Ten people including three children died during a baptism in Mexico when the roof of the church collapsed. Dozens more were trapped in the rubble of the Church of Santa Cruz in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas.
Trained dogs were sent to find survivors in the ruins of the church in Ciudad Madero but attempts to use cranes to lift sections of the roof were abandoned for fear they might break drop debris on survivors. At least 60 of the 100 guests attending the baptism were injured, including a four-month-old baby and three five-year-old children, according to the Diocese of Tampico. Twenty-three people are in hospital. Two have life-threatening injuries.
“May the Lord help all of us and may he be our strength in this painful situation,” said the Bishop of Tampico José Armando Álvarez.
The Mexican Bishops’ Conference, together with the Jesuits and the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious of Mexico, have launched a Citizen Accord for Peace, which aims to “overcome the dynamics of violence and destruction of the social fabric” in the country. They will also present a National Peace Agenda to all candidates for public office running in the 2024 elections.
“Peace is a joint effort at different levels and with all social sectors,” said a joint statement. It warned against “the fear that affects us due to the indolence and ineffectiveness of the authorities, who have not attended to their main task of seeking unity, security, justice, and peace in the country”.
Archbishop Carlos Garfias Merlos of Morelia and Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar Martínez of San Cristóbal de las Casas are among the Church leaders supporting peace and mediation education, trying to tackle insecurity, terror and gang violence raging in many parts of Mexico.
Cafod has welcomed a Brazilian Supreme Court ruling in favour of a case brought by indigenous peoples, rejecting time restrictions on claiming rights to ancestral lands. On 22 September the court affirmed the indigenous rights against an agribusiness-backed attempt to prevent communities claiming land they did not physically occupy in 1988.
Fergus Conmee, Cafod’s Director of International Programmes, described the ruling as “a landmark moment”. He said: “I was in the Amazon in July this year, meeting with indigenous human right defenders who fight daily to protect their land from encroachment and destruction, and I hope this news will galvanise other indigenous groups who are enduring similar battles.”
A priest and writer has called the rising rate of suicide in South Korea “a tragedy in our society”. Writing last month in a newsletter published by Korean bishops’ conference, Fr Cho Seung-hyeon highlighted that over the past 20 years the country has recorded the highest suicide rate among developed countries, with the number of suicides in the first half of this year greater than last year. “We need to build a society that is a community of mutual love and solidarity rather than a place of endless free competition, where everyone thinks only of their own selfish survival,” he said.
Thousands of displaced people in Myanmar’s eastern state of Kayah are being denied access to aid by the country’s ruling junta, according to local reports. Fighting has intensified in recent months in the mountainous region between the military and ethnic armed groups, with dozens of churches hit by airstrikes and shelling and nearly 250,000 people displaced.
“Gunfire and artillery shelling are heard every day and there is an increase in the number of displaced persons taking shelter in church compounds,” a Church source reported to UCA News from Loikaw, the state capital. “The Church is trying its best to provide food, shelter, and medicines to the displaced people amid restrictions and rising commodity prices.” Bishop Celso Ba Shwe of Loikaw, in Kayah, has asked Catholics to pray the Rosary for peace during October.
“Each day, the people of Myanmar are enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes,” Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council on 26 September. Turk called the violence “inhumanity in its vilest form” and said that airstrikes, mass killings, and burning of villages were being systematically directed against the civilian population.
Hindu activists have accused a Christian school in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh of disrespecting a Hindu god, demanding a police investigation of its principal.
A mob gathered at the gate of St Mary’s Convent School in Deori on 26 September to protest the alleged removal of a sketch of Hindu god Ganesh from the notice board. Some protesters forced their way into the office of the principal Sr Sarita Joseph and questioned her. The move “seems to be part of a well-orchestrated conspiracy to target our school”, she said.
