President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (pictured) has urged religious institutions to play a role in strengthening the economy by promoting wealth creation. Mr Museveni said the clergy need to encourage Christians to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in the parable of the talents.
“In the Church today, people need to follow Christ’s teaching in the parable of the talents, where the one who multiplied the talents was rewarded,” said President Museveni. He was speaking in Kampala on 23 February at a fundraising dinner for the Anglican St Paul’s Cathedral in the Diocese of South Rwenzori.
South Asian bishops urge calm
Catholic bishops in Pakistan and India have appealed for calm as tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbours continues.
Archbishop Joseph Arshad of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, head of Pakistan’s bishops’ conference, urged “the leadership of both India and Pakistan to resume peace talks and settle all matters through dialogue”.
He called on the international community to mediate to avoid conflict that would cause the “ruination of this region”. Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore said: “All issues must be resolved through peace talks and dialogue; war is not an option.”
The release of a captured Indian Air Force officer ordered by Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, last week has eased tensions. Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, “welcomed” the pilot’s return as “a great joy for the country and his family”.
Tensions escalated when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a military convoy in Kashmir on 14 February, killing 40 Indian soldiers. A Pakistan-based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Archdiocese of Salta, in Argentina, has confirmed the existence of a canonical investigation into Fr José Carlos Aguilera, priest at the parish of Santa Lucía and director of pastoral services at the Catholic University of Salta. Details of the accusations against Fr Aguilera have not been made public. He has been a professor since 1993 and teaches theology. A series of sex abuse scandals have shaken the Church in Argentina recently, including allegations against Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who also served in the province of Salta.
The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has said it is important to put the agreement the Holy See signed with the Communist government of China in September last year into effect. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but since the signing the Holy See has recognised seven illicitly consecrated bishops and entrusted them with leading dioceses. No new bishops have been appointed to China since the agreement was signed.
Speaking at a conference last week on Vatican diplomacy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Ecole Français in Rome, Cardinal Parolin said the deal came “at the end of a long path. In the end, we succeeded, and we hope that the deal will bear fruits for the good of the Church and of the country”.
Fresh peace talks began in Nicaragua on Wednesday last week between government and opposition representatives, under the umbrella of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy.
The Catholic Church has offered to serve as observer and mediator at the negotiations, according to Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference and Archbishop of Managua.
Cardinal Brenes and the apostolic nuncio to Nicaragua, Waldemar Sommertag, were at the first day of negotiations when the government freed 100 people imprisoned during last year’s elections. Opposition leaders have demanded that hundreds of other people imprisoned for anti-government protests also be freed.
The Archbishop of San José, Costa Rica, José Rafael Quirós, announced last week that, after taking advice from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mauricio Viquez is to be removed from holy orders following allegations of child sex abuse. The Costa Rican authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for Viquez. He has fled the country after being accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy in 2003 at the San José parish of Patarrá.
Protection plea for indigenous
Bishops in Paraguay have called on their government “to protect the indigenous and fulfil their requests” after an indigenous leader was murdered in the centre of the capital, Asunción. The bishops last week said they were “saddened by the death of Francisco López” and affirmed their “spiritual closeness to the indigenous community of Paraguay”.
López, aged 28, was the brother of Derlis López, leader of the Takuara’i indigenous community. He was shot dead near the Congress of Paraguay and the city’s cathedral on 24 February. He was in the capital with other indigenous people demanding the return of confiscated ancestral lands near the border with Brazil.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (pictured) has urged religious institutions to play a role in strengthening the economy by promoting wealth creation. Mr Museveni said the clergy need to encourage Christians to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in the parable of the talents.
“In the Church today, people need to follow Christ’s teaching in the parable of the talents, where the one who multiplied the talents was rewarded,” said President Museveni. He was speaking in Kampala on 23 February at a fundraising dinner for the Anglican St Paul’s Cathedral in the Diocese of South Rwenzori.
Bhatti remembered
The eighth anniversary of the assassination of the Catholic politician, Shahbaz Bhatti (pictured), in Pakistan on 2 March 2011 was marked last week. Commemorations were organised by the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance and by Paul Bhatti, Shahbaz’s brother. Despite receiving death threats, Bhatti defended the Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy.
South Sudan’s peace deal is fatally flawed, the country’s bishops said, as they committed the Church to helping forge new negotiations. “We urge all stakeholders and friends of South Sudan to collaborate to seek a new model” for peace, the bishops said in a statement after they met last week in the capital, Juba.
South Sudan’s main warring parties signed a deal in September last year to end the five-year civil war that has killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions. But the situation on the ground shows that the deal is “not addressing the root causes of the conflicts” in the country, the bishops said.
The level of open conflict has decreased, but “all parties are involved either in active fighting or preparations for war”, they warned.
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