Bishop charged with rape
Indian police have charged Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar with repeatedly raping a nun in her convent in Kerala. If found guilty, he will face a prison sentence of at least 10 years, up to life. Three bishops and 25 Catholic nuns have been named as witnesses. Bishop Mulakkal was arrested last September after a member of the Missionaries of Jesus complained that he raped her numerous times between 2014 and 2016. The bishop has denied the allegations.
Catholic bishops working with migrants on the US-Mexico border (pictured) have warned that the situation is at breaking point and say that non-profit and church organisations are overwhelmed. Bishops from north-eastern Mexico said that resources in Mexico to help migrants were strained, as more people have been arriving on the US border to seek asylum, instead of crossing illegally. The US government has implemented a “metering” system, only allowing a small number of people to enter the US each day. As a result, asylum seekers are waiting in Mexico for weeks or months. Few cities in Mexico provide resources to support migrants, leaving churches and non-profit groups to meet their urgent needs.
The Church in Colombia has helped to negotiate an agreement between the administration of President Iván Duque and indigenous people in the province of Cauca, who have been protesting about a lack of social development and unfulfilled promises in the region by blocking the Pan-American highway for nearly a month. Mgr Oscar Urbina, president of the Colombian bishops’ conference, helped to mediate the agreement. It commits some $250 million (£190m) to Cauca to fund projects for housing, education, health and land.
Anger at repeal of abortion ban
The repeal of South Korea’s 66-year-old ban on abortion last week has drawn criticism from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, which reiterated the Church’s opposition to abortion. South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled on 11 April that the ban was unconstitutional and ordered it to be revised by 2020. The 1953 law banned abortion except in cases of rape, incest, foetal abnormalities and serious risks to the mother’s health. A statement from the bishops’ conference said the court ruling denies vulnerable human beings their basic right to life and unjustly excludes men from their responsibility in unplanned pregnancies.
As the conflict in Libya intensifies, Filipinos in the country have been urged to return home by the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People. “The situation in Libya is uncertain, volatile and unstable,” Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga said last week. He added that the country’s archdioceses and dioceses would do all they could to provide support. Around 2,600 Filipinos work in Libya.
King Abdullah II of Jordan has reaffirmed that Christians are an “integral part of the tissue of the Arab world”, and said that his country would maintain its commitment to safeguard Church properties. He was speaking last week in Amman, where he received the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II.
The Vatican has opened an investigation into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi (pictured), who vanished in 1983, the family’s lawyer has said. The internal investigation will examine evidence that Orlandi, whose remains have never been found, may be buried in a tomb in the Teutonic cemetery inside the Vatican. It follows claims made in an anonymous letter sent to the family.
First poll to appoint bishops
The Church in China has held the first round of appointments of bishops since the Vatican-China provisional agreement on appointing bishops was signed last September. Both Hanzhong Diocese in Shaanxi province and Jining Diocese in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were offered only one candidate. It was not clear how the names of the candidates were agreed. Voting in Hanzhong took place on 11 April, and Fr Stephen Xu Hongwei, 44, was appointed coadjutor bishop. A local Catholic told ucanews.com: “The authorities told the voters beforehand that ‘there is only one candidate and you have to vote for him.’”
Following a three-day meeting of the Council of Cardinals, a draft apostolic constitution – Praedicate Evangelium – governing the workings and structure of the Roman Curia is to be sent for consultation to bishops’ conferences around the world, the Vatican announced last week. The council will consider initial responses from the bishops at its next meeting at the end of June.
The Catholic Church in Peru has rebuked one of its senior prelates who sued two journalists for libel. José Eguren, Archbishop of Piura, accused journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz of slandering him by accusing him of covering up sexual abuse. Last week, a judge ruled in his favour. He put Salinas on a year’s probation after fining him $24,000 (£18,000). Ugaz is awaiting a verdict. After the ruling, Peru’s bishops called for solidarity with the victims of abuse and for those who expose abuse, such as journalists.
Pope Francis has sent €100,000 (£86,300) to assist tens of thousands of people in Iran who lost their homes and businesses in the flooding that began in mid-March in north-east and southern Iran.
The government of Belarus has defended the decision to bulldoze memorial crosses at a site of Soviet-era mass executions, despite protests by the Catholic archbishop and other Church leaders. “These crosses were not officially registered – they have nothing to do with commemorating Stalin’s terror victims,” the Belarus Forestry Ministry said.
The Archbishop of Minsk, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (pictured), president of the Catholic bishops’ conference, called the action “sacrilege” and said: “The cross and spiritual suffering recall the story of Kuropaty as the burial place of so many innocent victims”. The Soviet Union’s NKVD paramilitary police shot dead and buried around 30,000 people, including many Catholics, at Kuropaty between 1937 and 1941.
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