News Briefing: Church in the World

A bishop warned that Nigeria’s neighbours could not handle the number of refugees should war break out in the country. 

The Bishop of Makurdi Wilfred Anagbe was speaking 12 March at a Congressional hearing at the US Senate on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, and the need to designate the African nation as a Country of Particular Concern. Anagbe said Christians in Nigeria have for decades been under assault from terrorist groups who have perpetrated massacres of Christian communities. 

Days later, the Diocese of Auchi in Edo State reported that Andrew Peters, a seminarian abducted earlier this month, had been murdered by his kidnappers.  Bishop Anagbe told the US committee of “a long-term Islamic agenda to homogenise the population”, explaining that this has been implemented over several presidencies “through a strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity of half of the population”. 

On 24 March, a priest was kidnapped in Imo State, hours after another priest who had been kidnapped in Anambra State was rescued by police.

Ghana’s bishops called for more collaboration between Catholic mission schools and government, in a statement issued after the National Catholic Education Forum met from on 10-15 March. 

They also appealed for the inclusion of Catholic education officials in the management of the sector. It followed a series of recent complaints from the Ghanaian bishops’ conference that the government was excluding the Church from education consultations. 

“Collaboration between the State and the Churches in the management of schools dates far back to 1852,” the bishops said. “The Catholic Church acknowledges that education is an onerous task that requires collective effort, and thus proper partnership, with well-defined roles, will ensure effective education delivery in the country.” 

They recommended the appointment of a Church representative to the Ministerial Advisory Board of Education and the Ghana Education Council, for “a more transparent, fair and acceptable system” that will “reverse the current situation of resource allocation imbalance”.

Members of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Diocese of Kumbo in Cameroon’s war-torn North West region decried the rise in human trafficking driven by the separatist crisis in the country’s two English-speaking regions. 

During a workshop in Yaoundé that brought together lawyers, judges, journalists and the civil society, Lukong Isidore, the deputy diocesan coordinator of the commission with responsibility for trafficking in persons, said conflict had displaced millions and forced over 800,000 children out of school, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation. 

Describing the diocese as “a catchment area”, Lunkong said women and girls are forced into servitude in other towns within the country, or face even harsher treatment in neighbouring countries. “We conducted a survey in Yaoundé, Bamenda, Bafoussam, and Douala, and discovered that many children and young girls from Kumbo diocese are being exploited. Some are found in bars, nightclubs, and other similar establishments, often subjected to sexual exploitation,” Lunkong told The Tablet. He said the traffickers are often people well known to the victims: family members, friends and pastors. 

Kembo Takam Gatsing Hermine, the director of Human Rights and International Cooperation at the Ministry of Justice, complained that many of the victims hardly get justice, partly because they fail to come forward and because of the onerous cost of court cases. She said only 60 human trafficking cases made it to the courts in the past 10 years.

Cameroon bishops condemn separatist violence

Human trafficking – listen, dream, act

Ahead of Gabon’s presidential election on 12 April, Church leaders urged citizens to support “servant leadership” to address the country’s problems. 

General Brice Oligui Nguema, who took power in a bloodless coup on 30 August 2023, called the election to secure a popular mandate. Since the coup, he has led a Transitional Council and will now compete against three other candidates: Alain Claude Bilie By Nze, a former prime minister of Gabon, Joseph Lapensee Essingone, a lawyer and tax inspector, and Dr Stephane Germain Iloko Boussengui, a former spokesperson for the Gabonese Democratic Party. 

Speaking to Vatican News, Bishop Mathieu Madega of Mouila referred to the coup as a “liberation”, noting its role in ending the Bongo dynasty’s half-century rule. The bishop said the Church supports any leader committed to serving the nation. 

Next month’s election marks the final phase of a transition that began with the coup and included the adoption of a new constitution, introducing a seven-year presidential term, renewable once consecutively. While General Oligui Nguema enjoys significant support, it is not universal and he as faced accusations of “authoritarian” leadership. “There are always individuals with differing perspectives and opinions,” Bishop Madega said.

Bishop Sithembele Anton Sipuka of Umtata said more needed to be done for the country to fully recognise human rights for all in a message on South Africa’s Human Rights Day on 21 March – the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1976. 

