On 24 January Burkina Faso became the third West African country after Guinea and Mali to witness a military takeover in the past 12 months. “We acknowledge the changes that have taken place,” said the Bishops of Burkina Faso after the mutiny, but they reminded the coup leaders that “governing is putting oneself at the service of the common good”. The new military leader Lt-Col Paul-Henri Damiba promised a return to the normal constitutional order “when the conditions are right”. He blamed his predecessor, ousted President Roch Kaboré, for failing to contain violence by Islamist militants and said this would be his priority. He pledged to recapture rural areas, allowing the 1.5 million people who have fled their homes to return. The United Nations, African Union and Ecowas - the 15-member Economic Community of West African States - have condemned the coup and called for the immediate release of President Kaboré from detention. Ecowas has suspended Burkina Faso, saying the coup represents “a threat to peace, security and stability in West Africa”. The bishops said last weekend that “if the challenge of security is the primary motivation of these events” then the new government must address “the return of displaced persons to their homes, national reconciliation, and economic challenges that require the participation of all”. They urged the military to guarantee political detainees “their safety, physical integrity and dignity”. Damiba has called for international support. The French presence in West Africa is increasingly unpopular, especially with the failure to overcome the jihadist threat. Russia has offered to help West African countries tackle Islamist violence and pro-Russian sentiment is growing.
The Catholic Church was thanked for its commitment to reconciliation on the Korean peninsula when the new archbishop of Seoul met with South Korean Unification Minister Lee In-young on 19 January. Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul, who is also apostolic administrator of Pyongyang, announced a “Synodal Path of Peace” for 2022. It is centred on memory, communication and communion, as well as new humanitarian projects, which he asked the government to support. Minister Lee thanked the Catholic Church for aid offered to North Koreans, including refugees who have fled south. He also praised the initiatives of the Korean Church for peace education, such as the annual pilgrimage with young people to the demilitarised zone. During the meeting at the archbishop's residence in Seoul, Archbishop Chung expressed the Church’s gratitude to President Moon Jae-in for asking Pope Francis, on his visit to the Vatican last October, to pray for peace on the Korean peninsula. The President gave Pope Francis a cross made of barbed wire from the demilitarised zone.
Catholic Church leaders in Kenya called for investigations into the dead bodies found floating on a river in the western Kenya county of Siaya. At least 20 bodies have been retrieved from River Nyala, which flows into Lake Victoria. The bodies were in tied-up sacks, with indications that the victims had been tortured. “We are appealing to the government, all leaders, not to turn a blind eye to this,” said Catholic Archbishop Anthony Muheria of Nyeri.
The 35-year tradition of decorating St. Peter's Square with Dutch flowers at Easter is in danger after sponsors declined to finance it. “It’s a great pity,” chief florist Paul Deckers told a local radio in Limburg. “We’ve had a platform there for Dutch floriculture since 1986.” Dozens of Dutch flower growers used to participate and a 30-man team went to Rome every year to quickly transform St Peter's Square into a giant flower display on Holy Saturday.
A Catholic Parish in Ghana has begun a feeding and accommodation programme, following a massive explosion on 20 January involving a truck carrying explosive gas. Reports said the accident resulted the killing of 13 people, and left hundreds homeless. Fr Edward Cudjoe of St Michael Bogoso Parish in Sekonde-Takoradi has “wholeheartedly” opened parish facilities to welcome those made homeless.
The Pope has named a new bishop for the diocese of Leiria-Fátima, which oversees the Fátima shrine, in central Portugal. Bishop José Ornelas will be moving to his new diocese from Setúbal, which he led for little more than five years, to replace António Marto, who was made a cardinal shortly after the Pope visited Fátima in 2017, for the centenary of the apparitions there. Bishop Ornelas became president of the Bishops’ Conference in 2020 and spearheaded the recent creation of an independent sexual abuse inquiry commission. Cardinal Marto does not turn 75 until 5 May this year.
The Dutch Jesuit Frans van der Lugt, murdered in Syria in 2014, seems to have lost his chance of being beatified because he belittled the clerical sexual abuse issue in comments to visitors around 2010. “He thought all the attention to church abuse was exaggerated. He reportedly also questioned the impact on and credibility of victims,” the weekly Katholiek Nieuwsblad reported, citing Dutch Jesuits.
The Holy See’s treasurer says the Vatican has signed a contract to sell the London property at the centre of a financial corruption trial while admitting “major mistakes” had been made in the past. Fr Juan Antonio Guerrero, the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, explained that the Vatican would sell 60 Sloane Avenue, in Chelsea, South West London, at a price “above” initial valuations and that a ten per cent deposit had been paid by the buyer.
A police detective killed in the line of duty was given the rare honour of being waked inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, an honour typically reserved only for archbishops of New York. The next day, Cardinal Timothy Dolan presided over Rivera’s funeral in the packed cathedral, and New York’s new mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, delivered the eulogy. After the service, police officers lined the route from the cathedral to the cemetery. Jason Rivera, aged 22, was shot while trying to defuse a domestic dispute in Harlem. His fellow officer, Wilbert Mora, 27, also died from injuries sustained in the shooting.
In an address on 28 January Pope Francis said that communicators must help readers and listeners understand “the sheer volume of ‘allegedly scientific’ information” about the pandemic. Speaking to a meeting of the International Consortium of Catholic Media on “Catholic Fact-Checking”, Pope Francis said in the digital age an excess of information “leads to an explosion of commentary on falsified if not invented news”. The Consortium was established to combat “fake news” about Covid-19 vaccines. “Reality is always more complex than we think and we must respect the doubts, the concerns and the questions that people raise, seeking to accompany them without ever dismissing them,” Francis said.
Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi are counting the deaths and damage caused by tropical storm Ana which has brought intense rains across southern Africa, killing at least 90 people. In Mozambique more than 100,000 people were made homeless, with schools and churches being used as emergency centres.
The Philippines Catholic Church has published a statement, “A Call for Unity and Action amid a Climate Emergency and Planetary Crisis”, calling on dioceses and other stakeholders to step up action on ecological crises. The bishops will initiate a non-acceptance policy of donations from extractive industries such as coal and fossil gas projects, logging, quarrying, and destructive mining.
The Catholic Church of the Holy Land says that as part of its Synodal journey it will listen to “the wisdom and experience of other Churches in the region”. Described as an "ecumenical SOS", the bishops launched a program of ecumenical outreach during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The Archdiocese of Madrid provided support, including psychological treatment, to 72 survivors of abuse in 2021, according to an archdiocesan report. It also provided therapy to five offenders who had committed abuse. Meanwhile Spain’s ruling coalition wants historic clerical sexual abuse to be investigated. Three left-wing parties – Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu – presented a petition in Congress for the creation of a commission to launch an investigation into the sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church.
The hymn “Abide with Me”, said to be Mahatma Gandhi's favourite, which has been a part of India's Republic Day commemorations since the 1950s, was dropped from this year’s celebration on 26 January. A government spokesman said the decision was in line with an “ongoing process of decolonising India”, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been accused of playing “religious politics”.
Donations to Peter’s Pence fell by around 15 per cent in 2021, the Vatican announced last week. Fr Juan A. Guerrero, S.J., prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, said that, while donations were still arriving from some countries, there was a marked decrease compared to 2020. “If in 2020 the total was 44 million euros, in 2021 I do not think it will amount to more than 37 million euros,” he said.
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