A trove of leaked documents reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 150 media partners have named offshore trusts holding hundreds of millions of dollars for the Legion of Christ, disgraced by an international paedophilia scandal a decade ago. Soon after the Vatican announced in 2010 that it would seize the operations of the order and launch a new investigation, Legion of Christ operatives reportedly began setting up trusts designed to hold money for the Legion, according to the leaked records. Two of these trusts reportedly came to hold nearly $300 million in assets devoted to the Legion of Christ, at a time when victims of sexual abuse by its priests were seeking financial compensation. Asked whether the Legion disclosed the trusts to the Vatican, the order told ICIJ that “religious institutes do not have an obligation to send detailed information to the Vatican regarding their internal financial decisions or organization.” The leaked documents are part of the Pandora Papers, the millions of secret files at the heart of a global investigation by ICIJ and its media partners.
Pope Francis has appointed Mgr Giovanni Ravelli as master of papal liturgical celebrations. Ravelli replaces Guido Marini, who was appointed Bishop of Tortona, Italy, by the Pope on 29 August.
The Vatican announced on Wednesday last week that Pope John Paul I, who reigned for only 33 days before his death in 1978, will be beatified after a miracle was attributed to him, bringing him one step closer to sainthood. Pope Francis authorised a decree that recognised a first miracle attributed to John Paul I, the mysterious healing of a sick young girl in Buenos Aires in 2011.
Seventeen Christian missionaries, including five children, from the US and one from Canada, have been kidnapped by an armed gang near the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The gang ‘400 Mowozo’, thought to be responsible, is notorious for killing, kidnappings and extortion. The missionaries were taken from a bus last Saturday after leaving an orphanage project in the crisis-engulfed Caribbean nation.
Retired Bishop Stephen Xiangtai Yang of Daming Diocese in Hebei province, China, who was forced to spend 15 years in detention during the Cultural Revolution, has died aged 99. During the time of Deng Xiaoping, Fr Yang was released in 1980 and acquitted of all charges. Bishop of Daming since 1999, Bishop Yang didn’t want to be tagged as an “underground bishop,” though he was ordained with the Vatican's mandate, and he also refused to join state-sanctioned church bodies. In 2015, he supported the protests by the clergy in Wenzhou against the demolition of crosses in Zhejiang province.
The Archbishop of Bamenda, in the Anglophone region of Cameroon where a secessionist insurgency is raging, is concerned that the international community is not doing more about the conflict. Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya said last week, “in Cameroon, clashes, killings, massacres or kidnappings have been taking place every day for years, but nobody talks about it.” He reported that religious leaders are engaged in mediation between warring factions.
Catholic priests and church-based medical experts in Kenya are welcoming a recently announced malaria vaccine, terming it as key to reducing deaths from the disease in the continent. The vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and known as RTS,S has been under a pilot programme in Kenya, Malawi and Ghana since 2019. “I welcome the vaccine. The ordinary people in the parishes are also embracing it,” Fr Joachim Omollo Ouko, a priest in the Western Kenya archdiocese of Kisumu told The Tablet.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the US military archdiocese issued a statement affirming the right to conscientious objection for Catholics in the military who do not wish to comply with the requirement that they get vaccinated against the Covid virus. Broglio referenced concerns that a commonly used stem cell line that was originally derived from an aborted fetus was used in the research of the vaccines. Most bishops in the US have told their clergy to decline to issue letters to parishioners seeking a religious exemption.
Judge Ellen Hollander ruled that St. Michael’s Media, the parent company that produces the right-wing website Church Militant, can proceed with plans to hold a protest against the US bishops next month in Baltimore. The protest is scheduled for a venue adjacent to the hotel where the US bishops will hold their plenary session and city officials originally denied a permit for it, citing concerns of violence. The judge ruled the city’s decision to deny a permit for the protest violated the US Constitution which guarantees free speech.
The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo, Syria, Archbishop Boulos Yazigi, has been replaced eight years after his mysterious disappearance. Last week, the Synod of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate appointed Bishop Efrem Maalouli as the new metropolitan of Aleppo and Alexandretta. Boulos Yazigi disappeared on 22 April 2013, together with Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, the Syrian Orthodox metropolitan. They were on a mission to secure the release of two abducted priests. Their fate is unknown.
Christians in Pakistan have criticised the rejection of a bill prohibiting the forced conversion of members of religious minorities. Lawmakers from minority communities protested the decision on 13 October and a heated exchange ensued between parliamentarians of opposing views. The Lahore-based Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation president Michelle Chaudhry said underage non-Muslim girls are being married off to abductors and “this is being carried out in an environment of impunity.”
A “Caravan” of “Mothers of Disappeared Migrants” is on a tour of US cities and universities from 12-24 October, speaking about their missing relatives. Co-sponsored by Pax Christi USA and others, the caravan started in South Texas where many migrants have perished in the desert.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, the only source of information on the ousted Myanmar leader’s trial and wellbeing, reports that he is now barred by the military government from speaking about her case. The democracy leader has been held under house arrest since being forced from power in a military coup in February. Meanwhile, Immaculate Conception Church in Phruso was badly damaged by artillery fire on 13 October, the fifth Catholic church in Loikaw Diocese to be attacked in five months.
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