“We must confront the harsh reality that many citizens still endure violations of their rights,” Bishop Sipuka said, in a video published by his diocese. “As advocates for social justice, let us create a society that values and respects everyone by celebrating our differences to build a more inclusive and compassionate nation,” he said, observing that South Africa’s extreme inequality fails to reflect the promises of the post-apartheid constitution to meet basic human rights. 

“Challenges such as high unemployment strip individuals of their dignity, he said. “Gender-based violence devastates families.  Abuse of elderly people often goes unaddressed. Discrimination based on sexual orientation remains prevalent, and incidents of bullying in our schools continue to occur”. Bishop Sipuka also called for the “building of a compassionate nation” to ensure that “human rights abuses as exemplified by the Sharpeville tragedy do not recur”.

Catholic bishops joined other local churches to condemn attacks on Christian leaders by Zambian government officials and their use of “demeaning language”. This followed comments by a government spokesperson who is accused of intimidating a Catholic bishop for criticising the ruling party for doing little to alleviate people’s suffering. 

“We note that the prevailing environment in the country is politically charged, hence the importance of taking time to form a well-informed and comprehensive position on the prevailing matters in the nation and commenting on them,” said the 19 March statement issued by the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Council of Churches in Zambia and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia. 

“We also observe that Church leaders, in the course of fulfilling their role of providing checks and balances, have been subjected to unpalatable remarks with no consequences,” they said. “We strongly object to demeaning language used against Church leaders.  We believe that is essential to uphold the dignity of all people.”

The head of the Church in South Sudan urged clergy in his diocese to foster dialogue and inculturation and so accept the people’s “ways of adoring God”. 

The Archbishop of Juba Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Mulla was speaking on 14 March at the end of a five-day spiritual retreat for priests. He urged them not to preach in the abstract but to bring the Gospel home, because people “need to understand” its message. 

“Our Church must be open.  We, as priests of that Church, of that local Church, must be open to the people, ready to dialogue with them, and willing to accept their ways of adoring God. That is why it is important to have inculturation,” the archbishop said. 

Urging the clergy to bring the Gospel “down to earth” so people could better understand, he warned against using religion as a weapon to oppress people, and called for a symphony of brotherhood among the clergy and between the clergy and the people of God.

‘Give peace a chance,’ churches urge South Sudan leaders

Postcard from Yaoundé

Pope Francis prayed for “tormented” Sudan in his Angelus message last Sunday. On 21 March, nearly two years after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took the capital Khartoum, the Sudanese army recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum and other key sites in the capital.  

Fighting between the army and the RSF has killed more than 150,000 people and triggered the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises, forcing around 12 million people to flee their homes and leaving 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Video footage on social media on Monday showed extensive damage to the Khartoum Evangelical Church, after RSF mercenaries used it as a military barracks and looted its contents.

The Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia, responsible for the Church in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen, said that “weapons seem to prevail over diplomacy” after US President Donald Trump launched large-scale military strikes against Iran-aligned Houthis on 15 March. More than 80 Yemenis have been killed since then and hundreds injured.

Bishop Paolo Martinelli said the US attack came “significantly close to the increasingly fragile truce between Israel and Hamas” which then collapsed overnight between 17 and 18 March. The truce “had favoured a certain calm and cautious optimism”, he said. 

Analysing the US renewed military offensive and the Houthi response at commercial shipping in the Red Sea in support of Hamas in Gaza, Bishop Martinelli warned that if it became “an open and large-scale conflict it will be a cause of deep pain for the possible consequences on civilians”. He said that Yemenis “have been burdened by 10 years of civil war.”

One third of Syrians wounded or killed by landmines are children, according to a report from Cafod, which recorded a 400 per cent increase in the rate of injuries or fatalities in the first two months of 2025. 

“Civilians are continuing to pay the highest price in Syria,” said Hombeline Dulière, programme manager for Cafod’s Syria Crisis Response. “Syria’s recovery requires a sustainable approach to aid, to enable Syrians to rebuild their communities, foster resilience, and create self-reliance,” she said, and particularly called for “investment in infrastructure to help rebuild and restore essential service provision”. 

Syria’s country director for Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), Fr Vincent De Beaucoudrey SJ, reported last week that the prevailing atmosphere is “uncertainty” and “severe economic crisis”.

