Pope Francis has appointed a commissioner to investigate the management of the Fabric of St Peter, the body that oversees St Peter’s Basilica. Last week the Vatican announced that electronic devices and documents had been seized from its offices, following a report by the Holy See’s auditor. The Fabric of St Peter has responsibility for both the running and maintenance of St Peter’s, which until Covid-19 struck attracted thousands of visitors a day. It is led by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, although it operates as a separate entity to the rest of the Roman Curia. There is no suggestion that the cardinal himself is under investigation.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, has appointed Fr Gianfranco Ghirlanda SJ, a specialist in canon law, to revise the statutes and directorate of the lay association Memores Domini – consecrated lay faithful who are part of the Communion and Liberation movement. Cardinal Farrell said that the Vatican had “repeatedly” asked the movement’s president to reform the statutes and directorate but no action had been taken.
Kenyan bishops have expressed concern over continued insecurity and tensions in Marsabit and Narok counties that have left scores dead. The bishops blamed clan hatred, competition over resources and leadership wrangles in the region. “We strongly condemn these barbaric acts and appeal to the concerned communities to embrace peace, love and harmony,” said Bishop John Oballa Owaa, the chairman of the bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission last week.
The Pew Research Center has reported that Catholics in the US are increasingly voicing their disapproval of President Donald Trump. It said last week that only 41 per cent of Catholics approve of his job performance, a decline of four points since January. Differences between white and Latino Catholics are profound: 47 per cent of white Catholics said that President Trump was doing a “good” or “great” job, compared to only 20 per cent of Latino Catholics.
The murder trial in Madrid of Inocente Orlando Montano, former colonel and former deputy public security minister in the government of El Salvador, was scheduled to resume this week. Mr Montano is accused of involvement in the killing of six Jesuits, their cook and her daughter at El Salvador’s Central American University on 16 November 1989.
The Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference has denounced corruption and extortion involving at least 50 public hospitals in Ecuador. It is alleged that hospital supplies were disproportionately distributed to areas where National Assembly members are from, disadvantaging other areas. Officials have also identified a criminal network colluding with health officials in marking up the cost of body bags for hospitals by up to 13 times the regular price.
Peru’s bishops have launched a joint campaign with the USIL Educational Group and the Societa Nacional de Industrias to raise funds for oxygen cylinders so that no one need die for a lack of supplies. The country is facing growing challenges in treating Covid-19 patients, as hospitals run short of oxygen canisters. Some families are resorting to buying them at significant markups on the black market to keep family members alive.
As DR Congo celebrated 60 years of independence from Belgium, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa, accused successive regimes of impoverishing the country despite its “immense natural resources”. Speaking at a Mass to mark the anniversary, the cardinal said: “This dream of redeeming the Congolese from colonialism has been progressively destroyed.”
Egypt’s highest court has upheld a death sentence for a former monk convicted of killing an abbot in a desert monastery north of Cairo in 2018. It commuted the death sentence of another monk to life. Both were removed from the clerical state by Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, after the killing of Bishop Anbar Epiphanius, abbot at St Macarius Monastery.
Four police officers in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India have been charged with murder, after street protests accused them of torturing and killing a Christian father and son in custody. Church officials and human rights groups welcomed the intervention of the state high court that resulted in the arrests last week. “The high court has done a commendable job and now we can hope the victims’ family will get justice,” said Bishop Stephan Antony Pillai of Tuticorin. The father broke a Covid-19 curfew by not closing his son’s shop. The son was then arrested when he inquired about his father at the police station. Both were dead within four days.
Calls are growing for the European Union to reinstate its Special Envoy on Religious Freedom after the new EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen abolished the post. “In some countries, religious oppression has now reached the level of genocide,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, president of Comece, which represents the EU’s Catholic bishops’ conferences. “The EU must continue campaigning for religious freedom, with its own representative included,” he said. The cardinal made the comments to German’s Deutsche Welle agency last weekend, as 135 German MPs urged their country to use its new tenure of the EU’s rotating presidency to press for the restoration of the post.
The head of the Catholic Church in Gabon, Jean Patrick Iba-Ba, the Archbishop of Libreville, has condemned a vote in parliament to decriminalise homosexuality. Archbishop Iba-Ba urged MPs to think again, saying: “Bishops of the Catholic Church launch a cry of distress at this latest fracture between our people’s decision-making representatives, our country’s institutions and the Gabonese people as a whole.” Gabon’s lower house voted by 48 to 24, with 25 abstentions, to reverse a 2019 law imposing six months’ jail for homosexual acts.
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