Climate change and environmental destruction are forcing millions from their homes, and Catholics have a responsibility to assist them, Pope Francis wrote in the preface to a new document, Pastoral Orientations on Climate Displaced People, released on 30 March by the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. “The deteriorating climate is very often the result of poor choices and destructive activity, of selfishness and neglect, that set humankind at odds with Creation, our common home,” Francis wrote. On 7 April, an online event organised by the same Vatican Dicastery along with the Vatican Covid-19 Commission, Caritas Africa, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar and others was to launch a Covid-19 Debt Relief Campaign in Africa.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, called for the “resurrection” of democracy in Myanmar in his Easter message. He said that since the 1 February military coup, Myanmar had “witnessed a real-time way of the Cross”. He urged Myanmar’s youth to continue to “adopt non-violent methods” of protest.
A Trappist monastery in Burgundy whose stock of cheese it produced was mounting because sales had fallen by 50 per cent due to the pandemic turned to the internet for help. It only took a few hours for Ci^teaux Abbey near Dijon to sell two tonnes – twice as much as expected. The monastery, where the Cistercian Order began, sold the cheese through Divine Box, a Paris start-up that helps monasteries to organise online sales of their produce to finance their communities.
More than 2,500 people internationally have signed an appeal challenging a Mumbai court’s decision to deny bail to 84-year-old Jesuit Stan Swamy, who has been in jail since last October on terrorism charges and is suffering from ill health.
An Italian archbishop has ordered the removal from a church of two religious paintings given by a Mafia
boss. Archbishop Domenico Battaglia of Naples said that he was “recently made aware” of the paintings at the entrance of a church with an inscription, “In devotion of Lorenzo Nuvoletta”. Nuvoletta, who died in 1994, led the infamous Nuvoletta clan in Marano di Napoli until his arrest in 1990. The archdiocese said the gift of the paintings of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii and St Rita presented “an ambiguity between the Gospel and life”.
With no permits to go to Jerusalem over Easter, due to Covid-19, the Catholic parish in Gaza was especially busy. Holy Week was a time “of great participation, with over 90 per cent of Catholics present at the services, together with dozens of Orthodox”, reported Fr Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of the Incarnate Word Parish. Of Gaza’s 1.8 million population, some 1,300 are Christian and some 200 of these are Catholic.
Seven leading pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have vowed to continue campaigning despite being convicted of unlawful assembly relating to street demonstrations two years ago. Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old media tycoon, said his Catholic faith gives him the strength to face coming challenges. Martin Lee, 83, founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and a Catholic, said he would not be deterred from the democracy struggle.
Bishop Hyacinth Egbebo of Bomadi has urged the Nigerian government to end oil spills in the Niger Delta region. He said leakages and toxic waste have killed many over the years and more than 100 communities “don’t have drinking water, electricity or roads”.
One of the oldest cardinals in Africa, Cardinal Christian Tumi of Cameroon, died on 3 April, Good Friday, aged 90.
In an Easter op-ed for the Religion News Service, US President Joe Biden said: “We each have a duty – both spiritual and patriotic – to get vaccinated when it is our turn.”
Catholics in Maryland announced support for removing “O Maryland, my Maryland” as the state song because of its pro-Confederacy lyrics. Maryland was one of two slave states that did not secede from the Union during the US Civil War but many residents harboured pro-Confederacy sympathies. Jenny Kraska, executive director of the state Catholic conference, noted that Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, in a 2019 pastoral letter on racism, called “for us as Catholics to make an honest examination of our past”.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 63 per cent of Republicans thought that President Joe Biden is “not too” or “not at all” religious. Conversely, 88 per cent of Democrats said Biden was “somewhat religious” or “very religious.” A majority of Republican Catholics (55 per cent) think Biden should be denied Communion because of his stance in favour of legal abortion.
A Salvadoran woman living on a humanitarian visa in Mexico was killed by police in the beach town of Tulum on 27 March. Police pinned Victoria Esperanza Salazar to the ground even after she said she could not breathe. The presidents of El Salvador and Mexico have denounced the actions of the police officers: four are being held in pre-trial detention. Bishop Jose´ Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Jua´rez expressed concern at “the discrimination, racism, and xenophobia that dominate in the public security forces in Mexico”.
Fifteen bishops from the US- Mexico border region signed a Holy Week letter calling for the governments of the two countries to work together to protect people who are forced to migrate. During March, more than 18,000 unaccompanied migrant children were taken into custody at the border.
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