Cafod reports worsening toll of landmines in Syria

Syrian patriarchs beg government to stop massacres

The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) called for “ecological conversion” ahead of the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the climate crisis on 24 May. In a pastoral letter dated 15 March, the FABC said “ecological tragedies” such as deforestation and rising sea levels “affect Asia’s poorest and most vulnerable communities”. It continued: “Let this Lenten season be an occasion for us to examine our consciences and humbly admit our sins against God’s creation.  Let it be an opportunity for us to respond to God’s call to ecological conversion.”

The president of Peru’s Episcopal Commission on Family, Children, and Life said “we must all unite, the authorities first and foremost, jointly to defend, promote, and strengthen public policies and concrete actions that firmly protect the lives of Peruvians”.  

Bishop Guillermo Elías Millares, an auxiliary in Lima, spoke after a surge in contract and extortion killings that have included the murder of Paul Flores, a popular singer. Rising violence prompted President Dina Boluarte to declare a state of emergency in the capital. 

Bishop Millares said a healthy society depends on “well-established families” where “a person, from childhood, receives the first notions of truth and goodness”. The family “constitutes the integral formation of a country’s future citizens,” he said, and “without a family, there is no society worthy of the name of humane.”

The rector of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer monument called for changes in its administration after a Brazilian tourist died during a visit on 16 March, reportedly due to the lack of medical services.  

The man had a heart attack while climbing steps up to the base of the statue, and his family later complained that the monument did not have an ambulance nor adequate medical services. Local authorities closed the site, which reopened on 18 March after the Catholic rectory at the sanctuary hired an ambulance for the complex to offer medical support.  

Fr Omar Raposo, the sanctuary’s rector, reported that the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro hoped management could either be transferred to the archdiocese or that the park around the statue can come under the responsibility of the city municipality.

The president of the Haitian bishops’ conference asked the international community for help to save the lives of Haitians facing widespread violence and being forced from their homes without any possessions.  

“Don’t get tired of Haiti,” Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor of Port-au-Prince said last week. “Blood flows every day in Haiti, children die, the elderly are gunned down, entire neighbourhoods are burned and destroyed.”

The archbishop continued: “Please do not delay, because we are on the brink of disaster.” He said the Kenyan-led, UN-backed police support mission that sought to pacify the country as “a great disappointment”. Mésidor called for “a clear security plan” and “continued commitment” from decision-makers for the mission to be truly successful. 

Despite the violence, the Catholic Church “is trying to support the displaced by providing food, drinking water, medicine, and clothing”. Mésidor emphasised that Haitians urgently need “effective aid and clear solidarity”.

He reflected: “It’s true that there are many international meetings and debates about Haiti, but we don’t really see their impact.  Please help us save the lives of a population practically abandoned to fend for itself.”

Attacks on Church personnel and institutions in Haiti

Pax Christi joins bishops’ demand for response to Haitian crisis

The conservative group “Catholics for Catholics” (CFC) drew hundreds to Mar-a-Lago, United States President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach private club and residence, for a prayer event on the Feast of St Joseph.

The event was advertised as a chance to “give thanks to God and to implore His help for the many battles ahead”. Speakers included the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland – who was asked to step down by Pope Francis in 2023 – and pro-life activists who were imprisoned under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by the Biden administration.  

Despite CFC’s campaign to offer over 2,000 Masses for President Trump, the event was neither authorised nor endorsed by the President with CFC having to pay for exclusive use of the venue.

The group’s president John Yep said that he wanted Catholics to gather at Mar-a-Lago because “the place where you pray is also very important”, adding that “we want to go to the home of the current president, President Donald Trump”. 

Despite reports that Florida’s bishops had banned their priests from attending the event, CFC thanked Bishop Gerald Barbarito of Palm Beach on social media for “his support”.

Vice President J.D. Vance gave a guided tour of the White House on St. Patrick’s Day to Dominican Fr Henry Stephan.

A video of the two men starting the tour in the White House briefing room was posted on social media by a Republican Catholic advocacy group. Many Catholics flock to the White House for its St Patrick’s Day party after the annual Mass at St Patrick’s Church, located a few blocks away. 

According to the National Catholic Register, Fr Stephan baptised Vance at St Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2019, one year after Vance and his family moved to that city.