Christian leaders suspect a broader strategy to create communal discord ahead of state elections, to unite Hindu voters in support of the ruling party. Christians make up less than one per cent of the state’s population. The school is run by the nuns of the Congregation of Jesus in the Sagar diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church.
More than 100 people died and many more were injured after a fire broke out during a Syriac Catholic wedding in Iraq. A building in Qaraqosh, the most important Christian town in the Nineveh Plain, caught light after fireworks were set off during wedding celebrations on 26 September.
The Patriarch of Babylon Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, called the deaths “a tragedy” and said “it is clear that the structure was not up to standard”. The Archbishop of Erbil Bashar Warda said: “What was to be a time of joy has now turned into a whole community into mourning and deep shock.” Pope Francis sent a telegram to the families of the victims conveying his “heartfelt condolences”.
African bishops have sent a joint message of support to the victims of the earthquake and floods which have hit Morocco and Libya.
“We would like to express our complete solidarity with you while assuring you of our prayers at this difficult time,” said the statement dated 25 September, signed by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo on behalf of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. “May the God of mercy welcome into his eternal home those who have lost their lives and grant comfort and consolation to the bereaved families.”
Patriarch Abune Mathias of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has denounced the use of destructive weapons in Ethiopia and called for peace and national unity. Speaking in his message for Ethiopian New Year, he called for a conscious effort to to resolve the problems of the past year.
“In the new year, all weapons which take human lives must go into the storehouse,” he said. “The sovereignty, independence and unity of the country and the people must be upheld by resolving problems through discussion or by law.”
Last week, UN-appointed investigators warned that more atrocities were likely to be carried out in Ethiopia and called for continued scrutiny of Addis Ababa’s human rights record. Thousands of people died in a brutal two-year conflict between the government and regional forces from Tigray, which formally came to an end in November 2022.
Gunmen from an Anglophone separatist militia stormed the school of St Martin of Tour’s parish, Kembong in Cameroon’s south-western Diocese of Mafme injuring teachers and a priest. Fr Elvis Mbangsi reportedly received multiple fractures on both hands and legs.
Fr Innocent Wefon Akum of the Mill Hill Missionary Society said the attack came in the middle of the day on 26 September, with the militia driving into the school grounds on bikes and ordering the priest and teachers to sit down before they began shooting. He added that a Kenyan-born priest, Fr Cosman Ombato Ondari, had been shot and killed in the same parish in June 2020.
Last week, the Archbishop of Bamenda Andrew Nkea told Vatican News that the conflict with Anglophone separatists was “misunderstood as a crisis of language” but was really “a crisis of culture and a crisis of belonging” in which the Church strived to have a reconciliatory role.
Bishop Marcelin Yao Kouadio of Daloa, president of the Episcopal Conference of Ivory Coast, has described emigration as “an unfortunate reality to the extent that African countries…are immensely rich, but their inhabitants cannot benefit from these riches”.
Ivory Coast is the world’s leading producer of cocoa, “but those who grow it in Ivory Coast do not have the means to buy the chocolate that you advertise in Europe”, he said. He pointed out that Ivory Coast is the third largest producer of coffee in the world and exports gold and diamonds.
“The same goes for other African countries,” he said, “their children are forced to die in the cemetery that the Mediterranean has become and it is a tragedy.” Almost 8,000 migrants from Ivory Coast have arrived in Italy this year. “The Church tries to make young people aware of the risks associated with leaving,” said Bishop Kouadio.
Pope Francis’ visit to Marseille on 22-23 September left such a deficit that the priest responsible for financing it has appealed to the faithful for further contributions.
“We expected, on average, a donation of €10 per faithful, therefore €500,000. We got closer to the usual averages, that is to say, a donation of around €4,” Fr Romain Louge told RTL radio. “We have a deficit of €600,000 out of a total budget of €2.5 million. We are indeed calling for donations to be able to cover our costs for this papal visit.”
