Following the 4 August explosion in Beirut of more than 2,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000, Lebanon’s top Christian Maronite cleric, Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, said the whole cabinet should resign as it cannot “change the way it governs”.“The resignation of an MP or a minister is not enough ... the whole government should resign as it is unable to help the country recover,” he said in his Sunday sermon. Rai’s demand was partially answered on Monday when the Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned. Diab made the announcement as riot police wearing body armour and carrying batons clashed with demonstrators who converged on Parliament Square in their thousands. Pope Francis last week sent a donation of nearly $300,000 to the Church in Lebanon to help with recovery efforts, and international Catholic groups have responded by providing health services and necessities to the victims. At least 16 Catholic organisations, including Catholic Relief Services and Caritas International, are helping victims who face an urgent need for shelter, medication, hygiene kits, and mental health services. Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solorzano of Managua said Mass on Wednesday last week at the entrance of the Blood of Christ chapel in his cathedral, which was firebombed the week before. “The Church has always suffered and will continue to suffer, but our assurance is that the Lord is with us,” Cardinal Brenes said during the 5 August Mass. He called the 31 July firebombing “an act of terrorism”.
All five residential cardinals in the US joined Archbishop Jose Gomez, president of the bishops’ conference, in signing a letter to members of Congress, seeking support for Catholic education. The clerics noted that the “closure of schools that serve urban areas is disproportionately harmful to low-income and black children served by these schools,” groups already disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 virus. The Archdiocese of Newark announced that five elementary schools were closing and three others would be merged with nearby schools. More than 140 schools nationwide have announced they are closing.
Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California, published a letter to the faithful announcing that Fr Jeremy Leatherby had incurred an excommunication latae sententiae. The priest, who is being investigated for unrelated allegations of behaviour “in violation of his priestly promises,” refused phone calls and letters from the bishop, and continued to celebrate Mass and preach in violation of Soto’s orders. At issue was Leatherby’s denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis and consequent refusal to include his name in the Eucharistic prayer. “[T]he Masses for the last few months, I have celebrated in union with Pope Benedict, not with Pope Francis,” Leatherby wrote in a letter he sent defending his stance. He went on to condemn “Bergoglio” for actions and words considered objectionable by “radical traditionalists” and especially the suspension of liturgies in light of the pandemic. Leatherby is seeking dispensation from the clerical state.
Pope Francis has named a US-based executive from Spain to be general secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy. The Vatican announced on 4 August that the position, vacant since 2018, would be filled by Maximino Caballero Ledo, 60, who has worked in finance at an Illinois-based health care company, Baxter International, for more than 13 years. Caballero, married with two children, is a childhood friend of the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Jesuit Fr Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves.
Systematic violence against Nigerian Christians by Fulani herdsmen constitutes genocide, according to Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto, who stressed that Muslims are also falling foul of the violence. He was speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need following the execution of five aid workers by Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP).
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 6 August issued a clarification on the sacrament of baptism, stating changes to the formula to emphasise community participation are not permitted. Responding to a question about whether it would be valid to administer the sacrament saying “We baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, the CDF said the formula for baptism, according to the Catholic Church, is “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and any baptisms administered with the formula “we baptise” are invalid.
Spain’s Catholic bishops have thanked the departing former King Juan Carlos for past services to the country, as a leading nun denounced him as “a corrupt womaniser and thief”. “We express recognition for his decisive contribution to democracy and harmony among Spaniards,” said the bishops’ executive commission as King Juan Carlos I, who abdicated in favour of his son, Felipe VI, in 2014, announced he was leaving Spain permanently after denying corruption accusations relating to his four decades in office. One of Spain’s best known religious sisters, Lucia Caram, an Argentine-born Dominican ecumenist, said the 82-year-old king had set a “nefarious example” during a “reign full of vices”.The government of premier Pedro Sanchez cleared the way for his departure last week for Abu Dhabi.
Russia’s first Catholic auxiliary bishop has pledged to strengthen his Church’s distinctly Russian character. Bishop Nikolai Dubinin, 48, a Conventual Franciscan who was ordained in 2000 after training in Poland spoke after his appointment as an auxiliary for Russia’s Moscow-based Mother of God archdiocese, assisting Italian Archbishop Paolo Pezzi. He said Russia’s Catholics, currently making up less than half a per cent of the population of 144.5 million, had derived strength from the “blood of martyrs and sufferings of many faithful, exiled and persecuted in Soviet times”.
Pedro Casaldáliga, the Spanish-born bishop who was one of the best-known exponents of liberation theology in Brazil, died on 8 August aged 92 in Batatais, São Paulo state. Casaldaliga had Parkinson's disease since at least 2012, and referred to it as “Brother Parkinson”. His funeral Mass took place in Batatais on 9 August.
Malawi has ordered the closure of churches after coronavirus cases doubled in the last four weeks. For months, Malawi had appeared to put aside WHO guidelines on social distancing to concentrate on general elections in which Lazarus Chakwera was elected as president.
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