News Briefing: Church in the World

The Egyptian government denied that a controversial court ruling, declaring the land around the historic St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula state property, posed any threat to the community which has inhabited the site since the sixth-century.  

The Greek Orthodox Church reacted with concern to last week’s ruling, as the monastery had enjoyed protected legal status since it was built on the site of the burning bush.

In a call on 30 May with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Cairo was “fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, and ensuring it is not violated”. Mitsotakis emphasised the importance of “preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery”. A Greek delegation was due to visit Egypt next week, the Athens government reported.

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens had called the court ruling “scandalous” and an infringement on religious freedoms. The Greek Orthodox patriarchates in Jerusalem and Istanbul and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople also called on the Egyptian government to respect longstanding tradition and agreements with the world’s oldest continually-inhabited Christian monastery.  

The ruling came amid a government development project to boost visitor numbers to the region, which is popular with pilgrims and tourists.

The United Nations reported worsening humanitarian crises in Sudan’s civil war between government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The UN secretary-general’s spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric de la Rivière described dire conditions in the town of El Fasher and the Abu Shouk refugee camp, which are besieged by the RSF. 

According to the International Organisation for Migration, around 2,800 people, mostly women and children, fled the renewed fighting in last week in South Kordofan, as the RSF pursued plans to establish a parallel government in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. 

The UN said a cholera epidemic in Khartoum State had worsened, with the number of suspected cases increasing by 80 per cent to over 8,500 in the last two weeks. Although the World Health Organisation has delivered some medical supplies to Khartoum hospitals, “much more is needed to contain the epidemic”, Dujarric said.

Church authorities in Kenya suspended operations in Kerio Valley after the killing of Fr Allois Cheruiyot Bett, amid reports of widespread insecurity across the Rift Valley region. 

Bett, a priest attached to St Mulumba Church in Tot, in the Diocese of Eldoret, was shot dead by suspected bandits as he returned to the parish headquarters after presiding over a Jumuiya, or community Mass, in the valley. His death provoked protests in Eldoret ahead of his burial on 3 June. 

Among the Church facilities closed was the Chesongoch Mission Hospital, run by the Benedictine Missionary Sisters. Sr Rosa Pascal, the head of the mission, said dangers in the area was causing mental, emotional and psychological trauma to the sisters, making it difficult for them to carry out essential services. The mission employed around 100 people, including nurses and doctors, but many had fled the area due to the insecurity.  

The Church said the closure was necessary to protect employees, as well as the sisters and citizens seeking treatment. The wider suspension was intended to pressure government into acting against the region’s insecurity.

Church leaders in African must speak out against the sexual abuse of women religious if they are to be “stewards of human dignity”, a Zambian nun said. 

“Sexual abuse represents a profound and hallowing failure to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities,” said Sr Linah Siabana in an address to the general meeting of the Conference of Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar on 24 May. “We bear a collective responsibility to ensure that our conduct consistently safeguards the rights and well-being of those entrusted to our care.” 

Siabana, of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, who specialises in mental health work with refugees, said Church leaders must “move beyond protectionism” to support women Religious.

South Africa still feels the effects of apartheid decades after it ended in 1994 in the huge divide between rich and poor, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier OFM said last week. 

The 84-year-old former Archbishop of Durban made the remarks amid intensified international interest in race relations, after the US government granted asylum to a group of white South Africans who said they faced persecution. During a meeting at the White House on 21 May, President Donald Trump alleged to South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa that a “white genocide” was taking place, a claim condemned by religious leaders and rights activists. 

“The structures of apartheid that were put into place cannot be reversed,” Cardinal Napier said in a news agency interview, though he noted the failures of black-majority governments to address the lasting socio-economic effects. “While racial segregation legislation has gone, removing legislation does not remove the reality,” he said.

Dozens of people died last week in a wave of attacks in Nigeria’s Middle Belt by militant members of the Fulani herder community. More than 40 people were killed in separate attacks in Benue State.

Nomadic Fulani herders have long clashed there with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, over access to land and resources. The Diocese of Makurdi reported that farmers were killed on their land by Fulani jihadists who fired indiscriminately on villages. 

Fr Oliver Ortese, chairman of the International Advisory Board for Makurdi Diocese, criticised the failure of security services to respond to the first attacks in Jimba. “There is a military post where the Nigerian army personnel are kept by the government where this incident happened,” he said. “Were the soldiers sleeping while these shootings were going on?”  

He reported widespread panic and “many residents fled their homes in search of safety”. Fr Ortese reflected: “They are creating humanitarian crises as those who survive are moved into camps where they become beggars to eek out a living. You cannot imagine the reality we live in here. This is horror, this is terror.” 

