News Briefing: Church in the World

More than 50 international charities and organisations, including the Catholic social justice umbrella group CIDSE, Pax Christi International and Christian Aid called for urgent action from the international community against Israel’s new registration rules for international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Issued on 6 May, the new visa and registration regulations impose new requirements which “threaten to shut down essential humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding work in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory”, according to the charities. 

Under the new provisions, NGOs already registered in Israel may face de-registration, while new applicants risk rejection based on what the group call politicised allegations, such as “delegitimising Israel” or demanding that its government face investigations of alleged violations of international law. 

The World Council of Churches condemned “in the strongest possible terms” an aerial attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Old Fangak, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, on 3 May.  

“This heinous act, which claimed the lives of at least seven people, including a nine-month-old child, and injured more than 20 others, is a heart-breaking violation of international humanitarian law and a direct assault on the dignity of human life,” said its general secretary Dr Jerry Pillay. He said the hospital “stood as the only lifeline for over 110,000 vulnerable people in Fangak County”. A pharmacy was also destroyed and nearby civilian areas. 

Pillay called on the government of South Sudan and all armed actors involved in the conflict to respect and protect humanitarian personnel and facilities, and urged the international community, churches, and ecumenical partners “to redouble efforts toward a sustainable peace in South Sudan”. Médecins Sans Frontières told the BBC it was still trying to establish the facts, but local witnesses said the aircraft were “government forces helicopters”.

A wave of jihadist violence struck northern Mozambique, with civilians suffering beheadings and other killings, abductions and the burning of houses and churches, according to a local priest.

Passionist Fr Kwiriwi Fonseca told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) last week that intensified attacks by Islamist terrorists not only drove a new wave of internal displacement – according to UN figures around 15,000 fled their homes between the end of March and mid-April – but also put Christians under siege.  “Social projects no longer work, and the people are in despair,” he reported.  

Fr Fonseca emphasised that people from all religious groups are suffering, not just Christians, and that Church aid is often their only source of help. He called for prayers for peace. Working with the Diocese of Pemba, ACN has provided emergency aid for the displaced, including feeding more than 2,000 families.

A Malawian bishop said countries across the southern African region face similar challenges from growing economic hardships and high levels of poverty, calling for solidarity and collaboration among conferences to deal with these challenges.

Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of Karonga spoke at the close of a bishops’ plenary assembly held in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. “Our strong appeal is that us in the subregion should strengthen our commitment to joint initiatives and shared programmes,” Bishop Mtumbuka said.  

“We acknowledge the shared challenges we face including the struggle with poverty and inequality,” he added, noting the challenges the Church faces despite its growth on the continent. “We must continue to advocate for social justice and the rights of the poor and marginalised in light of the Gospel,” he said.

A bishop pleaded with the Angolan government to invest in children’s education, complaining that the country’s vast natural resources have not improved the lives of the poor. According to recent reports, thousands of school children abandoning school as the economic situation worsens in Angola. 

“We’re told that many children are not attending classes. Instead, they are out digging for gold. This is unacceptable,” said the Bishop of Caxito Maurício Agostinho Camuto CSSp during a recent homily. “Whatever good we want for our land must begin in our homes. And one of the first steps is education. Parents must be deeply concerned about their children’s schooling,” he added.

Seven Capuchin friars died in a bus accident in southern Nigeria on the evening of 3 May. Six more remain in hospital, having sustained “various degrees of injuries” after the accident, said Br John Kennedy Anyanwu OFM Cap in a statement.  

“Thirteen of our brothers departed the Ridgeway Community, Enugu State, for Obudu, Cross Rivers State, Nigeria, but unfortunately had a fatal accident,” he said. One of the deceased was the bursar of the Custody of St Francis and St Clare of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Another was the custody’s guardian and counsellor, while four were theology students.  

The group was en route to a retreat in Obudu, when the bus – reportedly owned by the Diocese of Enegu – suffered brake failure. “We entrust their souls to the merciful love of God,” said Anyanwu.

A bishops’ meeting in Senegal called for the Church to become self-reliant in response to government cuts affecting its humanitarian programmes. 

The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam) met for its plenary assembly last week to discuss the Church’s response to regional challenges including war and famine. 

