After more than two months in detention without trial in Eritrea, Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim and Fr Mehereteab Stefanos were released after Christmas. The 52-year-old bishop heads the Eritrean Catholic Eparchy of Segheneity and Fr Stefanos is a parish priest in the eparchy. They were welcomed by a group that included Archbishop Menghesteab Tesfamariam of Asmara, head of the Eritrean Catholic Church. Although the government did not provide reasons for the arrests, observers believe Bishop Tsalim was detained for criticising forced youth recruitment for the war in Tigray and the government's seizure of church-owned schools and clinics. The news came as African Union and East African officials arrived in Tigray last week to launch a joint monitoring and verification mechanism for a peace deal signed in November to end the two-year war between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front. Eritrea was aligned with Ethiopia. The deal calls for the restoration of all services, provision of adequate aid to people impoverished by the two-year war, the disarmament of rebel groups, and the withdrawal of foreign forces and other militia groups from the region. Ethiopian Airlines flights to Mekele have resumed to allow families to reunite.
A federal bankruptcy judge has approved a $121.5 million reorganisation plan for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in New Mexico as it deals with financial losses from clergy abuse claims dating back decades. In a statement, Archbishop John C. Wester thanked the panel of abuse survivors who represented fellow survivors in their claims against the archdiocese. He expressed his “most profound sorrow and contrition for those who have endured clergy sexual abuse” and said the archdiocese has put safeguards in place to prevent future abuse. The terms of the settlement require the establishment of an “unprecedented” public archive of documents showing how decades of widespread abuse occurred. The bankruptcy process is increasingly common, with around 30 Catholic dioceses and three religious orders in the US filing for bankruptcy since 2004. Victims are paid through the bankruptcy court, but critics say that under US bankruptcy laws plaintiffs negotiate a one-time settlement for all abuse claims and this gives greater protection to bodies that oversaw employees or volunteers accused of abuse. However, others suggest that seeking compensation through bankruptcy can allow victims to file a claim confidentially and avoid reliving their trauma in open court.
The Pope has for the first time approved the beatification of an entire family, including an unborn child, 79 years after they were summarily shot by the Gestapo for sheltering Jews in their Polish home. “The Holy Father's decision means the way is open for beatifying Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma - and the honour will also be granted to their seven children, including the child who would have been born in spring 1944,” explained Fr. Witold Burda, postulator for the family's cause. “Their daily faithfulness and obedience to God was especially striking, and provided the foundation of their lives. They were beautiful, smart, mature people, for whom a pledged word held great value.” The priest spoke in the wake of a pre-Christmas decree by Pope Francis, clearing the way for the nine-member Ulma family to be declared blessed as Catholic martyrs later this year.
Caritas Philippines and the Archdiocese of Ozamis in Northern Mindanao are providing relief to flood victims on Mindanao where at least 50 people were killed over the Christmas period and more than 80,000 people displaced. The province of Misamis Occidental, and the city of Gingoog in Misamis Oriental, were placed under a “state of calamity” after heavy rains caused deluges and landslides. Archbishop Martin Jumoad of Ozamis called for prayers and practical help for people affected. Parishes have provided shelter for more than 10,000 people whose houses were destroyed or damaged. Caritas has distributed food packages, potable water, hygiene kits, and clothing.
A pro-democracy group that used to organise an annual vigil in Hong Kong to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown by China’s communist government is facing trial for allegedly being “foreign agents”. The trial hearing against the now-defunct group started on 22 December, with three members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China appearing in court. They were accused of non-compliance to a notice, under the National Security Law imposed in 2020, requesting information about standing committee members and staff dating back three decades.
Japan’s Catholic bishops have asked Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to withdraw plans to increase military spending. The bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission described the proposal to boost the nation’s defence budget “unconstitutional and dangerous”. The decision “effectively abandons the conventional basic policy of an exclusively defence-oriented policy under Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and marks a complete shift to make Japan a military superpower,” said a statement on 21 December. The bishops criticised the government's decision as undemocratic as it was made through a decree, bypassing parliament. Also, plans to use civilian ports and airports for military purposes and directing scientific and technological resources to produce new weapons.
On the day the Church remembered the Holy Innocents on 28 December, Catholics remembered India’s abandoned girl babies. “This is a serious crisis, a tragedy, the cry of the poor infants; real change is needed,” said Dr Pascoal Carvalho, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In the last three months, newborn babies have been found on Mumbai streets, a Delhi waste bin and down a well in Karnataka. Many abandoned babies are never found, with some picked up and not reported and others killed by animals.
