Bolivian President Evo Morales is hoping to secure a fourth term in office at elections. Former president Carlos Mesa, of the Movement for Socialism party, is challenging Mr Morales, who has dominated Bolivian politics for 15 years. Many voters are still angry that Mr Morales overturned a 2016 referendum that rejected changing the constitution to remove term limits, which would have prevented him from standing again. Last week the Bolivian bishops’ conference said that many people were worried that the election would be manipulated.
President Lenin Moreno of Ecuador has backed down from an International Monetary Fund austerity package that included a sharp rise in fuel prices. The move follows intense negotiations last weekend between his government and the leaders of indigenous communities, who have now pledged to end protests and street blockades. Mr Moreno’s announcement early in October of austerity measures, which included cancelling fuel subsidies, set off the protests in which indigenous Ecuadorians travelled to the capital, Quito, to express opposition to the plan.
Brazilian Cardinal Serafim Fernandes de Araújo, Archbishop emeritus of Belo Horizonte, died on 8 October at the age of 95. The College of Cardinals now stands at 224, of whom 127 are electors.
The second African Regional Conference of Santa Marta has ended in Nairobi, Kenya, with a call to the bishops’ conferences in Africa to fight modern slavery by creating special human trafficking desks to cooperate more effectively with judges, immigration departments and law enforcement agencies. After the conference, Archbishop Philip Subira Anyolo of Kisumu said the aim was the “cutting of the umbilical cord of human trafficking and of the slavery of our days”. He was one of more than 100 delegates from eight countries in Africa and the UK attending the meeting. It is estimated that at least 9 million Africans, mainly women and children, are victims of modern slavery.
Sudan’s appointment of a Coptic Christian, Raja Nicola Issa Abdul-Masseh, to the transitional ruling Sovereign Council has raised hopes that Christians will receive more rights after decades of oppression under former president Omar al-Bashir. The 11-member council will only be in power until elections in 2022. Responding to the appointment Coptic Amir Joseph Suleman said: “I do believe that we are turning the page on religious oppression and I think the appointment of Raja Nicola is a victory not just for Christians in Sudan but for freedom in Sudan.” Sudan’s Christians, including Copts, make up about 1 per cent of the country’s population.
Bishops in the United States have marked World Day Against the Death Penalty by reiterating the teaching of recent popes against capital punishment, especially the decision by Pope Francis to alter the Catechism to state that the death penalty is never morally permitted. At a roundtable discussion livestreamed by the Catholic News Service, Washington, D.C. Archbishop Wilton Gregory also praised the congregants of the Mother Emanuel Church, Charleston, for forgiving the shooter who killed nine people at their church in 2015. He said they “offer a wonderful witness of mercy”.
Pope Francis last week accepted the resignation of New York City auxiliary bishop John Jenik, who was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1980s. Jenik denied the allegation when it was brought to the Archdiocese of New York City last year, but he stopped public ministry and moved out of his Bronx parish. Jenik turned 75 in March, the normal retirement age for bishops.
A Democrat hoping to be his party’s presidential candidate in next year’s election has said that churches, religious universities and charities should lose their tax-exempt status if they do not support gay marriage. Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke and eight other nomination contenders were responding to questions on LGBT issues in a CNN-sponsored event last week. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for any institution or organisation in America that denies the full human rights and full civil rights of every single one of us,” said O’Rourke.
Cardinal Charles Bo, the Archbishop of Yangon, has called on religious leaders to speak out against the atrocities committed against innocent civilians in Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine state and other northern regions. “I am pained by the silence of religious leaders of this great spiritual citadel,” said the cardinal, deploring military offensives against Rohingya Muslims and minority Christian groups, such as the Karen.
The Apostolic Administrator of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong Hon, has appealed for calm in the former British colony, saying that hatred would only give rise to violence. He also suggested that those policing the ongoing anti-Beijing protests needed to “abide with the law, so that the people’s trust and respect in them can be rebuilt”.
An official of the Catholic bishops’ conference of the Philippines episcopal commission on migrants and itinerant people is in Japan, to assist Filipinos living there who have been affected by Typhoon Hagibis. More than 40 people were killed during the ferocious storm with winds of 140mph that caused catastrophic flooding last week in Japan, where more than a quarter of a million Filipinos work. Hagibis means “speed” in Tagalog, the Filipino language.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has said that those who see him as Pope Francis’ opponent are being used by the devil to divide the Church. “The truth is that the Church is represented on Earth by the Vicar of Christ, that is, by the Pope. And whoever is against the Pope is, ipso facto, outside the Church,” he told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera last week in an interview.
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