Last Sunday, the feast of Corpus Christi, the Archbishop of Lima, Carlos Castillo, celebrated Mass in his closed cathedral with photos of 5,000 of Peru’s estimated 6,500 victims of Covid-19 covering the pews, walls and pillars. He said: “With this simple sign we want to remember the cry of our whole people when they were unable to give their dead a decent burial.” The archbishop went around the cathedral three times, incensing the photos and sprinkling them with holy water. At the end of the Mass he went out on to the cathedral steps with the monstrance and blessed the city.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday last week signed an executive order “to advance international religious freedom” after he visited the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. The order calls religious freedom “a moral and national security imperative” and declares it “a foreign policy priority of the United States”. It calls on the Secretary of State, in consultation with the US Agency for International Development, to develop a plan to “prioritise” religious freedom in foreign policy and foreign assistance.
At least 81 people were killed last week after suspected members of the Islamist group Boko Haram attacked a remote village in Borno state, north-east Nigeria. The village was set ablaze on 10 June when, “they came on motorcycles and vehicles and killed people at will in an attack that lasted more than two hours", reported an eyewitness. The decade-long anti-Christian insurrection in northeast Nigeria has left at least 36,000 dead and displaced two million people.
As of 9 June, 12,963 people have been murdered in Mexico in 2020 while 16,872 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19. The bishop of Apatzingán, Michoacán, Cristóbal Ascencio García, wrote that the other viruses impacting the Mexican people include, “insecurity, violence, impunity, extortion, kidnapping and the cartel fights for territory… …which are so well-known and commonly accepted that it seems there is no vaccine for them.”
The Catholic Church leadership in Brazil has warned against re-opening the country before Covid-19 cases begin to decline, while the Government of President Jair Bolsonaro is encouraging people to resume normal activities. On 8 June, in the state of São Paulo, Catholic organisations affiliated with the Southern Region of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference signed on to a letter asking the governor to extend social distancing measures. Meanwhile Pope Francis telephoned Archbishop Orlando Brandes of Aparecida, asking him to assure Brazilians of his prayers. As of Sunday, 43,332 people had died of Covid-19 in Brazil.
Pope Francis has named Springfield, Massachusetts Bishop Mitchell Rozanski, age 61, as the tenth Archbishop of St Louis. He replaces Archbishop Robert Carlson who will turn 76 on June 30. He will be installed on 25 August.
Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited Mosul and the Nineveh Plain last week and described Christians as “one of the most authentic members of the country". At the town of Bartella, once home to thousands of Assyrian Christians, he said: “We grieve to see them leave the country." Mosul was controlled by Islamic State between 2014 and 2017. Mr al-Kadhimi said that Nineveh province must be rebuilt, adding: “We will not allow the repetition of what happened, and we will carry out military operations to support security and stability in Mosul.”
Switzerland's Catholic Church has criticised a parliamentary vote making the country one of Europe's last to allow same-sex marriage, as well as artificial insemination for lesbians. Bishop Jean-Marie Lovey, the Church's family affairs spokesman, said the new law ignored Christian teaching and would violate the rights of children.
Greece’s Orthodox church has urged Turkey to show "wisdom and respect" towards Christians and withdraw plans to turn Istanbul’s ancient Hagia Sophia temple into a mosque, pending a 2 July Supreme Court decision. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the fate of the landmark, a museum since 1935, is a matter of "national sovereignty".
The Charitable Brothers of Saint-Eloi, founded in the twelfth century to bury plague victims at Béthune in northern France, are giving homeless Covid-19 victims a respectable burial 800 years later. “Regardless of the social rank of the deceased, we do exactly the same thing,” said Robert Guenot, one of 25 volunteers. There are five volunteers per service and all wear two-pointed hats, black capes, white gloves and face masks. “Just as a sick person has the right to be cared for, the dead person has the right to dignified treatment,” said volunteer Patrick Tijeras.
A German bishop is reworking a diocesan restructuring plan after Vatican officials had concerns about “the role of the pastor in the leadership teams of parishes, the service of other priests, the conception of the parish bodies, the size of the future parishes and the speed of implementation”. Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier met with the heads of the Congregation for Clergy and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome on 5 June to discuss plans to merge parishes into 35 larger parishes, led by “pastoral teams” of laypeople and priests.
An elderly Chinese underground bishop was installed at a state-sanctioned church ceremony on 9 June, just three months before the expiry of a Vatican-China pact on the appointment of bishops in the communist country. Bishop Peter Lin Jiashan, 83, the underground bishop of Fuzhou in Fujian province, was installed officially at Fanchuanpu Holy Rosary Church in Fuzhou. He is the third bishop to be recognised by the communist regime since the Vatican and China agreement of September 2018.
CELAM, the Conference of Latin American bishops, has written to Archbishop José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles and President of the Bishops of the United States, offering solidarity over last month’s murder of George Floyd . "We share with you that rejection of a senseless and brutal killing, a sin that cries out to heaven for justice", they said. They appealed to the bishops not "to stop listening to what people say through their pain” and to cut off once and for all roots "of racial injustice that infects many areas of society".
Police in the city of Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, have made arrests after two members of a Christian family were shot for purchasing a home in May. A Muslim neighbour had given them an ultimatum on 7 June to leave the neighbourhood. Nadeem Joseph and his mother-in-law Elizabeth Masih were attacked by Salman Khan and his sons within days. Joseph said in a video from his hospital bed in Peshawar that “I am feeling scared even in the hospital, for my life and my family”.
Quebec’s government is to pay around £3 million to religious communities in the province so they can offer bonuses to staff in their infirmaries. The announcement came after the Sisters of Saint Anne in Lachine reported that six of their nuns have died of Covid-19 and, in Trois-Rivieres, seven Ursuline sisters.
Loading ...
