Archbishop Stephen Ameyu of Juba, the chairman of South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, in a statement on 15 September, demanded justice for two Catholic sisters, who were killed while travelling on a bus along a main highway on 16 August. The Sacred Heart Sisters, Mary Daniel Abut and Regina Roba, from the Archdiocese of Juba, were killed in a bus attack along the Juba-Nimule Highway, after attending centenary celebrations in Torit diocese. Abut was a headmistress of Usra Tuna School in Juba while Roba was a tutor and administrator at the Catholic Health training institute in Wau town.
A security pact between US, the UK and Australia that will enable Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time has come under criticism from some Church groups. The trilateral agreement, announced last week, is seen as an effort to counter China in the region. Pax Christi International said on 17 September that, “even as the world bans nuclear weapons, countries still spend, militarise, and put the world at risk.” In Australia, Joe Camilleri of Pax Christi Victoria said on 20 September that Australia, “has saddled itself with a vast military project of unknown cost and duration … that will divert scarce resources from urgent social and economic priorities.”
Tribute has been paid to Christian institutions that have provided “quality education at affordable prices” for more than 160 years in Pakistan’s Sindh Province. An event on 16 September was attended by politicians, teachers and students. Sindh Province, which is mainly Muslim, has 116 missionary schools with more than 56,000 students. Syed Sardar Ali Shah, provincial minister for education said missionary schools have been providing quality education “long before the foundation of Pakistan” and “are the backbone of knowledge in our country.”
Jimmy Lai, a media entrepreneur and Catholic pro-democracy advocate in Hong Kong was honoured in absentia last week at a Catholic gathering in Washington DC while he remains imprisoned in Hong Kong. Lai was given the Christifidelis Laici award by organisers of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Meanwhile in Hong Kong's first “patriots-only” election on Sunday a select group of a few thousand people voted for a powerful committee that will choose Hong Kong’s next leader and nearly half its legislature after electoral changes imposed by Beijing to ensure only “patriots” – those who submit to all the edicts of the Chinese Communist Party - hold political office. All those standing for public office must be vetted for political loyalty.
As tropical storm hit central Vietnam on11-12 September, causing floods and devastation over a large area. Archbishop Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh of Hue visited affected areas in his diocese to give spiritual comfort and financial support to flood victims. The severe damage to fishing boats, farms and homes has ruined livelihoods of fishermen and farmers in several central provinces.
Lebanese Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï has urged that the economic crisis facing Lebanon’s schools be tackled in line with the teachings of Pope Francis in the “Abu Dhabi Document” and in the Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”. Speaking on 15 September in Beirut, at a colloquium of Catholic schools, he suggested the documents provide “a compass” in calling for peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims, and suggested experimenting with systems of sharing budgets and forming new alliances of support for schools overwhelmed by the country’s economic crisis and lacking support from the state.
The three archbishops of Northern Luzon in the Philippines said last week that amid assassinations, corruption, and the pandemic, “we find ourselves in the ‘valley of death’". They criticised the extra-judicial killing of drug addicts and opponents and “death from hardship due to a visionless government and blatant corruption." They looked forward to elections next year that will hold politicians, including President Rodrigo Duterte, accountable.
Global Witness reported last week that “President Duterte’s years in office have been marked by a dramatic increase in violence against environmental defenders; from his election in 2016 until the end of last year, 166 land and environment defenders have been killed.”
Bishop Jaime Calderón of Tapachula, Mexico, has lamented the violence suffered by migrants stranded in Tapachula, Chiapas. Thousands are sleeping on the streets as police broke up migrant caravans. “It is clear that the institutions are overwhelmed and the government is not sure what to do to get out of this crisis," he said on 16 September. The Diocese of Tapachula has provided food and water to soaring numbers of people, including many Haitians, “living in inhumane conditions.”
The leader of the Czech Catholic Church and Archbishop of Prague has suggested that “Armenia is surrounded by enemies” and that, “the question of its very existence is raised even now”. Cardinal Dominik Jaroslav Duka was speaking on 15 September as he blessed a stone cross unveiled in the Czech town of Kralupy nad Vltavou, dedicated to the memory of 1.5 million victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Czech Republic has a growing migrant community of Armenians.
Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Mgr Walter Rossi, Rector of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, presented the rector of Notre Dame de Paris, Mgr Patrick Chauvet, with a check for $465,000 to help with the cost of reconstruction of the cathedral after the devastating fire two years ago. Cardinal Gregory said: “May our gift assist the people of Paris in restoring a place of prayer and beauty.”
Kenya’s Catholic Bishops have moved to ban the country’s politicians from addressing congregations from the pulpit and or any other church platform as the country gears up for its scheduled August 2022 general elections. In a 15 September statement, bishops’ conference chairman Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde said, “We wish to firmly state again that our places of worship and liturgy are sacred and do not serve as political arenas”.
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