Ugandan professor Noble Banadda (above) last week became the first African to receive the Pius XI Golden Medal Award. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences awards the medal every two years to a young scientist under the age of 46, chosen for his or her exceptional promise.
Professor Banadda received the award from Pope Francis, during a Vatican plenary, addressing the transformative roles of science in society. Based at the University of Makerere, Uganda, Professor Banadda has developed technologies making diesel from plastics, and organic pesticide from agricultural waste like eucalyptus sawdust.
Plea to Zimbabwe’s clergy
Churches in Zimbabwe should play a role in building national consensus and should support tolerance among politicians, the Speaker of Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly, Jacob Mudenda, told a delegation representing the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) last week.
“If we are united in worship, let us use that experience to be united outside the Church through political tolerance,” the Zanu PF politician told ZCC members visiting his office.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, leader of the ruling Zanu PF, was declared the victor in presidential elections in August. His main opponent, Nelson Chamisa, has not accepted the result, while bitter infighting has broken out inside the ruling party itself.
Churches unite for Dalits
Catholics and Protestants in India jointly observed Dalit Liberation Sunday last week with a liturgy and with activities that called for an end to the discrimination and violence suffered by people of lower-caste origins. Dalits make up 30 per cent of India’s 27 million Christians.
Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak, chairman of the Indian bishops’ office for people of socially poor castes and tribes, urged “the whole Christian community to … stand with vulnerable Dalits in society”. He lamented that Dalits face discrimination in the Churches as well as in India’s wider society.
Pope Francis welcomed Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin to the Vatican last week for a private discussion on topics that included building trust between Israelis and Palestinians. During their 35-minute meeting, they spoke about mutual trust in negotiations “so as to reach an accord respecting the legitimate aspirations of both peoples”, the Vatican said.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay has given his backing to a helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people wanting to return to the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Gracias, a member of the Pope’s C9 advisory council, said that he was happy to support the plan drawn up by the Indian fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, who is a gay Catholic.
The Congregation for Catholic Education has renewed the nihil obstat of Fr Ansgar Wucherpfennig, rector of the Jesuit Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology at Frankfurt am Main. Fr Wucherpfennig earlier sent the German Jesuits’ Superior General, Fr Arturo Sosa, a declaration emphasising that he was committed to the Church’s authentic magisterium in his lectures on women’s ordination and same-sex blessings. He said that when he added his own views on both subjects, he would make it quite clear that he was expressing his own opinion.
Assisted dying to be opposed
A leading Catholic bioethicist says the Church will campaign against plans by the state government of Western Australia to legalise voluntary assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. However, Fr Joseph Parkinson has admitted he is not confident of turning around public opinion on the issue.
Fr Parkinson, the director of the L.J. Goody Bioethics Centre in Perth, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the first message that reached the public often shaped public opinion. “And the first message that has got out about voluntary assisted dying is that most people want it,” he said.
“That is actually based on newspaper polling, it’s not based on research in any meaningful sense,” he added.
Australia’s religious orders are to hold a National Day of Sorrow and Promise on 2 December, the start of a new Church year, to acknowledge survivors of abuse within the Catholic Church and all those who have been hurt by that abuse. Sr Monica Cavanagh, President of Catholic Religious Australia, said as well as apologising once again for the tragedy of abuse, the purpose of the day was to acknowledge those who worked in the interests of people harmed by abuse and for the safety of the vulnerable.
Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, retired Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, announced that he is no longer a member of Pope Francis’ advisory Council of Cardinals, the C9. Chilean prosecutors are investigating possible cover-ups of abuse cases by senior members of the clergy, including by 85-year-old Errázuriz and his successor, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati.
Sergio Moya, lead prosecutor in Rancagua, said last week that Errázuriz had been issued with a subpoena regarding the possible cover-up of sexual abuse of a minor in 2005 by Fr Jorge Laplagne, a priest of the Santiago archdiocese.
Moya also interrogated former Chilean bishop Juan Barros last week. It is alleged that Barros covered up the assault of children by air force chaplain Pedro Quiroz. Pope Francis had previously defended Barros from accusations of covering up abuse.
As the migrant caravan composed mainly of people from Honduras reaches the United States, President Donald Trump has introduced restrictions on who can apply for asylum in the US.
These mean that migrants can only seek asylum if they turn up at official ports of entry. More than 3,000 migrants have reached the border town of Tijuana, Mexico. US Army personnel (above) in San Diego are pictured installing concertina wire along a fence that runs parallel to a walkway leading to Tijuana.
The Bishop of Austin, Texas, Joe Vásquez, chair of the Committee on Migration at the US bishops’ conference, said the change to asylum policy would “delay access regarding protection for hundreds of children and families fleeing the violence in Central America”.
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