other than what they are intended for.”
The number of Catholics who officially left the Church in Austria fell slightly in 2016, when 53,510 Catholics officially left in comparison to 54,969 in 2015. New Catholics welcomed numbered 5,364 in 2016 – 1.8 per cent more than in 2015. There were 750 adult baptisms in the Austrian Church in 2016; 75 per cent were Muslim converts who came to Austria as refugees in 2015/16.
Conversion vote
At its synod held from 7-12 January, the Protestant Church in the Rhineland decided no longer to aim to convert Muslims, as they “believed in the one God”. A large majority (203 to 7, with 7 abstentions) passed a declaration that the Rhineland Protestant Church “perceives and appreciates Muslims’ belief in the One God”, and will no longer pursue the aim of persuading them to convert to Christianity. One auxiliary bishop challenged members to trust in the Holy Spirit and hope that Muslims would recognise the truth of the Christian faith but most pastors said waiving conversions was an important signal of inclusion.
The vice-president of the German Catholic bishops’ conference has called for deeper discussion on church blessings for homosexual partnerships. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, who has headed the Diocese of Osnabrück since 1995, said in an interview published on 10 January in the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that while “a homosexual relationship is very often first of all categorised as a grievous sin,” the Church had to “think about how to arrive at a differentiated evaluation of a relationship between two homosexual human beings.
“One can, for example, think about a blessing, which cannot be mistaken for a marriage celebration,” he said.
Saintly chainsaw art
A Japanese artist has used a chainsaw to create a sculpture of St Andrew in a historic tree in the grounds of St Andrew’s parish in Werribee, near Melbourne. An old cedar tree had succumbed to drought and was largely cut down in 2013. But retiring parish priest Fr Frank Buhagiar oversaw the work on the tree, with artist Hikaru Kodama travelling from Hokkaido to sculpt an image of the parish patron into the remains of the old tree. Kodama is one of the world’s leading chainsaw sculptors. St Andrew’s parishioner Lawrie Grant said: “Even in death there is a possibility for life. We’re very grateful to Fr Frank for his wisdom in imagining a second life for the wasted bole.”
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