The priest said individual donations made up only part of the bill for the visit, with contributions from the archdiocese and large donors. Louge said he hoped contributions would come from all of France, saying the pontiff – who had specifically said he was visiting Marseille and not France – had welcomed all of France. “All donations are welcome,” he said, adding that they were tax-exempt.
The proportion of people in Poland identifying as Roman Catholic has fallen to 71 per cent in the latest national census, down from 88 per cent a decade earlier. The new data, released by Statistics Poland (GUS), a state agency, show that in the 2021 census, 27.1 million people said they were Catholics, down from 33.7 million in 2011.
Among young Poles, the decline was even more dramatic, with 23 per cent practising regularly in 2021. Last year, Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Poznan called the decline in religious practice among young Poles “devastating”.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, has said that President Joe Biden is ignoring his calls about the “tragic, broken” migrant system in the US, which has landed tens of thousands of migrants and refugees into New York City, filling shelters to capacity.
“He doesn’t take my calls or answer my letters,” the cardinal told the New York Post. “Every day hundreds come in,” Dolan said. “We look them in the eyes, get their names, and we love them and we say, ‘You’re part of us now, you’re not a number.’” However, he said the archdiocese was overwhelmed.
New York’s shelter system currently has more than 60,000 migrants in its care. The authorities have called for increased support from the federal government and have partnered with faith-based organisations to house migrants. The Archdiocese of New York has ten accommodation facilities and is also providing legal assistance, schooling, and healthcare.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest diocese in the US, entered into bankruptcy proceedings days before a new law takes effect, lifting the statute of limitations for allegations of child sex abuse.
Lifting the statute of limitations allows victims to sue those who abused them and the organisations that covered up their crimes, exposing dioceses to millions of dollars in settlements. Critics claim the legal recourse to bankruptcy merely allows the Church to shield incriminating documents from the public.
“It’s just a further locking of the file cabinet doors to keep victims from seeing the full weight and scope of wrongdoing,” said Rob Jenner, an attorney representing alleged victims, told the Associated Press.
Archbishop William Lori disagreed: “Staggering legal fees and large settlements or jury awards for a few victim-survivors would have depleted our financial resources, leaving the vast majority of victim-survivors without compensation, while ending ministries that families across Maryland rely on for material and spiritual support.”
A new survey has found that two-thirds of all US Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, contradicting the findings of a 2019 Pew Research which found only one-third of Catholics believed the Church’s teaching.
The 2019 survey was frequently cited in support of the two-year Eucharistic Revival that will culminate in a National Eucharistic Congress to be held in Indianapolis next July. The Pew study was faulted for offering a confusing set of answers to a single question on what Catholics believe about the Eucharist.
The Cara survey asked several questions, including some open-ended questions to which respondents could did not choose among options, but offered their own response. After looking at the responses “collectively” the Cara researchers concluded that 64 per cent of those surveyed “provided responses that indicate they believe in the Real Presence”.
A lawyer in the Vatican’s “trial of the century” said 10 people accused of financial crimes treated the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) “like a cash machine which always had to respond positively to their requests”.
One of the accused is Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former papal chief of staff who from 2011-2018 was second in command at the Secretariat of State.
Roberto Lipari, a lawyer representing the IOR, also known as the Vatican Bank, urged a panel of judges to compel the accused to refund $735 million (around £605 million) which he said was squandered through illicit “speculative investments” – including the purchase of a £298-million former Harrods’ warehouse in London in 2014.
An inscription saying “Jesus Christ, guard me for I am poor and needy” in New Testament Greek has been found by archaeologists in the Judean desert. The words echo the first lines of Psalm 86, “Hear me, Lord and answer me for I am poor and needy”.
The inscription was discovered at Hyrcania, a hill-top fortress near Jerusalem which became a monastery in 492AD. Grammatical errors in the wording indicate the author “was not a native Greek speaker, but likely someone from the region who was raised speaking a Semitic language,” according to Avner Ecker of Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
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