The secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech, has spoken of his vision for the future of synodality in the Church, that includes laity as well as clerics. “Synodality is an ecclesial instrument which helps us to recognise God’s will. That is a very strenuous, demanding experience. One has to listen very well – not only to people, but also to the Holy Spirit, which speaks not only through bishops but also through the People of God,” Cardinal Grech said in a KNA interview on 11 March. “I’m assuming that everyone interested in a synodal experience knows that we are dealing with something holy, with the Holy Spirit and with what he wants to tell today’s Church,” he added. “And then there is the papal office. That can tell us whether our spiritual decision is correct or not.” He had already confirmed that Sr Nathalie Becquart, who had recently been appointed one of the undersecretaries of the Synod of Bishops by Pope Francis, would be able to vote at the next Synod of Bishops and that her appointment had “opened a door”. The cardinal hoped also for greater lay participation in the synod – “above all, of women”. Synodality is a much broader concept than a “Synod of Bishops”, Cardinal Grech said. “That is what we must continue to reflect on.”
A celebrated director has begun a film about the Notre-Dame de Paris fire, using footage of the blaze mixed with scenes filmed in Bourges Cathedral, to create a docufilm that should be “98 per cent of reality”. Notre-Dame bru^le (“Notre- Dame is burning”), which will depict in detail the first 24 hours of the April 2019 inferno that almost brought the whole cathedral down, is due to be released in spring 2022. It should combine “the rigour of a documentary and the emotion of a cinematographic spectacle”, director Jean-Jacques Annaud wrote. It will be shot in French and subtitled for an international audience. The cathedral of Bourges in central France was chosen for many acted scenes because its interior most nearly matches that of the Paris cathedral. The cathedrals of Amiens and Sens will also be used. Mr Annaud, whose movies include The Name of the Rose (1986), said that the film would show everything from the late warning of the fire to the problems of ferrying firefighters and equipment through Paris traffic jams and crowds of onlookers. It would highlight “the humble and well-trained firefighters who chose to risk their lives to save a symbol: that of Paris, of France and of a religion that was not necessarily theirs”.
Prominent Catholics took divergent positions on the passage of the US $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last week, The law provides funding to accelerate vaccine production and distribution, get schools reopened safely and cope with the economic damage caused by the pandemic. It also includes a variety of anti- poverty measures. The US bishops’ conference praised the anti- poverty provisions but criticised the absence of language barring the use of federal funds for abortion. “Unlike previous Covid relief bills, sponsors of the American Rescue Plan refused to include the long-standing, bipartisan consensus policy to prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions domestically and internationally,” said Archbishop Jose´ Gomez, president of the conference, in a statement also signed by six committee chairs. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan praised the law for giving $3 billion to private and religious schools, singling out Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer for “recognising the role of religious communities and the Churches in the response of compassion and charity that we have experienced in this pandemic”. Cardinal Dolan said he “shared the sombre concern” about abortion funding expressed by Archbishop Gomez.
An EU supported LGBTQI community centre in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, has been closed following a raid by national security forces. The Catholic bishops’ conference had joined a campaign for its closure. “It is not right to subject homosexuals to any form of harassment simply because they are homosexuals. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law. Homosexuals must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” the bishops said, while at the same time welcoming the closure. Last month, the bishops’ conference said in a statement signed by its president, Archbishop Philip Naameh of Tamale, that “the rights of homosexuals as persons do not include the right of a man to marry a man or of a woman to marry a woman”. The bishops went on to condemn the practice of homosexuality, which is illegal in Ghana
In Hong Kong last week, a court rejected the bail requests of 11 democracy activists held in prison since 4 March. Another 10 withdrew their bail application at the last minute. The 21 are part of a group of 47 people – including Christian activists – arrested on 28 February under Beijing’s national security law for subversion. Last weekend, as the UK declared China in breach of the 1984 Hong Kong declaration, and in the wake of a sweeping crackdown by Beijing and changes to the territory’s electoral system aimed at shutting out opposition voices, democracy campaigners vowed to pursue their fight among residents living abroad. Meanwhile, as president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, has called on Catholics to join a week of prayer for the Chinese Church from 23-30 May (24 May is already an annual worldwide day of prayer for the Chinese Church),“not only for the Church but for all persons in the People’s Republic of China”.
The recent papal visit to Iraq gave Christians “a message of hope”, according to the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Matti Warda. “The visit was unbelievable - Muslims, Christians and Yazidis are all very, very happy,” reported Chaldean Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa of Mosul, a city devastated by Islamic State.