The Archdiocese of Beijing opened all churches in Beijing on New Year’s Day despite fears that the latest wave of Covid sweeping the country would keep them closed. “All churches and places of prayer in Beijing will be reopened in an orderly manner from January 1, 2023” said the archdiocese in a statement and “priority should be given to Mass and the Sacraments”. It added, “Bishop Joseph Li Shan dispenses the elderly, the seriously ill and people infected with Covid from Sunday Mass” and “all health provisions are in place to protect the faithful”.
In a recent book, focusing on his five decades in the Salvadoran Church, the country's first cardinal and collaborator with Archbishop, now Saint, Oscar Romero, tells of defamation against Romero and against himself, including one bishop who said, in notes to a Vatican ambassador, not even to think of “giving me a diocese”. He said, “for 20 years, Rome was misinformed on the matter of Romero”. Conversations with Cardinal Rosa Chávez’ records interviews turned into a book by Fr Ariel Beramendi, a Bolivian priest who works on Spanish-language communications at the Vatican. Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez, 80, who was auxiliary Archbishop of San Salvador and who retired last October, said he believed his account should be on the record because there is confusion and even attempts at erasing or offering a different version of what happened when it came to St Romero's conversion, his assassination and that of Fr Rutilio Grande, and the role of the Catholic Church in El Salvador's peace accords, whose meetings he attended. Cardinal Chávez described the last four decades as a time of persecution against members of the Catholic Church who stood up for the poor and against injustice. He described the evening of the “red martyrdom” 24 March 1980, when St Romero was assassinated and the saint’s “white martyrdom”, a campaign of calumny against the future saint from inside the Church. He recalled that after Romero’s killing, “I saw Archbishop Romero on a stretcher with his purple priestly vestments, lifeless, a serene face, but when I went out into the streets, I heard celebratory fireworks in the affluent parts of the city”.
Pelé, universally admired as the world’s most successful football player and whose full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, died last week aged 82. A practising Catholic, Pelé met three Popes, declaring that “indeed, I consider myself a very blessed man because I was able to meet and receive the blessing of Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.” He never met Pope Francis but sent him a gift in 2014 of an autographed Brazilian national team jersey with the words: “For Pope Francis, with respect and admiration”. In 2009, Pelé told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that “God gave me the gift of knowing how to play football”.
The Santos stadium where Pelé played for much of his career held his wake on Monday. Landmarks lit up in his honour included the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. New Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wrote on Twitter that “few Brazilians carried the name of our country as far as Pelé did.”
Concern about Israel’s new hard-line government have been expressed by Christian leaders in the Holy Land. Last week Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzabella, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, suggested that a “veil of silence” has fallen over the deaths linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 200 Palestinians, including more than 50 children, have been killed by Israel in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip in 2022. And on 31 December the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the illegal storming of its land on 27 December by an Israeli radical group in Wadi Hilweh, south of the Old City of Jerusalem. “This radical group has no right or judicial backing in their favour to allow them to enter or occupy the land,” said the Patriarchate in a statement. It also condemned the raid taking place with the protection of armed Israeli police and border guards. The parish priest of the only parish in Gaza reported that Christmas celebrations were marred by fears for an uncertain future. Escape attempts, especially by young people, are “an open wound” for “broken” Palestinian families, Fr Gabriel Romanelli reflected, adding that “if Israel's policy does not change, the community “is doomed to die”.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, sent Christmas greetings to Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury Justice Welby, Praeses Nikolaus Schneider, president of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany and to heads of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches. “Besides political and economic tribulations…. modern society is suffering a deep moral crisis,” said Patriarch Kirill, and “that is why the Church should raise her voice and call people to follow Christ”. The message came at the conclusion of a year in which the Pope and other Christian leaders criticised Patriarch Kirill for his support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila went on a talk-radio show to complain about some mainstream media coverage of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado, in which some outlets are “portraying the Catholic Church and the teaching of the Catholic Church as if they were contributing to the hatred and the violence committed by the alleged suspect in this case.” Aquila noted that the shooter had no apparent affiliation with the Catholic Church and called attempts to link the violence to the Church’s teaching “irresponsible.” The archbishop cited a Denver Post column with the headline “Anti-LBGTQ rhetoric leads to violence.” Aquila noted, “Today within society if you have a disagreement with a person or a different worldview than a person, suddenly you’re accused of hating the person.” The archdiocese of Denver was in the news in the weeks ahead of the shooting when it announced a policy that allows Catholic schools to bar students who identify from transgender from attending, but Aquila denied any linkage to the mass shooting. “Showing respect for people, always treating people with respect is something that the church promotes and speaks to,” Aquila told the radio show. “There is nowhere in Catholic teaching where we are called to hate another person.”
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