The Bishop of Makurdi Wilfred Anagbe has testified to the US Congress about religious violence in Nigeria.

Elsewhere, at least 200 people died in floods in Niger State last weekend. The rural town of Mokwa, west of Nigeria’s capital Abuja and a major trading and transportation hub for northern Nigerian farmers, suffered the worst of the flood. At least 500 households were destroyed and two roads and two bridges collapsed after heavy rainfall submerged huge areas of the town.

Bishops condemned the killing of soldiers in Benin by alleged jihadist militias, decrying worsening violence in the country which has claimed thousands of lives. More than 50 soldiers were killed in April in government efforts to quell a longstanding Islamist insurgency. 

“The bishops of Benin express their deepest sympathy to the entire nation and to the grieving families of our soldiers who fell in the line of duty,” a bishops’ conference statement said. “We also pray for their brothers and sisters in arms who are still on the front lines, that the Lord may be their shield and their protection.” 

It continued: “Aware of the sacrifices made to preserve peace and security in our country, we pray for the eternal rest of these heroes.”

Churches in Sierra Leone issued guidelines to limit parish activities after the government confirmed the outbreak of mpox, a viral disease that has claimed the lives of thousands of people in parts of Africa. 

The World Health Organisation announced in April that the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Burundi had been hit by mpox, with thousands of deaths reported since last year. 

“As a local Church, we need to do everything possible to protect ourselves from the disease and also contain its spread by carefully observing the guidelines announced by health authorities,” said Archbishop Edward Tamba Charles of Freetown in a statement last week. 

The guidelines advise avoiding physical interactions, with the country’s health officials noting that the slightest contact such as a handshake could prove infectious. “I assure you of my prayers for God’s blessing and protection, especially from mpox,” Archbishop Tamba said.

Malta’s Cardinal Mario Grech called the shortage of vocation a possible “grace from God” that could lead to the laity helping administer the sacraments.  

Speaking to The Times of Malta, Grech said: “Some are scandalised by these words, because it could prompt the church to recognise and utilise the diverse gifts present among all Christians rather than concentrating power solely within the clergy”.  

Grech, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, said the Church must understand that the Holy Spirit was not the exclusive domain of priests, even if some clergy resisted the idea. While priestly ministry remains vital, he said, there is plenty the laity can do in the Church, outside administrative tasks.

He cited an example from Switzerland where a lay couple effectively run a parish. As priestly visits are infrequent, the couple preside over christenings, funerals and weddings, instead of the priest.  

Grech said the aim of the Synod of Synodality was to move the Church away from clergy-dominated leadership to give the laity more say in decisions made in parishes, dioceses and the Vatican.

Bishop Jean-Marie Lovey of Sion said, “I weep for Blatten”, after the village in the mountainous Valais region of southern Switzerland was swept under a bursting glacier softened by climate change. The Swiss bishops conference said it was “deeply shocked” by the disaster and urged the country’s faithful to support Blatten’s residents – who were safely evacuated beforehand – both materially and spiritually. 

In his message, the local bishop quoted God’s words from Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you.” 

The frozen Birch Glacier above Blatten burst on 28 May, covering the village below with mud and rocks sometimes 100 metres deep. The 300 inhabitants were evacuated a week earlier when geologists noted the glacier was weakening. 

Several hundred thousand cubic metres of cliff above the village remain unstable with summer temperatures threatening further melting.  Switzerland’s glaciers, the most numerous in Europe, are expected to continue to thaw in decades to come, increasing the risk of landslide and threatening other mountain villages.

Adult baptisms in Belgium continued an upward trend seen in other European countries, but other statistics showed decline for a Church beset by secularisation and the abuse scandal. The 536 adults and adolescents baptised at the 2025 Easter vigil were 48 per cent more than in 2024, whose 362 baptisms were already an increase over 260 in 2023, official figures show. 

But other indicators were less optimistic. There were 29,769 infant baptisms in Belgium last year, 5,057 fewer than in 2023, and falls of nearly 10 per cent in numbers making their first communion and 7 per cent for confirmation in the same period. Church weddings dropped by 6.5 per cent from 2023 to 2024, though a less sharp decline than the 24 per cent drop between 2022 and 2023. 

“Requesting and receiving the sacraments is increasingly a conscious choice,” said a message from the Belgian bishops accompanying the official figures. “For some time now, we have been witnessing a gradual transition from a cultural Christianity to a Christianity of conviction.”

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, reopened last December after five years of reconstruction following its 2019 fire, dedicated one of its chapels to the Churches of the East.  Eight icons adorn the walls of the chapel officially opened on 28 May and entrusted to the aid society L’Œuvre d’Orient, based in the French capital.

