Last Friday 7 February Pope Francis met six Catholic patriarchs from the Middle East: Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon; Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch; Coptic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak of Alexandria; Melkite Patriarch Youssef Absi of Antioch; Armenian Patriarch Gregoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan of Cilicia; and Syriac Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan of Antioch. The patriarchs requested the meeting because of the “dramatic situation of the Middle East” and because of the “migratory flux” of the Christian minorities from their homelands. Meanwhile the Vatican announced that Pope Francis is to visit to Malta and Gozo on 31 May.
A Polish bishop has been suspended from office and forced to leave his see after being publicly named as a child molester. "I was informed by the Apostolic Nunciature that proceedings were underway in connection with me, as foreseen by Canon Law", Bishop Jan Szkodon, a Krakow auxiliary, said in a statement on Sunday. "I vigorously declare the accusations against me are untrue and strike at my good name, which I intend to defend. Until the matter is cleared up, I will not undertake any pastoral work". The 73-year-old bishop, who was ordained by the future Pope John Paul II and made a bishop in 1988, insisted on his innocence after been accused by the mass-circulation Gazeta Wyborcza daily of abusing an under-age girl two decades previously. However, the Krakow archdiocese spokesman, Fr Lukasz Michalczewski, said Bishop Szkodon would remain outside the area while his case was examined by the Vatican's Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith. Poland's Bishops Conference admitted to "a certain ignorance" of canonical rules against abuse and "differences of reliability" in the response of dioceses and religious orders in a March 2019 church report, after a victims support group named 24 serving and retired Church leaders of "concealing clerical crimes", and has since introduced procedures and trained safeguarding officers to combat abuse and help victims. However, in a statement last weekend, the central Bydgoszcz diocese contested a court order for damages to be paid to an abuse victim, claiming the convicted priest had committed his crimes while under the jurisdiction of another diocese.
Belgium’s Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain will begin educating imams this year in six-year programmes that aim to transmit “knowledge of the fundamental values of the Belgian state and the resulting legal principles” (writes Tom Heneghan). Courses in Dutch will begin in Leuven in February and in French at Louvain in the autumn. Once one bilingual university, they split into two institutions along language lines in 1968. The goal, worked out by a commission launched after Islamist attacks in Brussels in 2016, is to provide a university-level education for imams, who will be registered as clergy and paid by the state as are clerics from other religions. Another aim is to reduce the influence of Middle Eastern countries, which now send imams to serve their ethnic groups in Belgium or offer western Muslims an Islamic education. Belgian officials suspect both to be a potential source of radical ideas. The courses in law, politics, sociology of religion and history of the Muslim world have been worked out with the Muslim Executive of Belgium, the official Muslim spokesperson for the initiative said. The Muslim partner will arrange Islamic theological studies in a separate academy run by Muslims. Catholic theology will not be part of any course. “In every recognised mosque, there should be someone who has attended this training,” Justice Minister Koen Geens said. “The real purpose must be to have preaching by people educated in Belgium.” In a similar programme in France the Catholic Institute of Paris gives courses in the secular subjects with Muslim theology taught at the city’s Grand Mosque. German efforts to train imams have been complicated by opposition from Turkish-financed mosques but state universities offer degrees in Islamic studies that qualify Muslims to teach religion in state schools.
The day after the US Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, he spoke at the 68th annual National Prayer Breakfast, an event where partisan bickering is usually set aside (writes Michael Sean Winters). Trump used the occasion to attack his political rivals rather than seek to put his legal troubles behind him. He called those who pursued his impeachment “very dishonest and corrupt people” and claimed that “they know what they are doing is wrong.” “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,” he said, referring to Sen Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict the president, and who spoke about the importance of his faith and what it meant to take an oath before God, as the senators all pledged to do. Then, in a shot at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, he said: “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ when I know that is not so.” Earlier this year, when asked if she hated the president, Pelosi said that she was raised Catholic and taught not to hate anyone, and added that she prayed for the president every day. The president’s remarks came after the keynote address by author Arthur Brooks, whose recent book was entitled “Love your enemies,” and who called the nation’s current moment “a crisis of contempt.” Trump used the rest of his speech to discuss his defence of religious freedom and his appointment of conservative judges. He recalled the role of religion in American life, mentioning the fact that St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City was built before any of that city’s skyscrapers which now dwarf it.
Former Brazilian President Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, released last year after serving a year and seven months in jail for corruption, announced on 6 February that he had succeeded in postponing an interrogation on a separate vote-buying charge to visit the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis, fixed for 13 February, writes Francis McDonagh. Pope Francis has previously shown sympathy for Lula during his imprisonment. The political dimension of the visit is only heightened by the fact that Lula spent last weekend leading celebrations for the 40th anniversary of his Workers’ Party and discussing alliances for this year’s municipal elections. Further controversy is likely to be sparked in Brazil when Pope Francis issues his Apostolic Exhortation following the Amazon Synod, expected to be released on 13 February. The synod was denounced by Brazil’s vice-president as “a threat to Brazil’s national security”. Leftist Argentinian President Alberto Fernández is said to have facilitated the meeting between Lula and Francis.
