On Thursday 13 October the Nicaraguan authorities detained another priest, Fr Enrique Martínez, of the parish of Santa Martha in Managua. No reason was given for his detention, and there has been no comment from the Church authorities. Fr Martínez’ arrest was announced by the exiled priest Fr Uriel Vallejos, parish priest of the Jesús de la Divina Misericordia church in Sébaco, Matagalpa. This arrest brings the number of priests in detention in Nicaragua to nine. On the same day it was announced that the eight men blockaded with Bishop Rolando Álvarez in his residence in Matagalpa are to be put on trial on 1 December. They will face charges of “conspiring to undermine national integrity” and “spreading fake news …to the detriment of Nicaraguan society and the Nicaraguan state”, standard charges brought by the regime of President Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. There is no news of Bishop Álvarez, who is being kept under house arrest in Managua, though no formal charges have so far been brought against him.
Pope Francis on Saturday last week urged members of the Communion and Liberation international Catholic movement to nurture unity and love for the Church, especially during times of crisis. “Even difficult times can be times of grace, and rebirth,” he underlined in his speech to more than 50,000 members of the ecclesial movement. The event marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Fr Luigi Giussani, who founded Communion and Liberation. Giussani died in 2005 and his cause for beatification was opened in 2012. The Holy See, in September 2021, appointed a special delegate to oversee Memores Domini, the lay consecrated branch of Communion and Liberation, in the wake of concerns about governance.
A lay committee looking into historic child sex abuse in the church in Portugal said on Tuesday last week it has so far compiled a list of 424 alleged victims dating back to 1950. Hundreds of priests, some deceased, are under suspicion.
Jeanne Mancini, who organises the annual US March for Life commemorating the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalised abortion nationwide, announced plans for a 2023 march, even though the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The focus will now be promoting pro-life legislation at both the national and state level.
Metropolitan Congregations United in St. Louis, Missouri has joined with scientists to monitor air quality in the greater St. Louis area, mounting censors on church roofs to measure for toxic particulates. St. Louis is home to several manufacturing centres, which were often located in poorer neighbourhoods. African-American children are 2.4 times more likely to test positive for lead in their blood and are at substantially greater risk of developing asthma than white children.
A delegation of atomic bomb survivors from the Japanese city of Nagasaki has visited the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University in Chicago for a “Blessed are the peacemakers” event. One was Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki whose mother was three months pregnant with him when the US dropped an atomic bomb on his city on 9 August 1945, killing at least 50,000 people.
Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako has visited the Virgin Mary refugee camp in Baghdad to express solidarity with Christian refugees from Mosul and other cities of the Nineveh Plains threatened with eviction. Around 120 families have been asked to move to make way for a new shopping centre.
The 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council was marked in Jakarta last weekend with events at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology of Sanata Dharma University and at St Paul Major Seminary. An interfaith round table discussed the fruits of the Council and its application in the context of the Indonesian Church.
Archbishop Justin Welby, at the end of a two-week visit to Australia, has expressed dismay at the suffering of communities affected by flood damage this year. Speaking in New South Wales, in a region flooded in February, he said, “seeing the devastation here just brings [climate change] home”. He attended a prayer service at the city of Lismore’s damaged Catholic Cathedral, alongside Bishop Greg Homeming of Lismore.
Church workers in Haiti report escalating economic crisis and gang violence. Supplies of fuel and water have dwindled, with powerful gangs controlling streets and looting food warehouses. Franciscan Sister Marcela Catozza - who spent 15 years in Haiti until recently – says, “the Church has become a victim of the violence, with Church buildings attacked across the country, including a Franciscan Missionary Fraternity's orphanage located in a slum area. “They pillaged, they vandalised, they destroyed,” says local Caritas Director Fr Pheschner Julmisse; “the people are living in misery.”
Caritas Philippines has launched a nationwide “bamboo forest” project to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Its national director, Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo of Kidapawan, said the project aims to plant at least five million bamboo trees in five years in all the country’s 72 dioceses. Bamboo absorbs large amounts of carbon and also tackles soil erosion.
As cases of Ebola increase in Uganda, the authorities are urging people to avoid large gatherings and crowded places like markets, parties, weddings, and funerals. Worry is spreading, with Catholic schools seeing just half their pupils attend classes in some districts. On Monday a three-week lockdown was declared in the districts of Mubende, the epicentre about 50 miles from Kampala, and neighbouring Kassanda. Ebola has killed 19 people among 58 recorded infections.
Catholic bishops in the southern Indian state of Kerala have expressed shock and cautioned people over occult practices after discovery last week of the brutal murders of two women, allegedly as part of ceremonial human sacrifices that the culprits believed would lead to financial wellbeing. Three people - a man claiming to be an occult practitioner and the couple who hired him - have been arrested.
France has granted the status of historical monument to the Basilica of Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart), on Montmartre Hill overlooking Paris, after a century and a half of controversy. The basilica, on the hilltop where the revolutionary two-month Paris Commune began in 1871, was meant by its supporters to expiate what they saw as the anti-clericalists’ sins since the French Revolution. Communists and socialists in the Paris city council blocked the distinction for the “odious religious edifice” last year during the 150th anniversary celebrations for the Commune.
China mounted a crackdown on Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims, with mass arrests and detentions, ahead of last week’s start of the national congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the magazine Bitter Winter, which covers human rights and religious liberty. At the national congress, President Xi Jinping secured a third term in power. In his opening speech, he said China would continue to push to “Sinicise religion”, in line with a socialist society.
Church leaders in Jerusalem have joined the mounting criticism of the British government’s review of the location of its embassy to Israel. The Council of Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem expressed “grave concern” at the review, which could see the embassy moved to the city from Tel Aviv. Such a move, they said, would be a “counterproductive endeavour” and “a further impediment to advancing the already moribund peace process”.
Loading ...
