The Archbishop of Berlin is to appoint a diocesan pastoral minister for the gay community. Archbishop Heiner Koch made the pledge last week after meeting with the Lesbian and Gay Association of Berlin. He said he regarded the “double marginalisation” of Catholic gays - within the Catholic community and in the LGBTQ community - as "problematic and painful". He also asked for understanding that, as bishop, he could not disregard the Vatican's rejection of any church blessing for homosexual couples, but he would continue exploring possibilities. In May, around 100 Catholic churches around Germany held blessing services for same-sex and divorced couples in a protest against the Vatican ruling.
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago offered prayers for police officer Ella French, who was killed during a traffic stop, and for French’s family, saying: “We can only imagine their pain, as we hold them in prayer and stand with them and all first responders who risk their safety every day to protect our communities and keep the peace.” The shooting was the latest in what the cardinal called an “epidemic of violence” in the city. “The degree to which we take seriously the epidemic of gun violence will be measured by the effort we put into ridding our streets of illegal guns and weapons of war,” Cupich said.
Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, president of the US Catholic Health Association, is encouraging all those who work at the group’s 2,200 hospitals, nursing homes and long-term care centres to get vaccinated against Covid as quickly as possible. Six of the largest Catholic health care systems in the association, employing 350,000 staff, now require all staff to get the vaccine. However, while Pope Francis,the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the US bishops’ conference insist that the Covid vaccines do not entail illicit cooperation with evil, the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) is continuing to oppose Covid vaccine mandates, in part because research on the vaccine used stem cell lines derived from aborted babies. “At the NCBC we have frequent contact with persons who will get a Covid vaccine only when there is one with no ties to abortion,” NCBC President Joseph Meaney wrote. “These people are clearly not ‘hesitant’ but rather unwilling to compromise their ethics or consciences.”
El Salvador Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez’s criticism of the state of his countryin a 5 August interview with Vatican News has drawn the ire of politicians. Walter Araujo of the Nuevas Ideas party, threatened the cardinal on social networks, attacking those priests who denounce injustices. The auxiliary of San Salvador had said, “the country is currently in a great political upheaval, a very serious political crisis” and “we have no political leader that we can trust, we have no law to obey.”
Women's religious orders and institutes in Kenya have undertaken to promote the six-month government campaign, “Covid-free nation”. They will encourage uptake in vaccinations, distribute medication and protective equipment and urge behaviour to prevent infections.
Sr Pasilisa Namikoye, Executive Secretary of the Association of Sisterhoods in Kenya, said the association "welcomes the efforts of the Ministry of Health and recognises that fighting the pandemic requires public sector support from the private sector.” Eighty health facilities run by sisters will run public awareness, testing and equipment programmes.
Kerala’s High Court has ordered that an Indian cardinal should face trial on criminal charges related to a Syro-Malabar Church land-sale row. Cardinal George Alencherry, head of Ernakulam-Angamaly Diocese, has been accused by diocesan priests and laity of selling off plots of land over a two-year period at below market prices. The cardinal has denied the allegations but admits administrative lapses. “We will appeal against the order before the Supreme Court,” said a spokesperson of the Eastern-rite Church.
Recent reports that at least 1,000 Boko Haram extremists have laid down their weapons drew a cautious response from the Nigerian Catholic bishops’ director of communications. Fr Mike Umoh, who said on 12 August, "it is very difficult for any right-thinking person to believe the government is sincere about this whole development." In a televised interview last week, the Bishop of Sokoto Matthew Hassan Kukah described the situation in Nigeria as “explosive”. “We live in a chaotic society, in which the strongest survive,” he said.
Following passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the US Senate, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, stated:“We are grateful for the bipartisan efforts of members of the Senate to pass the Act … Aware that our environmental challenges are too big for any one bill, we are pleased that the legislation reflects an integral ecology, with historic investments in public transit, rail, bridges, and clean drinking water, and emphases on climate change mitigation, carbon capture and climate resilience.” The statement noted “with disappointment” a provision “that would advance a false understanding of gender and sexuality” and also declared: “We continue to be resolute in our insistence that no taxpayer funding go to abortion.” President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party reject the Hyde Amendment, that opposes taxpayer-funded abortion.
Religious leaders from four African countries, Ghana, DR Congo, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, signed a statement in Accra last week condemning human trafficking as a “particularly heinous crime, as it involves the exploitation and abuse of people for profit". Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ghana, Fr Lazarus Anondee, took part in the signing ceremony of the “Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery”. Sheikh Armiyawo Shaibu, representing the National Chief Imam of Ghana, said religions “are in a unique position to identify victims and put them in contact with professionals to help them get out of the hands of their tormentors."
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