Cardinal Wilton Gregory has issued a decree implementing Pope Francis’ motu proprio “Traditionis custodes,” regulating the Tridentine rite, within the Archdiocese of Washington. In his letter announcing the new regulations, Gregory indicated the new guidelines also resulted from the listening sessions conducted as a part of the synodal process within the archdiocese. “The intent of these requirements is to foster and make manifest the unity of this local Church, and provide all Catholics in the Archdiocese an opportunity to offer a concrete manifestation of the acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical books,” Gregory wrote in a letter accompanying the decree. The decree established three non-parochial churches to host the pre-Vatican II rite on Sundays, one in Washington, D.C., one in the Maryland suburbs and the third in rural southern Maryland. The decree requires all priests who wish to celebrate the 1962 rite to request and receive permission to perform it, and demonstrate that they accept the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform flowing from Vatican II.
Jayd Henricks, the former chief lobbyist for the U.S. bishops’ conference, published a strong criticism of Pope Francis for his failure to understand the US Catholic Church in the magazine First Things. He specifically took issue with the pope’s recent comment that there are “many” in the US who reject the Second Vatican Council.
Catholic leaders in Nigeria have announced the “gruesome murder” of Fr Mark John Cheitnum who was abducted on 15 July. Fr Cheitnum is the fourth priest to be killed this year alone. In a 19 July statement, the Diocese of Kafanchan, in northern Kaduna state, said that his corpse was found “already decomposing”. The statement, signed by diocesan chancellor Fr Emmanuel Okolo, a copy of which was received by Aid to the Church in Need, revealed that Fr Cheitnum had been “brutally murdered”.
Child labour and human rights violations in Congo’s mining sector are a “critical” cause for concern, Jesuit Father Rigobert Minani Bihuzo, told a US congressional hearing this month. The House hearing was looking into accusations China is exploiting children in Africa in the mining of cobalt, lithium and various rare earth minerals. Congo produces more than 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, which along with other minerals, is used in components for smartphones, digital cameras, computer hard disks, flat-screen televisions, computer monitors and other high-tech devices. Fr Bihuzo estimated there were 1,000 small scale mining sites in the Ituri region with some 200,000 miners among them many thousands of children an pregnant women. “The Chinese Communist Party’s quest for cobalt for batteries and lithium for solar panels to power the so-called green economy motivates human rapacity as an estimated 40,000 children in Congo toil in nonregulated artisanal mines under hazardous conditions,” said Rep. Chris Smith, N.J., who ran the hearing as the commission’s co-chair.
At least one person was killed and several were injured on Sunday in an attack on the inauguration of a Greek Orthodox church in Syria’s Hama Governorate. The July 24 attack targeted Hagia Sophia Church in Al-Suqaylabiyah, about 30 miles northwest of Hama. The church was being built as a replica of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia by the governments of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the Turkish government’s converting that building to a mosque.
Pope Francis sent birthday greetings to Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Saturday and thanked him for his dedicated service amid "not a few difficulties." On July 23, the pope offered Mattarella his best wishes for the president’s 81st birthday, adding “At this particular juncture, marked by not a few difficulties and crucial choices for the life of the country, you continue to make a fundamental and indispensable contribution with gracious leadership and exemplary dedication”. The pope’s telegram was sent days after Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned following the collapse of his “unity” coalition in Parliament. Italy will hold an early national election on 25 September.
A bishop in Belarus has defended a Catholic priest jailed after a closed trial for illegally “holding a mass assembly”, in a rare humanitarian church intervention in the authoritarian state. “I ask all concerned people to pray for Fr Andrei Vashchuk, now behind bars,” Bishop Yuri Kasabutsky, a Minsk-Mogilev archdiocese auxiliary, said in a Facebook message. The bishop was reacting to the sentencing of Fr Vashchuk, rector of the Holy Spirit parish in Vitebsk, who was jailed for 15 days for "violating procedures by organising or holding a mass assembly". Unofficial Catholic media said it was believed the priest, a member of the Salvatorian order, had worn a face mask inscribed with the slogan, "A country for life", associated with the exiled opposition presidential candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Cafod has warned that many countries remain threatened by food shortages despite the lifting of the blockade on Ukrainian grain exports, as they continue to suffer the aftershocks. The charity welcomed the agreement between Kyiv and Moscow, signed in Istanbul last Friday, to allow shipments of grain to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but said that it must not be diverted from countries most in need. Graham Gordon, Cafod’s head of policy, emphasised the plight of communities in East Africa, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The Istanbul deal was imperilled this week when Russian missiles hit military targets in Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port.
Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara al Rai has described the detention and questioning of Archbishop Moussa el-Hage as a “security, legal, and political farce,” and hinted that the Lebanese military tribunal that questioned the archbishop was prompted by the Hezbollah movement. Archbishop el-Hage was delivering aid from Lebanese and Palestinians in Israel to their relatives in Lebanon. The detention of the archbishop, who was questioned for eight hours, was a grave offence against the integrity of the Church, the Lebanese Patriarch said. The archbishop was released after top judicial officials intervened on his behalf.
The Vatican's delegate to the 57-state Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe has urged "true equality" between men and women, and called on all governments to ensure women's engagement "in all aspects of public, political, economic, social and cultural life". "The Holy See supports the principle that full and true equality between men and women is a fundamental aspect of a just and democratic society, and is convinced women need to be valued for all capacities that stem from their feminine genius", said Mgr Simon Kassas, charge d'affaires at the Vatican's Permanent Mission. However, he also accused the OSCE's German secretary general, Helga Maria Schmid, of exceeding her powers by supporting a more controversial Generation Equality Forum, convened in Mexico City and Paris in summer 2021, which advocated "bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights".
Romanian officials have ordered the demolition of a 246-foot office block in Bucharest after a 16-year campaign, ruling it was built illegally and endangers the stability of the city's nineteenth-century Catholic St Joseph's Cathedral. “Since 2013, the capital's City Hall has been compelled under a final court decision to demolish this building - however, this obligation was ignored", explained Nicusor Dan, Bucharest's mayor. "The demolition expenses will be borne initially by the municipality, and then ultimately recovered from the building's owner. Our goal now is for the land to be harmoniously reintegrated into Bucharest's urban landscape". Meanwhile, the order was welcomed by Fr Gabriel Popa, secretary of Romania's Bucharest archdiocese, who said the Cathedral Plaza, completed in 2010, had been condemned as a "monument to corruption" by a former Vatican Nuncio. Archbishop Aurel Perca of Bucharest described the mayor's order was a "victory" and "return to normality" for local Catholics.
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