Schools offer free ‘fire’ places
The Diocese of Sacramento, in California, has announced that it will offer free schooling at any of its more than three dozen schools to students displaced by the bush fire that devastated whole towns in the region.
The offer includes tuition, free lunches and uniforms, and will last until the end of the school year in June. Tuition at a Catholic school in the region costs from $5,000 (£3,900) to $6,000 (£4,700) per year.
The fire left some 85 people dead, with 249 still listed as missing. Firefighters finally contained the blaze on Sunday, but only after it had scorched more than 19,000 buildings and 153,336 acres according to authorities. It was the worst wild fire in Californian history.
Taiwan voted last weekend to restrict marriage to one man and one woman in an advisory referendum. The vote challenged a May 2017 Constitutional Court ruling on same sex unions, which called for legislation within two years to allow gay marriage.
The government announced the referendum after protests by Catholics and others. Although the ballot is only advisory, it has frustrated lawmakers and LGBT campaigners (above) who hoped their island would be the first place in Asia to let same-sex couples share child custody and insurance benefits.
Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei said before the referendum: “We do not discriminate against gays and are willing to protect their rights, but we cannot support same-sex marriage and same-sex union”. He urged the faithful to “feel free to choose with faith and conscience”.
The Catholic Church in Cameroon’s anglophone south-west region, where separatists are waging an insurgency, has blamed the army for killing Fr Cosmos Omboto Ondari. The 33-year-old Kenyan Mill Hill missionary was shot on 21 November outside St Martin of Tours Church in Kembong, where he was parish priest. He died immediately.
“Eyewitnesses said he was killed by government soldiers who were firing at random from a passing vehicle,” reported Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe, whose diocese covers Kembong. Fr Ondari is the second Catholic priest killed in the English-speaking region this year.
Migrants offered refuge
As large groups of Central Americans continue to move through Mexico towards the United States, the House of the Pilgrim at the Mexico City Basilica has opened its doors.
More than 900 Central American migrants took refuge in the House, which is normally used to host pilgrims taking part in the annual pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In the first days of November, 6,000 Central Americans arrived in Mexico City and were temporarily sheltered at a sports stadium in the east of the city. The group has now continued north and is in the border city of Tijuana.
Human remains found underneath the Holy See’s embassy to Italy belong to a man and not to Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee who went missing in 1983.
The office of Rome’s public prosecutor said that tests on the bones revealed they came from a male skeleton. Other sources involved in the investigation told the Turin-based La Stampa newspaper that the bones are at least 100 years old.
Last Sunday’s annual World Day of the Poor, which Pope Francis established in 2017, was celebrated by the Church globally, under the theme, “Hear the cry of the poor.”
The Pope celebrated Mass at St Peter’s to mark the day and afterwards joined about 1,500 homeless people for lunch in Paul VI Hall (pictured above). The menu included lasagne, chicken pieces, mashed potatoes and tiramisu, provided by Rome’s Hilton Hotel.
The Archdiocese of Berlin in Germany also hosted a banquet for the city’s homeless and vulnerable people in St Hedwig’s Cathedral. Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin welcomed 300 guests and 140 helpers from local parishes.
Four Catholic bishops have joined environmental organisations in demonstrating against coal-fired power plants in The Philippines on the island of Negros. They oppose the construction of a new coal-fired project in the city of San Carlos. Bishops of the dioceses of San Carlos, Bacolod, Kabankalan, and Dumaguete want their region declared coal-free.
Bishop bans priest from demo
India’s Syro-Malabar Church has tried to ban a priest from demonstrating against the bailing of a bishop accused of raping a nun over a two-year period.
Fr Augustine Vattoly is among those calling for the continued detention of Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar, who was freed on bail following his arrest in September. The demonstrators have accused him of intimidating witnesses.
Fr Vattoly says he received a letter from Bishop Jacob Manathodath of Palghat in Kerala, and ahead of a 14 November demonstration. The letter said: “I hereby strongly prohibit you from organising and attending” the protest. It also warned him that “disobedience will incur ecclesiastical actions”.
Protests have broken out in Araucania, in the south of Chile, after a Mapuche youth, Camilo Catrillanca, was killed by a police officer on 14 November.
The Mapuche hold territorial claims in both Chile and Argentina and say they have been mistreated by Chilean authorities. Following the young man’s death, the auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Cristián Roncagliolo, participated in a Day of Prayer with the Mapuche pastoral group in the Chilean capital, Santiago.
The Congolese Catholic Bishops’ Conference says it will help people to take part in general election scheduled for 23 December in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Meeting last week in the capital, Kinshasa, the bishops said they would do their best to ensure a credible election, despite a clampdown on public demonstrations by opposition parties, lack of press freedom and concerns over plans to use electronic electoral machines.
The widely-respected Martin Fayulu will lead a coalition against Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister and the candidate of the ruling coalition. President Joseph Kabila (above) said in August that he would step down after 17 years in office.
Belgium’s bishops published their first annual report, which provides some interesting statistics but falls short of an exhaustive survey of Catholicism in the country, writes Tom Heneghan.
The report cited surveys showing that 53 per cent of the population identifies as Catholic and that 9.4 per cent attend Mass regularly. The Church does not keep its own statistics for the Catholic population. But it did record the number of hosts distributed on one Sunday in 2016, the base year for the statistics, which showed that 2.5 per cent of all Catholics took Communion that day.
On average, Belgium has one parish for every 3,000 believers. In neighbouring France, one parish services 5,000 Catholics.
Aboriginal suicides rising
The Catholic body that addresses the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is trying to find new ways to support rural and regional communities to prevent suicide by Indigenous youth, writes Mark Brolly.
The national youth councillor of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council (NATSICC), Sabrina-Ann Stevens, said after the council’s recent assembly in Perth that the suicide rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is more than twice that of non-Indigenous Australians.
“There are a lot of young people taking their lives and they are getting younger and younger,” Ms Stevens said.
Loading ...