“The cathedral is Catholic and therefore universal, open to all,” said Mgr Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, rector of the cathedral. Quoting John Paul II, he said: “The Christian breathes with the two lungs of the Church, Western and Eastern.” 

The icons, representing saints who founded the great Oriental churches, were blessed during a Mass presided by Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon. There are 23 Eastern Catholic churches that celebrate Eastern rites but are in union with the Pope.

The council of the city of Lisbon agreed to name a park after Pope Francis to commemorate his visit to Portugal in 2023 for World Youth Day. The 100-hectare Tejo Park spanning Lisbon and the municipality of Loures, in greater Lisbon, was created on a former landfill site as part of Lisbon’s preparations for the youth rally in August 2023. “The dream is for it to be a green park, used by people,” said Carlos Moedas, the Mayor of Lisbon.

Salesian missionaries in Haiti reported providing meals to 2,300 adolescent boys and girls daily to ensure they have at least one healthy meal a day. The order works with the humanitarian organisation Rise Against Hunger in three missionary centres across the island, including the Vincent Foundation centre near Cap-Haïtien which provides regular meals and allows young people to socialise in safety. 

Church workers have faced increasing difficulties in responding to the hunger crisis amid gang violence following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. One million Haitians – nearly a tenth of the population – have been displaced from their homes.  Around 5.7million face acute food insecurity, according to the UN.

Pope Leo XIV appointed a Nicaraguan-born priest an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark in New Jersey.  

Fr Pedro Bismarck Chau, who is bilingual in Spanish and English, was born in July 1964 in the Nicaraguan capital Managua. Ordained in 2008, Chau has parish experience in New Jersey, where he has served as assistant director of vocations for the archdiocese, as chaplain for pastoral ministry with the deaf and in missionary outreach to Latin Americans in the United States.  

The Archbishop of Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin said Fr Chau’s “deep faith, considerable pastoral experience, and love for the people of God will be a great blessing to our local Church”. An estimated 1.03 million Catholics live in New Jersey.

Archbishop Robert Casey of Cincinnati travelled to a town in rural Ohio to celebrate Mass with a community whose historic church was destroyed by fire. St John the Baptist church, built in 1891, burned down on 29 May. Officials have not determined what caused the fire but noted that workmen were in the process of replacing the church’s roof.  

Casey, who was installed as archbishop on 3 April, led a Mass at the nearby Church of the Most Precious Blood the next day. “When we face times of trial, we know that God can take us on a journey from cross to resurrection,” he told the congregation. He recalled a parish in Florida whose church building was destroyed in a hurricane. They held Mass in the carpark for a year and realised “their true identity as people of God”.

Vatican officials joined delegates from Buddhist universities and monasteries in Cambodia and the Bishops’ Conference of Cambodia for the Eighth Buddhist-Christian Colloquium in Phnom Penh on 27 May.  

Taking the theme “Buddhists and Christians Working Together for Peace through Reconciliation and Resilience”, around 150 Buddhists and Christians from 16 mostly Asian countries participated. 

The prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Inter-religious Dialogue Cardinal George Koovakad told the opening session that “reconciliation and resilience are deeply rooted in our respective faiths and are capable of building and sustaining lasting peace”. He suggested Christians and Buddhists share spiritual resources for healing people affected by war and injustice. 

Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler, the apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, emphasised the peaceful coexistence between religions in Cambodia during his welcome address. He thanked the Cambodian government for its support of religious harmony.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) joined the launch of the National Multi-Faith Action Coordination Committee, a national platform to support religious efforts to respond to “the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth” by bringing together multiple faith leaders and faith-based organisations.  

The CBCI Office for Interreligious Dialogue and Caritas India were represented at the first meeting on 29 May. Alongside them were leaders of seven other faith traditions and representatives of various faith-based organisations working in India.  

They discussed joint coordinated action in key sectors, such as public health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education, and disaster risk reduction and climate action. The committee decided to hold its next meeting in Delhi to work out an action plan and to meet every quarter to monitor its activities.

Campaigners for international debt relief joined five days of action across 30 countries last week. They gathered at political landmarks including the UK Treasury, US Congress, and the United Nations headquarters in New York to light candles as part of a global “Relay of Hope” organised by Caritas Internationalis.  

The event called for the cancellation or restructuring of national debt payments for countries unable to afford them, which affect more than 3.3 billion people who live in countries where the government spends more on debt payments than on health or education. 

The relay linked communities from Brazil to Cambodia and Puerto Rico to South Africa with relay “stages” outside the World Bank Office in Australia and in St Peter’s Square in Rome, as part of the #TurnDebtIntoHope campaign for the 2025 Jubilee.

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