Cafod reported that thousands of people have fled violence in Sudan, particularly from Khartoum and northern Darfur, and that the refugees are running out of food, water and medicine.
“Church leaders have expressed concerns at the huge numbers of people caught up at Sudan’s international borders,” the aid agency said, “and tens of thousands are expected to cross over into South Sudan in the coming months.” CAFOD is providing clean water, sanitation, food and shelter in Upper Nile and Warrap, two of the five states in South Sudan which border Sudan.
Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba, the South Sudanese capital, asked religious congregations to welcome refugees. More than 50,000 have arrived in South Sudan so far.
“The government’s response continues to be delayed, while thousands of people are stranded,” reported Bishop Stephen Nyodho of Malakal in Upper Nile State. “Caritas of the diocese of Malakal has offered boats to allow these people to cross the river to Malakal,” he added.
The bishop of the Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat has highlighted the on-going suffering of Tigray’s people, despite last November’s peace agreement between Tigrinya militias and the Ethiopian army which ended two years of fighting. Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin called on religious leaders to urge “decision-makers” to respond.
Most of Tigray’s six million inhabitants depend on humanitarian aid, and government-imposed restrictions have left many on the brink of famine. The bishop reported that pastoral programs are limited and 500 schools remain closed amidst widespread insecurity. Landmines have killed many civilians and key infrastructure remains in ruins.
The Bishop of Hong Kong, Stephen Chow Sau-yan SJ, has said that many Chinese Catholics hope for a meeting between Pope Francis and President Xi Jinping.
Following his visit to the Diocese of Beijing in April, he told La Civiltà Cattolica: “I would say a large majority of the Catholics in China are loyal to Pope Francis, and they hope that the provisional agreement will bring desirable changes for their Church, including a meeting between Pope Francis and President Xi.”
He acknowledged that some oppose the 2018 Vatican-China deal but others “appreciate what he is doing for the Church in China”.
Bishop Chow said that the provisional agreement on the appointment of Chinese bishops “is not dead as some seem to have suggested” but further dialogue on the assignment of bishops “could help minimise confusion in the future”. He urged discussions on what “sinicisation” means for the Catholic Church in China. Chow said that a government official told him that “sinicisation is similar to our concept of inculturation”.
In the interview, Chow revealed that about a third of the dioceses of mainland China “are waiting their respective episcopal appointments”. He described his visit “as a bridging one on the diocese level, between Beijing and Hong Kong” and a “rekindling of collaboration”.
A demonstration in Baghdad in support of the Chaldean patriarch, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, clashed with a counter-demonstration chanting slogans attacking the cardinal in an echo of a social media campaign against him.
The original rally of 200 Iraqi Christians was an expression of support for Cardinal Sako, who has faced attacks for criticising the Babylon Movement, a political party which holds four of the five seats guaranteed to Christians under Iraq’s constitution. On Sunday, a delegation of 11 European ambassadors in Baghdad visited Cardinal Sako to express their own solidarity with him.
Churches in south-eastern Bangladesh and Myanmar reported several deaths as 155mph winds from Cyclone Mocha tore through the region last weekend, with many sheltering people in their buildings.
In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, which houses almost one million Rohingya refugees, around 1,300 makeshift shelters were damaged but there were no reports of casualties. The Bangladeshi authorities had evacuated 750,000 people from the coast ahead of the storm. In Myanmar, coastal towns were hit by a storm surge and camps for displaced Rohingya at Kyaukphyu in Rakhine state were badly damaged.
Bolivian authorities have opened an investigation into Spanish Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas, who abused dozens of young boys in a school over decades, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Pedrajas kept a diary in which he detailed not only his abuse, but how he spoke about it to victims and to superiors. Although he seems to have been punished at one time, having been sent to work in mines for a year, he was then sent back to the school for poor boys he ran in Bolivia, and continued to abuse.
His diary was discovered after his death. A nephew contacted the Bolivian Jesuits, but when he failed to see action from them he went to the press.
The Catholic University of America is introducing measures to assist pregnant women and young families who are part of its community.
Jennie Lichter, associate general counsel at the university told the National Catholic Register that last year’s Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional right to an abortion sparked an examination of “our own policy, the campus culture and physical space, to make sure we’re taking care of our own people, moms and babies especially, but, dads too, and families”.
Increasing paid family leave, on-campus pregnancy support centres and baby-sitting facilities are among the changes.
The Polish bishops' conference has said the Church will not be “taking sides” in highly-charged elections this autumn, and urged media and politicians to show “responsibility for the homeland” and avoid building “a simplified, one-sided, ideologised and sometimes partisan image of social life”.
In a statement, the bishops said the aim of the elections should be to “choose a power that enjoys the widest possible support, which will be able to serve all Poles with energy, and not to defeat, or even more so destroy, political rivals”.
The former abbot of the monastery of Mount St Bernard in Leicestershire, and present Bishop of Trondheim in Norway, Erik Varden OCSO, visited Kyiv this week alongside Cardinal Anders Arborelius, the Bishop of Stockholm, Sweden.
The two-day visit to Ukraine, expressing the “solidarity” and “deep communion” of the Church in the Scandinavian region with Ukrainians, saw the two prelates enter Kyiv on the day 15 missiles hit the city.
Writing on his website, Coram Fratibus, Bishop Varden described how moved he was to stand beneath the same dome – of St Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv – that St Olav of Norway would have visited nearly a thousand years before.
Comece, the Brussels commission representing the EU's Catholic bishops, has welcomed the withdrawal of a proposed law in Denmark, requiring Danish translations of all religious sermons.
In a statement Comece's president, Bishops Mario Crociata, said the much-criticised draft bill would have had a chilling effect on religious freedom. The law's cancellation was also welcomed by the Conference of European Churches and other denominations.
Pope Francis’s message for the World Day of Migrants in September was published last week, with the title “Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay”. It emphasises that eliminating the causes of forced migration calls for “shared commitment on the part of all”.
Francis said that “we need to make every effort to halt the arms race, economic colonialism, the plundering of other people’s resources, and the devastation of our common home”.
He called for refugees’ countries of origin “to practise good politics” and hoped migrants would be helped to avoid “unscrupulous traffickers” and find “channels for a safe and regular migration”.
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