Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Rai, has warned that the coexistence, diversity and multiculturalism that have characterised the country since its foundation are at risk. In a meeting with journalists last week, he highlighted widespread anxiety, particularly about Christians being forced to leave the country. He appealed for a revival of the Taif Agreement, which ended the decades-long civil war in Lebanon 30 years ago. He said he felt that the agreement had been disregarded “in letter and in spirit”. Cardinal Rai also warned of the dangers to Lebanon of raised tensions in the Middle East between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran.
To mark the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the bishops of Japan last week renewed calls and prayers to build peace by abolishing nuclear weapons, hoping that Francis’ visit to Japan in November, the second ever by a pope, will help bring about a nuclear-free world.
Court documents have shown that a systemic pattern of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy took place on the US territory of Guam for more than six decades. An extensive investigation carried out by the The Associated Press has found that collusion and cover-ups from priests all the way to the top of the Church hierarchy had been happening since the 1950s. There have since been at least 223 lawsuits filed accusing 35 clergymen, teachers and Boy Scout leaders of sexual abuse on Guam. Anthony Apuron, who served as the Archbishop of Agaña from 1986 until 2016, was named by seven men in lawsuits. Among the abuse cases revealed in the documents is also that of American Fr Louis Brouillard (1921-2018). He was accused of abusing 132 children over 30 years while serving on the island. No member of the Catholic clergy on Guam has ever been prosecuted for a sex crime.
An Indian Catholic nun dismissed from her Kerala-based congregation for allegedly violating its rules has said that she was removed from the order on 5 August for publicly seeking action against a bishop accused of rape. Sr Kalapura said that her superiors began to question her in September 2018, after she joined a public protest organised by women Religious from another order who were seeking action against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar. He has since been charged with the multiple rapes of a nun from 2014 to 2016. Sr Kalapura has said that she will fight the case in the civil courts.
Creation and Salvation were the key themes discussed at the ninth Congress of Asian Christian Theologians, which ran from 5-10 August in Medan, Indonesia. More than 120 theologians from various Christian denominations took part, including representatives from the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. Creation will be a key theme of the Asian Ecumenical Women’s Assembly in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on 21-27 November.
The Bishop of Osnabrück, Franz-Josef Bode, who is also vice-president of the German Bishops’ Conference, has appointed laywomen to lead two parishes on two North Sea islands that belong to his diocese. On August 1, pastoral assistant Michaela Wachendorfer was appointed to lead the Catholic community on Juist and pastoral assistant Susanne Wübker (pictured) was designated to lead the community on Langeoog. Wachendorfer told domradio.de she was glad that her leadership was now officially sanctioned by canon law, which allows a diocese to appoint lay leaders if there are too few priests. A priest moderator, who does not have to reside in the parish, assists pastoral assistants in such cases.
A bishop has called for peace in Kashmir. “The situation in Kashmir is delicate and requires an effort on behalf of everybody for peace and reconciliation, so that the situation does not degenerate,” Theodore Mascarenhas, the Auxiliary Bishop of Ranchi, said last week, after India’s government split Indian-administered Kashmir into two territories governed directly from Delhi. India’s removal of Kashmir’s autonomy and moves to tighten its control over the country’s only Muslim-majority state have drawn protests from Kashmiri Muslims and from neighbouring Pakistan. Fr Bonnie Mendes, former executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, has called for a referendum in Kashmir under the supervision of the United Nations.
Catholic bishops in South Africa have said that they recognise the urgent work needed in seminaries and houses of formation to fight the sexual abuses of minors and others in the Church. The bishops issued a statement on 11 August following their recent plenary meeting in Mariannhill, in KwaZulu Natal, which was addressed by Fr Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. “We confess that where terrible darkness has entered the Church, we are committed to doing all in our power to restore the light in Southern Africa,” the bishops said. Zollner told the bishops of the latest actions being undertaken in the Church to fight sexual abuse.
More than 5,000 Catholics in Gurk-Klagenfurt Diocese in Austria have signed a petition demanding that their cathedral rector, Mgr Engelbert Guggenberger, be appointed their bishop, a year after the previous bishop, Alois Schwarz, was reassigned amid allegations of financial irregularities and of leading an inappropriate lifestyle. “We want to inform Pope Francis at first hand about the events in Carinthia”, the petition organiser, Gabriel Stabentheiner, told Austrian TV. Mgr Guggenberger held the initial enquiries into the corruption accusations.
At their annual convention in Minneapolis, the Knights of Columbus honoured the memory of Kendrick Castillo (pictured with his father, John, active in the Knights) by making him a Knight posthumously. The high school student lunged at a shooter at his suburban Denver high school earlier this year to protect his fellow students. Castillo was the only student killed in the attack.
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