The new governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, proposed legislation that would eliminate the use of capital punishment in the state. He also indicated he would refuse to sign any death warrants during his term in office.
“We applaud Governor Shapiro's decision not to issue any death warrants during his term as Pennsylvania's governor,” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, told Our Sunday Visitor News.
“His announcement today went an important step further by urging Pennsylvania lawmakers to pursue repeal legislation, and to make a concerted effort to remove capital punishment from Pennsylvania’s books for good.”
Marymount University in Virginia became the latest Catholic university to announce it would no longer offer degrees in theology, raising profound questions about its Catholic identity. The university is also shuttering degree programmes in philosophy, mathematics, art, history, sociology, English, economics and secondary education.
“Over the long term, it would be irresponsible to sustain majors [and] programs with consistently low enrolment, low graduation rates, and lack of potential for growth,” said Marymount’s president, Irma Becerra.
“Recommendations and decisions on programs marked for elimination are based on clear evidence of student choices and behaviour over time.”
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has said it has resolved a dispute which had seen three dissenting archbishops threaten to break away, forming their own Holy Synod of Oromia, Nations and Nationalities.
With Archbishop Sawiros of South West Shoa Diocese acting as its patriarch, the group had appointed 26 new bishops. They had accused the main church leadership – which excommunicated them – of failing to understand the native languages and lack of diversity.
However, in a meeting chaired by President Abiy Ahmed Ali, the synod and breakaway archbishop reached an agreement to use native languages in Masses and to channel more resources to the regions, among other resolutions.
The Catholic Church of St Mary in Dubai held a “Mercithon” last weekend to help needy cancer patients, especially migrant workers struggling to pay for medical drugs and hospital care.
Thousands took part in a day-long “Walk for Hope”, responding to more than 50 appeals for help from cancer patients from different nationalities, including Pakistanis, Filipinos, Indians, Sri Lankans, Indonesians and Lebanese.
Fr Lennie Connully, St Mary’s parish priest, said the church “will never leave a stone unturned when it comes to aiding the needy, irrespective of their religion or nationality”. Dubai’s Catholic population numbers more than 80,000.
A papal envoy has urged the Cuban government to free activists detained during anti-government protests in July 2021.
Cardinal Beniamino Stella, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy, was in Havana as the Pope’s envoy for celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1988, when he was the apostolic nuncio to Cuba.
Cardinal Stella reported discussing the jailed protestors’ situation with Pope Francis before travelling. He spoke during a ceremony at Havana University, with Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel in attendance. He said the country must allow “youth to fulfil their dreams and projects in Cuba” without hate or conflict.
The president of Uganda has praised his country’s Anglican Church for severing ties with Canterbury, the seat of the worldwide Anglican Communion, after the Church of England voted two weeks ago to permit priests to bless marriages of same-sex couples.
“I want to congratulate Ugandan believers for rejecting homosexuality,” said President Yoweri Museveni last week. He said that “homosexuality is not something you should normalise and celebrate”.
The Archbishop of Uganda, Dr Stephen Kaziimba Mugalu, has said that “the Church of England insists it is not changing its doctrine of marriage but, in practice, they are doing precisely that”.
An 103-year-old American nun who is chaplain to a basketball team is publishing her memoirs. Wake up with Purpose: What I’ve learned in My First Hundred Years by Sr Jean Dolores Schmidt comes out next week.
Known as “the basketball nun”, Sr Jean (who belongs to the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) became chaplain to the men’s basketball team of Loyola University, Chicago in 1994. She was 75. One team member said Sr Jean brings “the same energy to our pregame prayers every day, every game”. He added: “Her consistency is incredible.”
Jonathan Roumie, the Catholic actor who plays Jesus in the hit crowdfunded series, The Chosen, is starring as a hippie preacher in a new film. In Jesus Revolution, released on February 24, Roumie plays Lonnie Frisbee, a preacher who first read the Bible while on LSD. Frisbee’s followers in south California were known as “Jesus freaks”. He retained a homosexual lifestyle – Frisbee would “party” on Saturday nights and “preach” on Sundays – dying in 1993 of an Aid-related illness.
The Continental Synodal Assembly of Catholic Churches in the Middle East concluded in Lebanon last week.
It called for greater emphasis on the talents of laity, the expectations of young people and “the importance of the role and mission of women in the Church”. Its final statement also called for “creative and renewed ecumenism” and “liturgical renewal”.
Clergy, religious, and laity from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon and Gulf States described themselves “as humble as a ‘mustard seed’, which grows in the precariousness of its condition and must escape the pressures that drive so many of her sons and daughters to leave their lands”. The assembly remembered earthquake victims in its prayers.
A massive clean-up operation is underway throughout New Zealand’s North Island after Cyclone Gabrielle passed through on 14 February, causing the declaration of only the third ever national state of emergency.
Columban priest Fr Pat O’Shea reported that “a combination of heavy rain, strong winds and ocean swells stirred up by the category three storm have devastated many communities”. At least 11 people are dead, with landslips and flooding displacing as many as 10,000 people.
“It is estimated that seven metres of water went thought the Esk Valley in Hawkes Bay” he reported, “and people there had to be picked off the roofs of houses that were barely above the water line.”
Much Church property was damaged by floodwater, including St Joseph’s parish and school, as well as Rosmini College in Takapuna. Bishop Stephen Lowe of Auckland has launched an appeal to help victims in Palmerston North and Hamilton dioceses, which faced the worst destruction and loss of life.
The Santa Marta Group has signed an agreement with the US government’s criminal investigative arm to formalise their cooperation in combatting human trafficking.
The group signed the “memorandum of understanding” with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) on 15 February, at a ceremony in New York hosted by the Holy See’s mission to the United Nations.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, chair of the Santa Marta Group, said that the agreement “offers a model of how working together can effect change”. Steve Francis, acting executive associate director of HSI, said that the formal agreement “underscores the shared goal of HSI and the Santa Marta Group”.
An interfaith complex housing a church, a mosque and a synagogue built all to the same external dimensions opened in Abu Dhabi last week.
The Abrahamic Family House was inspired by the Document of Human Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb in the United Arab Emirates in 2019.
The UAE said that the house represented its “longstanding values of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence”. The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, called it “a concrete example for people of different religions, cultures, traditions, and beliefs to return to the essential: love of neighbour”.
Bishops in Africa have offered prayers for free and fair elections in Nigeria which will “produce leaders who will lead Nigeria with justice and integrity”.
The newly-elected president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, sent a message of solidarity before the polls on 25 February.
“May Mary, the Queen of Africa, intercede for your dear country at this great moment in history,” he said.
Loading ...
