Serbia's Orthodox patriarch has warned that his Church will only support current Western-sponsored negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo if their premise is that Kosovo, independent since 2008, still belongs to Serbia, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. “I support normalising relations – it is essential to establish a good relationship between our two peoples, and if we are invited and given an opportunity to express our views, we will take part in the Kosovo talks,” said Patriarch Irinej Gavrilovic. “But the Serbian Orthodox Church can only accept agreements in which Kosovo is considered part of Serbia.” The 90-year-old church leader was speaking before being briefed by President Aleksandar Vucic on September talks in Washington and Brussels, designed to foster new links between Serbia and Kosovo.
More than 50 informal gold miners were killed after landslides caused the collapse of three gold mines near the city of Kamituga in Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province last week. The mines collapsed under the weight of heavy rains that had been falling for days leading up to the disaster on 11 September. “The diggers and the transporters of the stones were swallowed up by the waters,” said the Kamituga mayor, Alexandre Bundya. “A team of rescuers with motor pumps came to recover the bodies of the victims.” Many were young people and children, according to a statement from the office of the governor of South Kivu, The´o Ngwabidje Kasi. Hundreds gathered to help the rescue efforts, but few had tools. In 2018, after five years of work by the Catholic Church in DRC, a mining code was brought in that was supposed to foster transparency, local development and adherence to the law, but regulation remains loose.
Thirteen people, mainly aged in their late teens and early twenties, died in Bogotá last week in a week of nightly disturbances that followed the death of a man at the hands of the police. Javier Ordóñez, a 42-year-old father of two who was about to qualify as a lawyer, had been drinking in his apartment with friends. In the early hours of 9 September they went out to buy more drink. According to Ordóñez’ friends, the police came by and asked for their papers. A video shows Ordóñez being repeatedly tasered and he subsequently died. The Archbishop of Bogotá, Luis José Rueda Aparicio, ordered Catholics in his diocese to hold a vigil on Saturday night to pray for peace and reconciliation. Two of the officers involved in the incident have been dismissed and a further five suspended. The police subsequently apologised to Ordóñez’ family. In a televised address on Sunday Archbishop Aparicio said that “we cannot take justice into our own hands… we cannot feed vengeance in our lives.”
Pope Francis has named three new auxiliary bishops to serve the archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois, including the first bishop drawn from the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Bishop-elect Robert Lombardo, CFR, was one of eight Capuchin friars to form the new religious order in 1987. He has served the poor in the city’s West Side since 2005. In addition to Lombardo, Bishop-elect Kevin Birmingham has served in a variety of positions in the archdiocese including five years as secretary to Cardinal Blase Cupich. Bishop-elect Jeffrey Grob has been the Vicar for Canonical Affairs. In the past year, two auxiliary bishops have left Chicago: Bishop Alberto Rojas was named the coadjutor bishop of San Bernardino, California, and Bishop Ron Hicks was named Bishop of Joliet, Illinois. In addition, Fr Michael McCovern was named bishop of Belleville, Illinois and Fr Louis Tylka was named coadjutor bishop in Peoria, Illinois.
Archbishop Paul Coakley, chair of the US bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice, urged congressional leaders and the White House to come to an agreement on a package of relief for those suffering economic hardship due to the coronavirus. Coakley noted the success of previous relief bills in limiting the economic hardship, adding: “Many of the good relief measures in that previous package are running out … Today, I ask our leaders in Washington to once again set aside their differences in order to reach an agreement that prioritises the poor and vulnerable.”
In the latest of a series of arbitrary detentions and human rights violations attributed to the Special Action Forces loyal to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, workers at the Accion Solidaria NGO were detained on Monday last week and accused of distributing expired medications. At least eight workers were detained in the raid and released after several hours in custody. The Venezuelan NGO distributes medicine that it obtains from outside the country to people with chronic conditions including HIV. The Commission for Justice and Peace of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference denounced the targeting of humanitarian workers.
The California Catholic Conference, representing the state’s 24 bishops in 12 dioceses, announced a year-long initiative to combat racism, starting with listening sessions with African-American Catholic leaders. “The listening and dialogue sessions will lead to further steps for continuing education, preaching and evangelisation, measures to combat structural racism and reform society and our Church,” the statement said.
For the first time, Cuban television has broadcast a Mass in honour of Mary, the Virgin of Charity and patroness of Cuba. Religious events are not usually televised by government media. The Mass, presided over by Archbishop Dionisio García of Santiago de Cuba, was broadcast on 8 September from the Basilica of El Cobre by one of the national channels of Cuban television.
One of Pope Francis’ top collaborators and a future papal contender, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, has coronavirus. He tested positive upon his arrival in Manila from Rome on 10 September. The Vatican press office said the 63-year-old cardinal doesn’t have any symptoms but is in mandatory self-quarantine in the Philippines. The Vatican is tracing recent contacts. Meanwhile, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, 64, Prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, has been hospitalised with “severe kidney problems”, according to the German edition of Catholic News Agency.
Pakistani Christians in Karachi staged a day-long hunger strike on 9 September over abuse of blasphemy laws, after a Christian man, Asif Pervaiz, 37, was sentenced to death on charges of sending blasphemous text messages to his Muslim supervisor at a garment factory in Lahore. Pervaiz, who has been in prison since 2013, is appealing. Shabbir Shafqat, chairman of the National Christian Party, said Pervaiz, “is being punished for refusing to convert to Islam”.
Recent monsoon rains and floods have left 301 Pakistanis dead and thousands homeless. “More than 100 families are living in about three to four feet of water that has reached their homes,” Fr Kashif Jamil of St Joseph Church in the Khushab District of Punjab said on Caritas Pakistan’s website. Bishop Benny Travas of Multan in the southern Punjab and Oblate priest Fr Ataa Sultan, parish priest of Derekabad parish, joined the diocesan Caritas team to distribute tents and food to flood victims on 8 September. They also transported villagers to hospital after the torrential rain caused mud houses to cave in.
Churches have been victims of and responders to catastrophic flooding in 12 Sahelian countries. Sudan has seen the worst Nile flooding in over a century. Floods and heavy rains have killed at least 105 people, displaced more than half-a-million people and caused the total and partial collapse of more than 100,000 homes in at least 16 Sudanese states. The government declared a national state of emergency as waters surged through the capital Khartoum. In South Sudan, more than 600,000 people were displaced by floods. Much of Senegal’s capital Dakar was submerged last week, after the city received a year’s worth of rain in single night.
German bishops’ conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg has suggested creating a new, interreligious holiday in Germany to commemorate the solidarity experienced during the Covid 19 lockdown. “How would it be if we were to give this memory form and gestaltin our country in the coming years? An interreligious holiday, a Sabbath-Day of contemplation, would be good for Germany”, he suggests in the Zeit supplement Christ & Welt of 10 September.
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