Jordan’s king wins prize
King Abdullah II of Jordan has won the 2018 Templeton Prize for promoting dialogue and co-operation between Muslims of different traditions.
The King (pictured above, with Queen Rania) “has led a reclamation of Islam’s moderate theological narrative from the distortions of radicalism”, the John Templeton Foundation said last week. The annual prize honours “a person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension”. King Abdullah’s 2004 “Amman Message” articulated “a clear understanding of the central elements of Islam, and affirmed that terrorism and violence have no place in the religion”, the foundation said.
The Archbishop of Paderborn, Hans-Josef Becker, has announced that the “orientation aid for inter-denominational married couples” – which two-thirds of the German bishops voted for at their February plenary – will be put into immediate effect in his archdiocese.
“Inter-church couples and their families are close to our hearts, as is ecumenism,” Becker told the Westfalen-Blatt on 30 June. He told the clergy at a meeting of the archdiocesan priests’ council that pastoral accompaniment would be offered to inter-church couples in the archdiocese who wanted to receive the Catholic Eucharist together. He asked his priests “to study the orientation aid thoroughly and to prepare to act in a pastorally responsible way”. The offer was not “connected to a general permission to receive the Eucharist”, he stressed.
Ukraine bloodshed warning
A Russian Orthodox leader has warned of bloodshed in Ukraine if Ukrainian Orthodox clergy attempt to seize churches and monasteries loyal to the Russian Orthodox Patriarch. “Some 50 churches of the canonical Ukrainian Church have already been taken illegally by schismatics – Orthodox Christians are being subjected to violence,” said Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations director. “Imagine what will happen if these schismatics now start taking over monasteries. Thousands of people will come together to defend them and blood will be shed. All means should be used to prevent this.”
The 51-year-old spoke as a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople prepared to visit Moscow to discuss Ukrainian demands for a united Orthodox Church that is ecclesiastically independent of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Working hours plan's 'contempt' for families
The Austrian bishops’ conference has sharply criticised the Austrian Government’s plans to introduce a 12-hour working day. “According to the Austrian Concordat, the planned changes violate the international obligations of the Austrian Republic and are dubious constitutionally,” the bishops said in statement published on 28 June, adding that planning such comprehensive changes without proper procedures “shows contempt for family life with serious consequences for the social order”.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn later appealed to the Government to keep the Sabbath holy. “Please do not touch Sunday,” he wrote in his weekly column in the Viennese free paper Heute on 29 June, one day before 80,000 people in Vienna demonstrated against the Government’s plans.
Retired bishop faces trial
A retired bishop of Orléans, André Fort, aged 82, is to face trial in France for failing to report to the civil authorities a priest under his responsibility accused of the sexual abuse of minors. The priest will also face trial with Fort, who was Bishop of Orléans from 2002 to 2010. Fort’s successor, the current bishop, Jacques Blaquart, reported the offending priest after he took over the diocese. The case could come to trial before the end of the year.
France’s National Assembly has removed religious organisations from its list of special interest lobbies, which means that faith leaders no longer have to report their visits to deputies to discuss current issues. The topic became divisive within the government of President Emmanuel Macron because the French parliament is soon to debate reform of its bioethics law amid a determined campaign by the Catholic Church to avoid any liberalisation.
The Church has long protested against being classified as a lobby group, arguing that it defends the common good rather than any particular interests.
Celebration postponed
Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh announced the postponement of a planned 175th anniversary celebration of the foundation of the diocese. The decision comes ahead of a grand jury report detailing sex abuse by clergy in Pittsburgh and five other dioceses in Pennsylvania. Papal nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre, was to have attended Mass at the celebration on 29 July.
Catholic bishops in Uganda are opposing a syllabus that the Government launched in March to educate children in public schools about their sexuality. The bishops say that they will not allow the policy to be implemented in the almost 800 schools that the Catholic Church runs or founded unless it is reviewed.
Archbishop John Baptist Odama says the Church supports positive, age-appropriate, culturally and religiously sensitive sex education that is guided by moral and Christian values.
South Sudanese Catholic clergy are hoping that the latest ceasefire agreement will mark the return of peace to their country, where years of conflict have caused a huge humanitarian crisis.
President Salva Kiir and the former Vice President turned rebel leader, Riek Machar, signed the ceasefire declaration in Khartoum on 27 June. At least two million people have fled from South Sudan to neighbouring countries and over four million are internally displaced.
“I think the intention is positive and we hope they will implement the agreement,” said Fr James Oyet Latansio, a Catholic priest who is also the general secretary of the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC), an ecumenical grouping of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches.
The ceasefire requires the factions to open humanitarian corridors, disengage and separate forces in close proximity, and release prisoners of war and political detainees.
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