News Briefing: global

The US Government has offered public support for the mediation efforts of DR Congo’s Catholic bishops in working peacefully towards presidential elections for a successor to President Joseph Kabila.

“We underscore our support for the discussions facilitated by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference between the political opposition and the Government of the DRC to reach a consensus path towards credible, timely elections,” said a statement from Washington last week. “We urge the DRC Government and the opposition to work with the bishops to address remaining concerns, including a timeline for presidential elections, guarantees that President Kabila will not seek another term and the Constitution will not be changed to enable one, increased independence of the national electoral commission leadership, an inclusive transitional government, and a strong independent oversight committee.” There is a fear that Mr Kabila, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term, is delaying elections until 2018 as part of a strategy to remain in power.

Colombia peace deal signed
In a low-key ceremony, President Juan Manuel Santos (left) and the FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono (right) signed a new peace deal on Thursday 24 November in a theatre in Bogota. The signing represents the end of a tumultuous several months for the Santos administration, after the original peace deal was overturned in an October plebiscite. The Colombian Episcopal Conference (CEC), which has been closely involved in the peace process, expressed its approval of the new agreement, which extends the ceasefire between the Government and FARC. “We appreciate that these recent months have become a time for listening and dialogue on Colombian people’s opinions regarding the deal reached in Havana,” read a CEC communique signed by its president, Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga. Mr Santos said MPs will debate the amended deal in Congress but it is unlikely to be taken to another referendum, as the opposition has requested.

Genocide apology ‘inadequate’
The Rwandan Government of President Paul Kagame has described a recent apology by the country’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference on the role some of its members played during the 1994 genocide as a “profound inadequacy”, and demanded an apology from the Vatican.

“As they apologise on behalf of a few unnamed individuals, the bishops appear to take the extraordinary step of exonerating the Catholic Church as a whole for any culpability in connection with the genocide,” the Government said. The bishops’ statement, read out in churches on 20 November, acknowledged that church members planned, aided and executed the genocide. Many of the 800,000 genocide victims died in churches where they had sought refuge.

Death sentences
A court in Lahore, Pakistan has handed down death sentences to five men who murdered a Christian couple two years ago after they were accused of blasphemy.

Two-year prison sentences were also given last week to eight others, who were among a 600-strong crowd present at the killings. Brick kiln workers Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi were tortured by a mob and then burned alive in a brick furnace in Punjab province on 4 November 2014, sparking international outrage. They were accused of desecrating pages of the Qu’ran. Shama was pregnant at the time of her killing, and the couple’s three children were orphaned.


The Church must help to protect women refugees and support projects that enable them to lead self-determined lives, the German bishops stated on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November. Women refugees were “particularly vulnerable” and exposed to many different forms of violence, the chairman of the conference’s pastoral commission and its sub-commission for women’s affairs, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, declared on the conference’s website. Many of the women refugees who had arrived in Germany had suffered “particularly cruel” gender-specific violence, Bode recalled.

Even after their arrival in Germany, to which they had fled, women refugees were not automatically safe. It was therefore crucial for the Church to improve the measures taken to guarantee women’s safety in refugee camps, facilitating access to shelters for battered women, providing helpers they could trust and making women who had been forced into marriage aware of their rights.

After the hurricane
The Episcopal Conferences of Nicaragua and Costa Rica both expressed solidarity with the families affected by Hurricane Otto in Central America as local parishes take part in relief efforts. The Costa Rican Episcopal Conference wrote in a press release: “We are preparing to reach out a helping hand for recovery in these painful situations. We will make a call for the community of God to manifest this solidarity.” The category-two hurricane made landfall in Nicaragua on Tuesday last week with winds of 120 km per hour. Four deaths were reported in Nicaragua and nine in Costa Rica.  

The stabbing to death of a woman staff member in a southern French retirement home for Catholic missionaries appears to be part of a botched robbery attempt by a former employee, local public prosecutor Christophe Barret said. The unemployed suspect, 47, broke into the home in Montferrier-sur-Lez, near Montpellier, on 24 November and stabbed a 54-year-old laundrywoman to death after she tore off his balaclava.
 
Pope Francis hosted Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang (above left) at the Vatican last week as the two discussed improving diplomatic relations. The Vatican said the states were “constantly searching for ways to develop relations even further”, but did not comment on the possible re-establishment of diplomatic ties, dissolved in 1975 when the communist North overran South Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Vietnam National Assembly has ratified a law regulating religious activities. Faith groups fear they will be required to register with authorities and inform them of their activities .

Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, a former Superior General of the Jesuits who led the order through a turbulent period of tension with the Vatican, died last Saturday, four days before his 88th birthday. In 2008, after leading the Jesuits for 25 years, he became an assistant librarian at a university in Beirut.