“The theme of this plenary assembly, ‘For a synodal and self-sufficient Church in the service of justice and peace in West Africa’, invites us to a bold reimagination of ecclesial life, not merely in financial terms, but as a call to spiritual maturity, pastoral responsibility, and cultural authenticity,” said Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza of Yola, SECAM’s second vice president. 

“We are summoned to become builders of a more self-reliant, synodal, and mission-oriented Church, one that is truly capable of responding to the cries of our people,” he said.

Nearly 900 nuns leading the world’s Religious Orders gathered in Rome last week, where Sr Mary Barron urged them and their congregations to “be vigilant in doing our part to keep that flame of Church renewal alive”. 

Barron, the president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), addressed its assembly on the important of the 650,000 sisters they represent “standing as resilient women of peace, who dare to stand at the frontiers and give comfort to those who are rejected”. 

The assembly on 2-9 May honoured Pope Francis with a one-minute round of applause and visited his tomb, and prayed for the cardinals meeting in conclave. The assembly’s theme was “Consecrated Life: A Hope That Transforms”. It launched a new foundation to support the care of elderly sisters, which is a growing concern for many congregations. 

Sr Anne Carbon, congregational leader of the Missionary Sisters of St Columban, said that as the closing Mass ended white smoke appeared from the Sistine Chapel and “the entire hall erupted with joy and emotion as we sang the mantra, Alleluia!”

More than 1,000 supporters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) were in Rome on 7-10 May for their Jubilee pilgrimage, coinciding with the conclave and the announcement of the new pope. Benefactors from the 23 countries where the charity has national offices participated. 

Regina Lynch, the international executive president of ACN, expressed thanks to Pope Francis and “gratitude for the election of the new Pope, warmly recalling the fruitful collaboration between the organisation and Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV”.

ACN said it learned of his election “with the greatest joy and gratitude”. During the Prevost’s time as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, ACN supported many projects – including formation of seminarians, missionaries and catechists – and with Mass stipends for missionaries working in remote parts of the Andes.

The international Laudato Si’ Movement prepared to lead the celebration of Laudato Si Week (24-31 May) around the Catholic world. Taking the theme “Raising Hope”, it celebrates the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis signing Laudato Si’, the encyclical on climate change, biodiversity and our common home.  

Resources offered for the Week include a prayer card, a prayer book and a Mass for Creation. More than 30,000 trained Laudato Si’ animators across 140 countries will lead community-based ecological initiatives within the church. Community events include initiatives to celebrate freshwater in the Democratic Republic of Congo and workshops on sustainability and an outdoor Mass at the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability in the Philippines capital Manila.  

The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences issued a call for ecological conversion and advocacy for the most vulnerable ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil later this year. A global online celebration on 30 May will mark 10 years of prayer and action and look ahead to the next 10 years. The Laudato Si’ Movement said the election of Pope Leo XIV “opens a new chapter for the Church and for our shared mission to care for our common home”.

Germany’s Synodal Path talks continued while waiting to see how new Pope Leo XIV, who as head of the Dicastery of Bishops was closely involved in recent Vatican talks with German bishops, defines his understanding of synodality.  A meeting of its clerical-lay Synodal Committee on 9-10 May opened a day after the former-Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected pope, and issued a message thanking him for his “encouragement along the way”.

However, a final decision on details of the planned Synodal Council for the whole German Church, which the Vatican has criticised because lay members might outvote bishops, will not be taken until November. Synodal Path members have agreed their decisions will be “presented to the Holy See for approval”.

Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburgy, the president of the German bishops’ conference, praised ecumenism at a Protestant church convention on 3 May and noted the growing number of women in high-level Catholic posts. “I wish and am doing everything I can to ensure that women can lead and make decisions in the Church without discrimination,” he said. 

The German Catholic news agency KNA interpreted this as support for women’s ordination, which Protestant churches allow and the Vatican opposes, but Bishop Bätzing did not explicitly articulate this in his speech.

The President of Poland Andrzej Duda and numerous state officials offered condolences to the family of the victim and the academic community of the Warsaw University after a student fatally wounded a receptionist and seriously injured a security guard at the campus. 

