Pope Francis celebrated the Church’s first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on Sunday 25 July. He was supposed to have led a celebration Mass for grandparents in St Peter’s Basilica earlier in the day, but left the duty to Archbishop Rino Fisichella. Francis emerged from hospital after major intestinal surgery three weeks ago. “Grandparents and grandchildren, the elderly and youth together showed one of the beautiful sides of the Church, and showed the alliance between the generations,’’ Francis said in off-the-cuff remarks from a window overlooking St Peter’s Square.
Maduro attacks cardinal
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on Wednesday called a letter sent to local businesses by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, a “compendium of hatred”. Cardinal Parolin sent the message to mark the 77th annual assembly of Fedecámaras, a local federation of chambers of commerce, in which he called for a serious and time-limited negotiation in Venezuela, noting that this “requires political will on the part of those involved”.
Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti, the apostolic administrator of Mogadishu and the rest of Somalia, has expressed guarded optimism about the country’s latest election process. The elections will be held in phases, with the presidential elections taking place on 10 October. “I am cautiously optimistic about the electoral process on the way in Somalia, in its different phases,” Bertin told The Tablet.
Electoral authorities in Peru announced that the left-wing teacher and union leader Pedro Castillo is Peru’s president-elect. After the 6 June run-off election, his opponent, conservative legislator Keiko Fujimori, made claims of fraud. The official vote count put Castillo ahead by 44,000 votes, with no evidence of fraud. Cardinal Pedro Barreto, the Archbishop of Huancayo, took part in a ceremony when Castillo was presented with his credentials as president-elect.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, the home archdiocese of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (pictured), has insisted that “devout Catholics” can’t support abortion, after Pelosi had described herself in precisely those terms. Hours earlier, at her weekly press conference, Pelosi stated her support for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion, and emphasised her Catholic faith.
The Ethiopian bishops’ conference has said it is not too late to end the violence that has left thousands of people dead and another two million displaced in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. “As pastors, we can only give hope from what we have, and this is the hope that comes from our faith … to acknowledge that the only way forward, for the good of the people, is peace and reconciliation, to satisfy the demands of truth and justice, to ask for and grant forgiveness,” the bishops said at the end of their assembly in Modo, south-east of Addis Ababa. (See pages 4-5.)
On 22 July, Norway marked the tenth anniversary of the killing of 77 people by anti-immigrant extremist Anders Behring Breivik. Norwegians were finding it “problematic” to forgive Breivik as he showed no signs of remorse, the Catholic Bishop of Oslo, Bernt Eidsvig told domradio.de. “Remorse and forgiveness are closely connected. In this case, the perpetrator shows absolutely no sign of remorse. On the contrary, one feels that given the opportunity, he would do the same again. That is why forgiveness is impossible. Forgiveness is theologically possible but not psychologically,” Eidsvig explained. On 22 July 2011, Breivik detonated a car bomb outside the prime minister’s office in Oslo, killing eight people, before driving to Utoya island and shooting 69 students at a youth camp. He is serving a maximum 21-year prison sentence.
Pain at decline in churchgoing
The president of Germany’s bishops’ conference has expressed “pain” at new data, which confirmed another high level of departures from the Catholic Church, as well as a continued drop in baptisms, marriages and Mass attendance. “These figures are severely hurtful, as we see how many people have lost confidence,” said Bishop Georg Bätzing. “The Church must openly and attentively deal with its current problems, which in the first instance means proper handling of cases of sexual abuse by clergy.” The new data showed that in 2020, 221,390 people left the German Catholic Church.
Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his closeness with the people of the Chinese city of Zhengzhou and Henan province in China, after torrential rains in recent days caused devastating flash floods there. The Pope said: “I pray for the victims and their families, and express my sympathy and solidarity with all those suffering from this calamity.” He also recalled the opening of the Tokyo Olympics: “In this time of pandemic, may these Games be ... a sign of universal brotherhood marked by a healthy spirit of competition.”
In a message on 19 July, Martyrs’ Day, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, recalled those who had sacrificed their lives fighting for the country’s independence: “Their sacrifice in blood was shed to make this country a great country. As the Covid spirals out of control, inflicting fear, anxiety and death, the only way we can pay homage to the Martyrs’ sacrifice, is to come together as one nation against the pandemic.” He appealed for unity, saying: “United, we save lives; divided, we will bury thousands.”
Correction: Last week we reported that Bishop Cesare Mazzolari of the Diocese of Rumbek in South Sudan died on 16 July aged 84. In fact he died in 2011 aged 74 and this was the tenth anniversary of his death. We apologise for the error.