Brazil’s bishops have called for more sensitivity towards the country’s most marginalised communities, specifying indigenous people for inclusion in “decision-making positions in federal and state governments”.
Meeting last week, the bishops’ conference said “there is an immense need to adopt measures and concrete actions for the defence of these peoples and we can no longer accept the abandonment of the original peoples in our history”.
On 28 April Brazil’s government offered greater protection to six Indigenous areas. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is safeguarding critical rainforests from the exploitation of mining and other destructive activities that occurred under his predecessor’s administration.
Argentina’s bishops have announced that every diocese will make visits to poor areas where the most vulnerable communities live.
At their meeting last week, they lamented that “40 years after the recovery of democracy, we see with pain how many chances we have lost to build a flourishing and happy Argentina”. They urged political change towards “a strategic development project that opens a horizon of hope, dignity, social peace, work and prosperity”.
The bishops said “the loss of the values that sustained family and social life is being felt more and more” and criticised increasing food and health insecurity and violence.
The Church in Guatemala has commemorated the murder of Bishop Gerardi Conedera murder 25 years ago. He was assassinated two days after presenting results of a Church investigation into crimes of the nation’s civil war.
“Bishop Juan Gerardi did not seek the cameras but was always present at important moments, such as the peace accords,” said José Roberto Paz, head of the centre that keeps alive the memory of the former auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City.
Gerardi was 75 years old when he was beaten to death in the city on 26 April 1998. Pope John Paul II described the murder as “an execrable crime committed against a true servant of peace”.
Catholics from two South Korean dioceses celebrated a special Mass on 23 April for the preservation of the ecologically-critical Jeju Island, which they say will be damaged if a new airport is built. The environment ministries of Jeju and Incheon dioceses jointly organised the Mass at Jeju with the theme “Preservation of Jeju’s Ecological Environment”.
Fr Joseph Hwa ng Tae-jong from Jeju diocese said Jeju should be “an island of life and peace” and needs “a special law on its preservation”. Islanders, environmental groups and the Church expressed fears that the airport would be used for military purposes.
Ahead of the general election in Timor-Leste scheduled for 21 May, the president of the country’s bishops’ conference, Bishop Norberto do Amaral of Maliana, has repeated his call for a peaceful poll.
The Church will play an important role, working with the National Election Commission, in trying to ensure safe elections, given that the country’s 1.4 million population is predominantly Catholic.
The five years since the 2018 election have seen political turmoil and violence. Independence hero Xanana Gusmão’s party, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction, is seeking to push Mari Alkatiri’s Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor out of government.
The newly appointed Archbishop of Zamboanga in the Muslim-majority Mindanao region of the Philippines has vowed to promote dialogue for peace between Christians and Muslims.
Archbishop Julius Sullan Tonel said a priority will be to tackle the Christian prejudice that all Muslims are terrorists or members of jihadist groups. “There are some continuing biases against Muslim s, even by our political leaders in society,” he said.
The Mindanao region has endured decades of terrorist attacks and conflict between Islamic extremists and the military that has left thousands killed. Widespread poverty has long been blamed for breeding extremism in a region.
Last month, the head of Tunisia’s Catholic Church deplored the plight of African migrants in the Mediterranean.
“More and more are risking death aboard fragile, unsafe boats,” said Archbishop Ilario Antoniazzi of Tunis after police dispersed a makeshift camp of homeless Africans. He said that “many Africans here are practising Catholics and one of our parishes recently held a requiem Mass for several entire families who had drowned”.
More than 200 migrants have died in the Mediterranean off Tunisia over the past two weeks, after embarking on journeys to Europe in small boats. Tunisia is a key departure point, despite the hostility of President Kais Saied, who has blamed migrants for violence and undermining his country’s Islamic identity.
Pakistan’s Church has been described as “very strong” by the lead bishop for Asia of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, who recently visited Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore and Faisalabad with Aid to the Church in Need.
Bishop Thomas Neylon reported being impressed by Church attendance, noting that one Mass in Rawalpindi had over 1,000 worshipers. He said “the environment in which they live, where there can be discrimination of minorities…people make a deliberate choice to say, ‘Yes, I want to practise my faith.’”
He praised the Pakistani Church for delivering education and healthcare to wider society and not just its own community.
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) criticised Governor Ron DeSantis for signing into law a bill that makes it easier to apply the death penalty. The new law removes the need for a unanimous jury vote to execute a criminal, permitting two-thirds majority vote.
“The new legislation requiring only eight of 12 jurors to agree in order to impose a death sentence takes our state backwards to outlier status once again with the lowest standard for imposing a death sentence,” said Michael Sheedy, executive director of the FCCB.
“The death penalty neither restores life nor alleviates suffering but only perpetuates violence and vengeance.”
After more than 200 years of service to the Church, the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul of New York have decided not to accept any more members to their congregation in the US and have stated that they are on the “path to completion”. There are currently 154 sisters.
Fr James Martin SJ, editor at large of America, said: “I find this news sad but also deeply moving in its humility. Years ago, I told a Catholic sister how sad that I found these endings. She said, ‘No, Jim, it’s like a life well-lived. We were called into this world by God to serve a purpose and now our time has ended’.”
Chinese Catholics are preparing for Marian devotions during the month of May with pilgrimages, rosaries, hours of adoration, processions, Eucharistic celebrations, and charitable works.
The doors of shrines, churches and chapels will be open for longer hours and dioceses such as Beijing and Shanghai have published programmes of celebrations and timetables for daily community prayer.
The Marian shrine of Housangyu, on the outskirts of Beijing, will see an increased number of visitors, as will the popular Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan in Shanghai. Churches are using new digital technology for reservations and registrations and for listing details of the priests organising pilgrimages.
Cafod has accused the World Bank of promoting agricultural models that benefit large-scale agribusiness at the expense of poor farmers.
In a report published last week, the aid agency says that the Bank demands “regulations and laws that support the expansion of commercial markets for hybrid seeds and chemical inputs”, forcing poorer nations to purchase seeds and fertilisers from global corporations.
The report, “Sowing the seeds of poverty: how the World Bank harms poor farmers”, finds that “this approach does not support poor farmers’ diverse needs and is not effective in reducing poverty”.
When Fr Michael Cusack’s church in Luxembourg was suddenly closed for renovations, the Redemptorist priest from Galway turned to a local Irish pub to hold Mass until he could find a suitable replacement. The pub owners, also Irish, first thought his desperate call was a hoax, but soon realised he was serious and welcomed him.
Fr Cusack only used the pub for two Sundays in January, attracting about 250 Mass-goers each time, until the archdiocese allotted him a temporary church. Normally closed on Sunday, the pub’s bar opened after the second Mass for what the priest called “a lovely celebration”.
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