On 8 May, the university announced a day of mourning and cancelled all classes. A special Mass “in the spirit of unity and solidarity” was celebrated in the evening at the St Anne Church, dedicated to the academic ministry. According to the Polish news agency PAP, the incident occurred at 6:40 p.m. on 7 May on the main campus of the university located on Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street, where the attacker – identified as R. Mieszko – assaulted a receptionist in her fifties within the Auditorium Maximum building. A security guard who attempted to intervene was also attacked and left in critical condition. 

“It’s not just the brutality that makes this event so horrific, because the prosecution’s charge against Mieszko is not only for murder, but also for ‘desecration of the body’, which means that he did something to it,” a source at Warsaw University told The Tablet.

A group of Oregon, California and Florida churches, along with an interfaith group and a nonprofit Latino group, filed a complaint against the United States government’s lifting of a bar on immigration raids in places of worship.  

The complaint, filed in the US District Court in Portland, Oregon, challenged the authority of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to go into churches, schools, health care clinics and other “sacred spaces” in search of undocumented immigrants. 

“Longstanding federal policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations has consistently affirmed the importance of protecting havens … from immigration enforcement activity except in limited circumstances,” stated the lawsuit. Plaintiffs include Our Lady of Guadalupe, in San Diego, which is less than 20 miles from the US-Mexico border and has a long history of welcoming immigrants. 

As the Trump administration accelerated its mass deportation agenda, Church sources reported migrants living in fear and insecurity throughout the country. One complained of ICE raids in Washington, DC on 6 May which harassed migrants. “Immigrant children did not go to school, immigrant parents did not go to work, immigrant homes were shuttered,” he said. 

On 9 May the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns asked its supporters to lobby their senators to support accountability for the treatment of migrants and inmates sent to and imprisoned in El Salvador.

Governor Bob Ferguson signed into Washington state law a bill making clergy “mandatory reporters” for child sex abuse, without providing any exemption for information learned in the confessional. Mandatory reporters are held criminally liable if they fail to report suspected or known abuse to police. 

Ferguson defended signing the bill into law, saying, “My uncle was a Jesuit priest for many years, [I’ve] been to confession myself – and so I’m very familiar with that.  I felt this was important legislation and protecting kids is first priority.” However, Ferguson failed to acknowledge that confession is anonymous, and priests do not try and ascertain the identity of the person confessing their sins. 

The bishops of Washington state indicated they and their clergy will not comply with the law. “All Catholics must know and be assured that their confessions remain sacred, secure, confidential, and protected by the law of the Church,” said Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle. 

Similar efforts in other states have failed because legislators have understood that not including an exemption for confession violates the separation of church and state, and will face challenges in the courts. Religious organisations including the Catholic Church have filed suits to block the law.

A district judge in America blocked the sale of an Apache religious site, following a campaign supported by Catholic bishops. The fate of the Oak Flat site in Arizona will await a Supreme Court verdict.  

Last year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops joined Christian groups, including the Christian Legal Society and the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, who had filed a brief arguing that decisions by a lower court to allow the sale would “jeopardise Native American religious practice and religious liberty more broadly”. 

The Knights of Columbus also filed a second amicus brief – a document filed at court by a party not involved with the case at hand which supports one side of the legal issue – in favour of the coalition group, Apache Stronghold. Other briefs were filed by Notre Dame Law School, Indiana, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, and the University of St Thomas School of Law, Minnesota.  

The Knights of Columbus argued the decision to sell was devastating not just for the Apache people but for “the myriad religious adherents of all faiths and backgrounds who use federal lands every day for their religious exercise”.

A Brazilian nun and teacher who was the world’s oldest person died on 30 April at the age of 116.  Sr Inah Canabarro died at her retirement home in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre of natural causes, according to her congregation, the Company of Saint Teresa of Jesus.  

She was confirmed in January as the world’s oldest person by LongeviQuest, an organisation that tracks supercentenarians around the globe. She would have turned 117 on 27 May. The world’s oldest person is now Ethel Caterham, a 115-year-old British woman. 

Sr Canabarro said her Catholic faith was the key to her longevity in a 2024 video, where she was seen cracking jokes, sharing miniature paintings she used to make of wild flowers and reciting the Hail Mary. For her 110th birthday, she was honoured by Pope Francis.

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