Parents of a teenage Pakistani Catholic girl have expressed their shock after judges said the forced marriage of their 14-year-old daughter is valid under Sharia law. She was allegedly abducted from her home, taken to neighbouring Punjab province, forcibly converted to Islam and forced to marry her Muslim captor. The Sindh High Court in Karachi passed down the ruling on 3 February about Huma Younus, taken from her home on 10 October 2019. Her parents believe her marriage is invalid in line with the 2014 Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, which aimed to stop forced marriages of minors in the province, primarily of Hindu and Christian girls. In accordance with Sharia law, the court ruled that men can marry underage girls as long as they have had their first period. Younus and Nagheena Masih say they will take her case to the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Yangon’s cardinal has called for voting rights for Religious in the lead up to Myanmar’s election later this year. Myanmar’s constitution bars Buddhist monks and nuns, Catholic priests, nuns and religious, other Christian clergy, and Muslim clerics from the right to vote. “As a cardinal, I can make statements and speeches and encourage citizens to vote,” said Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, but he himself is actually barred from voting. “I am not aware of any other democracy in which this is a requirement,” he said. Cardinal Bo’s statement comes before general elections, expected in late 2020.
Catholics have welcomed a Bangladesh High Court ruling seeking an end to what one termed the “unethical" practice of gender detection of the baby in a mother’s womb. The ruling, on 3 February, sought an explanation from the government within six weeks as to why gender detection should not be banned to protect unborn babies and pregnant women. Supreme Court lawyer Ishrat Jahan filed a petition on 26 January, arguing that gender detection of unborn babies is a violation of gender equality, the right to life and the right to protection by the law guaranteed by the constitution. “Neighbouring India has a law banning gender detection of unborn babies, but Bangladesh does not,” said Dr Edward Pallab Rozario, manager of the community health and natural family planning project of Caritas Bangladesh, “and there is pressure on mothers to know the gender of their unborn child, leading to abortion if the child is a girl.”
Zambia’s President expressed his appreciation for the Church when he attended a meeting last week of the bishops of Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in Lusaka. President Edgar Lungu said the Catholic Church is “a dependable partner for the government in social service delivery, advocacy for development, inclusive governance, as well as respect for human rights and democracy”.
Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic college in the United States, announced it was divesting from fossil fuels over the next five years, and planning to invest in companies that produce clean energy. The Jesuit school, founded in 1789, has an endowment worth approximately $2 billion. “Divestment allows us to divert more capital to fund development of renewable energy projects that will play a vital role in the transition away from fossil fuels – part of the long-term solution required to prevent the most dangerous effects of climate change,” said Michael Barry, Georgetown’s chief investment officer.
A report from Human Rights Watch indicated that at least 138 people in El Salvador had been murdered in recent months, after they had been deported by the United States and returned to their native country. El Salvador is beset by gangs which have taken over whole neighbourhoods in the Central American nation. Rick Jones, an adviser to Catholic Relief Services, a branch of Caritas, said that the deportation policy “is sending a lot of people back into harm's way.”
Pope Francis returned to the lay state Argentine priest Roberto Juan Yannuzzi, founder of the Miles Christi order, or Soldiers of Christ. Allegations against Yannuzzi emerged in 2016 that he had sexual relationships with adults under his authority. Soldiers of Christ is one of several Latin American orders to come under scrutiny for misconduct. The case was not brought to civil courts.
Two men associated with the monarch butterfly sanctuary in Michoacan, Mexico died under suspicious circumstances in recent days. Conservationists are concerned that organised crime and illegal logging are impacting the important butterfly habitat. Homero Gómez, who managed the butterfly reserve and spoke out against illegal logging, was found dead on 29 January. Gómez’s death has not yet been ruled a murder, but he was found with blunt instrument trauma injury to the head. Then on 1 February the body of part-time tour guide Raúl Hernández Romero was found with injuries inflicted by a sharp object. The entire local police force in Ocampo, Michoacan was called in for questioning related to Gómez’s death. Herculano Medina Garfias, the auxiliary bishop of Morelia, Michoacan, said in reference to butterfly reserve workers: “It is necessary to give them protection, because the state and federal government have not guaranteed their safety.” The monarch butterfly reserve attracts tourists from around the world.
The plaza in front of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris could be opened as early as next month if it can be cleaned of all the tiny lead particles spread around the area during the fire that destroyed the building’s roof and spire last April. The tiny particles, released when several hundred tons of lead covering the roof and spire melted in the fire, sunk into crevices in the plaza surface and polluted it. Several attempts at cleaning it have not removed them completely, but a new method should clean them away, officials said.
The head of Ukraine's Greek Catholic church has welcomed President Volodymyr Zelensky's weekend visit to the Vatican, during which he requested Papal mediation in his country's current war with Russian-backed eastern separatists. Major Archbishop Svietoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych said in a Ukrainian radio interview: "The see of Peter isn't just an important religious centre, but the heart of world diplomacy. If we concur there can be no military solution to the armed conflict in the Donbass, the alternative can only be diplomacy, dialogue and international ties, in which the Vatican is a key subject". A Vatican statement said the 8 February meeting between Pope Francis and Zelensky had focused on humanitarian conditions in the separatist-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where over 13,000 have died since 2014.
Belgian state radio hit a sour note when it asked listeners for their complaints about noisy church bells. It had recently reported that “neo-rurals” – urban types who escape to the countryside – were annoyed by tolling bells, crowing cocks and muddy roads. But the programme's Facebook page was inundated with posts from village listeners defending rustic traditions, which clearly outnumbered the negative comments from atheists or people seeking peace and quiet. One enthusiastic comment – “Personally, I loooove the sound of the bells! Hearing them is one of those simple little joys we can appreciate every day” – won more than 50 "likes".
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