Four years after a peace agreement was signed with FARC, the country’s largest guerrilla group, in the hope of ending Colombia’s 60-year internal conflict, violence is increasing while the death toll from Covid-19 stands at 43,000. Fr Francisco de Roux SJ, president of the country’s Truth Commission, in a New Year message, spoke of the pain of “thousands of survivors of Colombia’s armed conflict, who carry the memory of people kidnapped or killed … of the pain of legless soldiers, police officers and ex-guerrillas, of destroyed villages, women driven from their homes, indigenous and Afro-Colombians robbed of their territories, abused women, children driven to suicide, families looking for disappeared relatives … and also the pain caused by Covid. We invite all to face up to the mistakes we made when we soaked in blood and vengeance the human and ecological wealth we have,” he said.
Bishop Johannes Hendriks of Haarlem-Amsterdam has reminded Catholics the Vatican does not recognise supposed Marian apparitions in the Netherlands that precipitated a devotion to the so-called Lady of All Nations. The bishop, reacting to a wave of protests from followers of this devotion, said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ruled in 1974 that supposed apparitions to the late Ida Peerdeman of Amsterdam between 1945 and 1959 were not supernatural. It recently reaffirmed this to him, the bishop said.
High-ranking government officials have praised Vietnamese Catholics for their contribution to tackling Covid-19 and have returned some former church properties as Christmas “gifts”. On 22 December, National Assembly chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and local officials, offered flowers and greetings to Archbishop Joseph Nguy?n Chí Linh of Hue, President of the Bishops’ Conference. Other officials brought gifts to heads of at least six other dioceses. Vietnam has recorded just 35 coronavirus deaths.
The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston, and other prominent Catholic and non-Catholic churches nationwide tolled their bells at noon on 30 December to remember the more than 335,000 lives lost to Covid-19 in 2020. The initiative was started by the Archdiocese of New York and spread quickly as Catholics and others continue to look for ways to mourn while Covid-related restrictions on public gatherings have altered traditional methods of mourning.
A Catholic bishop in Nigeria, kidnapped on 27 December, was released unharmed after five days. The Archdiocese of Owerri in southeastern Nigeria, announced on 1 January that Bishop Moses Chikwe, auxiliary in Owerri, and his driver, Ndubuisi Robert, had been released by their abductors “unhurt and without ransom”. Pope Francis and Nigeria’s bishops had urged prayer for the release of the 53-year-old bishop and his driver, along with Catholics in San Diego diocese in California where Bishop Chikwe served for several years as a priest.
Nine nuns have died of Covid-19 in just over a month at a New York convent after an outbreak infected at least 22 of 140 sisters. The deceased Sisters of St Joseph of Carondelet in Latham, Albany County, were all in their late 70s or older. The deaths came during the region's worst period of infections since the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile South Africa’s Leadership Conference of Consecrated Life has urged all religious communities to be extra vigilant after the second wave of Covid-19 infections has hit religious communities hard. At least six elderly nuns of the Daughters of Saint Francis in Port Shepstone in Marianhill diocese died just before Christmas.
Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai warned last week that the country “is moving rapidly towards complete collapse and bankruptcy”. He felt it “truly shameful that the new year starts while the government has not formed nor started its work”. Lebanon has been unable to form a new government since the caretaker government headed by Hassan Diab resigned six days after the Port of Beirut explosion on 4 August. Thousands of Beirut families are still homeless.
Kenyan Cardinal John Njue has retired as Archbishop of Nairobi. On Monday, the Vatican accepted his resignation, tendered when he was 75, and appointed Bishop David Kamau, the archdiocese’s auxiliary as the apostolic administrator. Njue who was born in Embu County in eastern Kenya in 1944 is now 77. He was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI in 1973 in St Peter’s Basilica, and became the first bishop of Embu diocese in 1986. On 6 October 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Njue Archbishop of Nairobi and on 24 November 2007 he was made a cardinal.
The White House on Tuesday last week issued a proclamation praising St Thomas Becket, who was martyred 850 years ago after conflict with King Henry II over the rights of the Church. “Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, the Church will attain liberty and peace,” President Donald Trump wrote in a 29 December proclamation. “We pray for religious believers everywhere who suffer persecution for their faith. We especially pray for their brave and inspiring shepherds – like Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu – who are tireless witnesses to hope.”
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