Pope Francis told reporters on his return journey to Rome that his next trip will be to Lebanon, which is experiencing a severe economic crisis, huge numbers of refugees, and the fallout from the catastrophic explosion in Beirut’s port last August. Francis said Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Patriarch of the Maronite Church, asked him to stop by Lebanon on his return from Iraq, but, he said, “it seemed like a bit of a crumb before the problems of a country that is suffering like Lebanon”.
Cafod, Christian Aid and Tearfund are amongst non-governmental organisations working in South Sudan urging the UK Government to reconsider the reported 59 per cent budget cut to international aid. They want South Sudan, where more than 60 per cent of the population is projected to face a food security crisis in the coming months, to remain a funding priority.
A Rite of Reparation has been held in the Cathedral of Ibagué, Colombia, after women vandalised internal walls with graffiti during International Women’s Day on 8 March. The Archdiocese of Ibagué said: “Canon Law considers this type of attack the desecration of a sacred place and indicates that reparation must be made with a penitential act.”
Carla Harris, a senior client adviser at Morgan Stanley – as well as a celebrated gospel singer, speaker and author – will be awarded the University of Notre Dame’s 2021 Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honour given to American Catholics, at the University Commencement Ceremony on 23 May.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, has supported a suggestion that Catholics and Orthodox work to agree on a common date to celebrate Easter. Koch said the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea in 2025 was “a good opportunity” for this change.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan have appealed for an end to nuclear power on the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, that was triggered by an earthquake under the ocean, and claimed the lives of nearly 20,000 people.
Bishop Luiz Fernando Lisboa,who until recently was Bishop of Pemba in northern Mozambique, has described suffering in the province of Cabo Delgado as “an experience of the Cross”. He felt three years of war, “can be summed up in one brutal statistic: more than 2,000 dead and 600,000 people displaced.”
After a decade-long legal battle the Malaysian High Court has ruled that the country's Christians can use the word "Allah" for God in their prayers, texts and religious services.The judgment said a government ban on the term’s use by non-Muslims conflicted with the constitutional rights of religious freedom..
A judge annulled the corruption charges against former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on procedural grounds on 8 March, ruling that the court in Curitiba, where the Operation Car Wash corruption investigation was based, did not have the legal jurisprudence to convict da Silva, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Lula served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2011. He was barred from running in the 2018 elections while he was imprisoned. The ruling sets up a possible showdown between Lula and President Jair Bolsonaro in presidential elections in October 2022. Lula thanked Pope Francis for his support in a Tweet, writing, “I want to thank Pope Francis (@Pontifex) that when I was in prison he made a point of sending me a letter.”
Former priest Carlos Eduardo José was cleared on charges of sexual abuse in a Buenos Aires court on 9 March after the judge ruled the statute of limitations had expired. Attorneys for the accuser say they will appeal. Mailin Gobbo says that José abused her from 1999 to 2008, at first while she attended a parish school, and later when he remained an acquaintance of her family. Three other women made complaints against the former priest, who was transferred to another parish away from Buenos Aires, then held in pre-trial detention for more than a year. He resigned from the priesthood in 2019.“The judges, the lawyers, those who came to support him are accomplices. They cover [for] a paedophile, he now goes out and abuses again,” Gobbo said after the acquittal.
Ukraine's Greek Catholic church has marked the 75th anniversary of its forced liquidation by a 1946 Soviet-controlled synod, which handed its parishes and properties to the Russian Orthodox and forced it underground for four decades. In an interview with Poland's KAI agency, the Church's leader, Archbishop Svietoslav Shevchuk, said the move had signalled "not a triumph for Orthodoxy, but its total abasement and humiliation". Fewer than a third of the Church's 3,500 clergy accepted the merger with Orthodoxy, while 1,500 priests were murdered and 700 forced into exile.
The Vatican has approved the suspension of a Catholic priest in Spain, who defended the Basque terrorist organisation ETA in a TV documentary. In a letter to the country's Civil Guards Association, which appealed to the Pope in December, the papal nuncio, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, said Pope Francis had conveyed his "closeness and prayer" with hundreds of victims of the group. In the documentary, Fr Mikel Azpeitia of Lemona said ETA's 40-year campaign had been "not terrorism, but a response to repression".
The World Economic Forum has removed the tenth-century Ukrainian St Olga from a list of “women who changed the world”, set up on the 8 March International Women's Day, after former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko accused it of furthering Russian propaganda by describing St Olga as the progenitor of modern Russia.
The cathedral of Luçon in western France has installed a plaque seeking pardon for cases of clerical sexual abuse of children there, the first such act of repentance in a country shaken by several scandals. Bishop François Jacolin unveiled the glass-covered plaque fixed on a wall inside the cathedral on Sunday 14 March before a crowd of about 250 people, including about 30 victims. The plaque contains the text of a prayer for pardon for the abuse of 65 children by 43 priests committed in the Vendée region since the 1940s.
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