The former secretary general of the French bishops' conference has been named rector of the Lourdes sanctuary. Mgr Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, formerly spokesman for the conference, will take over from a priest of the local Tarbes and Lourdes diocese. In June, the Pope appointed a temporary apostolic delegate, Lille Auxiliary Bishop Antoine Hérouard, after a discreet inquiry into reported complaints by pilgrimage directors and local merchants about cost-cutting and price increases at the Marian shrine.
The move effectively took responsibility away from the local ordinary, Bishop Nicolas Brouwet, who had brought in a former corporate executive to handle the shrine’s ailing finances. The newcomer balanced the books but earned criticism for his methods. The Vatican said in June that the Pope “wishes to accentuate the spiritual primacy in the face of the temptation to overemphasise the managerial and financial aspect” of the shrine.
Russia's Orthodox church will have opened 100 new places of worship in Moscow by the end of 2019, under a massive sacral building programme launched by Patriarch Kirill after his election in February 2009. "Construction teams are currently at work on 232 new churches in our capital, which still has many fewer than the national average", said Vladimir Resin, a State Duma member in charge of the programme. "Today, we find ourselves on the borderline, with half the projected churches scheduled for completion by the year's end". However, according to media reports local residents have objected to parks and wooded areas being taken over in already densely populated new city developments.
As part of the final preparations for the synod on the Amazon region, which will take place in Rome from 6 to 27 October, the Vatican announced on 7 September that the Pope had appointed three presidents for the synod. They are Cardinals Baltazar Porras, archbishop of Mérida in the north-west of Venezuela and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Caracas, Pedro Barreto of Huancayo, Peru, and João Braz de Aviz, former archbishop of Brasília and currently president of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Religious Life in the Vatican.
The oldest living cardinal died on 3 September in Colombia. José de Jesús Pimiento Rodríguez, Emeritus Archbishop of Manizales was 100 years old. In 2015, Pope Francis named him cardinal at 95 years old.
Spain's Catholic bishops have warned that the increasingly popular use of Mindfulness is incompatible with "Christian prayer practices", and cautioned Catholics they risk "effectively abandoning the faith" if they engage in it. "Our pace of life, marked by activism, competitiveness and consumerism, generates emptiness, stress and anguish", said the Bishops Conference's Commission for Doctrine of the Faith. "In this situation, many people are resorting to methods of meditation and prayer that originate in religious traditions outside Christianity in response to a growing demand for emotional well-being. However, a spirituality understood as cultivation of one's interiority and self-discovery does not lead to God". "The reduction of prayer to meditation turns this type of practice into a monologue that begins and ends in the subject itself", the Bishops Conference commission said.
In Newark, US, Cardinal Joseph Tobin led hundreds of Catholic activists, clergy and laity outside the town-centre Federal Building, protesting over the detention of children and families on the southern border with Mexico. While the cardinal led the group in prayers, some of the activists lay down on the ground in the shape of a cross at a busy intersection, blocking traffic. In Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez led a Mass for immigrants at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Catholic officials and pro-democracy activists described Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill last week as “too little, too late.” Lam, chief executive of the Chinese territory, announced on 4 September that she would scrap the bill – which would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China - that sparked months of mass protests. Project officer of the Justice and Peace Commission of Hong Kong Diocese, Jackie Hung, said that Lam had not accepted the protesters’ five key demands which include an an independent inquiry into the use of force by police, an amnesty for arrested protesters, stopping categorising the protests as riots, and the implementation of universal suffrage.
Pope Francis has permanently removed administrative power from Cardinal George Alencherry, who is accused of losing nearly $10 million in a controversial land deal involving his Syro-Malabar diocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly. On 30 August, the Vatican announced that Bishop Antony Karayil of Mandya would become the Episcopal Vicar of Ernakulam-Angamaly diocese and would be given the title “Archbishop” and full administrative authority. Alencherry will still officially be the archbishop and will continue to serve as head of the wider Syro-Malabar Church. A local court ruled on 24 August, that Alencherry, and the diocese’s former financial officer, will face charges that the cardinal sold archdiocesan land at undervalued prices.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, the former papal envoy, died in France on 4 September, aged 96. During his two decades as negotiator for St. John Paul II Etchegaray met Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the hopes of avoiding war in 2003, visited communist Cuba to meet Fidel Castro, and witnessed the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He also played key roles in ecumenical relations, including with the late Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and in organising the first Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi in 1986.
Jesuits in South Africa have condemned the "deplorable violence, thuggery and looting" after rioters targeted foreign-owned shops and torched buildings and vehicles in the major cities of Pretoria, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg on 2 September. "The ongoing chaos has violated basic human rights and makes a mockery of the law enshrined in our Constitution," the Jesuit Institute South Africa said in a worded statement. Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg described the attacks as “patently fuelled by anti-foreigner sentiment”.
A Catholic bishop in Turkey has warned his Church lacks enough priests and places of worship to meet the needs of refugees and local residents, many of whom seek to return to Christianity or learn more about it.
"We need priests, nuns and laypeople who can help with the formation and daily pastoral care of Christians, which is made more complex by great distances", said Bishop Paolo Bizzeti, an Italian-born Jesuit heading Turkey's apostolic vicariate of Anatolia. In a interview with the Milan-based Famiglia Cristiana weekly, the 71-year-old bishop said the mass influx of refugees to Turkey had also "opened a new historic chapter for Christianity".
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