During law school, another Dominican, Fr Dominic Legge, had befriended Vance and introduced him to Stephan when the future vice president moved to Cincinnati. Stephan is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame.

The priorities of J.D.Vance

The dignity of ignorance

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) sent a written appeal to the federal government, urging it not to adopt budget recommendations that would strip charitable status from “anti-abortion” and “advancement of religion” non-profit organisations. 

The CCCB said a clearer stance on the concerns is required soon, noting that “40 per cent of all charitable organisations in Canada are faith-based”. The bishops said depriving these organisations of charitable status “would decrease donations, causing their revenue to dwindle, thus crippling their ability to inspire, operate, and maintain essential social services that benefit the wider community”.  

Among the 14 signatories to the letter were the CCCB’s president Bishop William McGrattan of Calgary and vice-president Bishop Pierre Goudreault of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière. 

Chalice, a Canadian Catholic international child sponsorship charity headquartered in Nova Scotia, is one of the organisations registered with the Canada Revenue Agency that would be affected by the change. Its founder and president Fr Patrick Cosgrove said the recommendations “reveal a negative bias against religion that is not supported by the evidence that active faith and the practice of religion have a measurably positive impact on society and the individual”.

A series of 60 bus and walking routes across Spain will introduce taxpayers to the social and spiritual initiatives the Church funds through an optional tax.  

The bus route is called the Linea 105 XTantos, a name echoing the number on the Spanish tax form which Spaniards can make with an “X” if they want 0.7 per cent of their tax to go to Church. The voluntary donation is used to fund social and spiritual projects.  

Of 15 tax-payers aged 19-64 who took part in a pilot version of the Linea 105 XTantos route in Valladold, only three had previously ticked the Church tax box, but 14 decided to do so after visiting projects including assisted living for undocumented migrants, accompaniment of the elderly, centres offering food, washing facilities and spiritual and psychological support for the homeless, a parish that acts as a social lifeline for residents of a remote rural village, and a retreat and spirituality house. 

Each diocese in Spain will select 15 participants who apply to the scheme to travel a route tailored to the projects of the local Church. The 0.7 per cent voluntary tax was established by an agreement between Spain and the Vatican in 2006.

A Jesuit safeguarding expert warned that artificial intelligence poses a “risk” and an “opportunity” for children. Fr Hans Zollner said: “Artificial intelligence has many positive aspects, which we all utilise, whether we know it or not”.

He continued: “However, it also has many risk factors, especially for children, young people and other vulnerable groups. For example, the fact that it is much easier to manipulate and influence children, or the fact they that they come into contact with content such as pornography or are exposed to terrorist or extreme political views.”  

A former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Zollner helped organise a Vatican conference on “Risks and Opportunities of AI for children”, held from 21-22 March by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the World Childhood Foundation and the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Praying for ‘no more empty shoes’ alongside survivors of child sexual abuse

Robots, drones and smart churches – Catholic Social Teaching and the Artificial Intelligence Revolution

The Pope named the Filipino prelate Archbishop Bernadito Auza as apostolic nuncio the European Union, succeeding Archbishop Noel Treanor who died in August 2024.

The Austrian bishops held their spring plenary in a Benedictine abbey in neighbouring Hungary, underlining the close ties that persist between the two parts of the former empire.  

Their visit began in the north-western city of Győr, where the Austrians met local Bishop Andras Veres, head of the Hungarian bishops’ conference. His Austrian counterpart, the Archbishop of Salzburg Franz Lackner OFM, said they wanted to increase cooperation with neighbouring countries. 

They then travelled 20km south to Pannonhalma Archabbey, founded in 966. Archabbbott Cirill Hortobágyi OSB said in a sermon that the Church was often seen as being divided between reformists and traditionalists. “Here in Hungary, we have both,” he said. “But most people aren’t interested in either and have no thirst for Christ.” 

Many judge the Church only by its number of worshipers or renovated church buildings, he said, but it should not be “terrorised by numbers”. The last census in 2022 showed a 30-percentage point drop in Hungarian Catholics over the previous 10 years, to 29 percent of the population. Some 40 per cent of people did not even answer the question of religious identity. 

In traditionally Catholic Austria, the Church fell from 64 percent of the population in the 2011 census to 52 percent in 2022.  Figures for regular Mass attendance are considerably lower.

The number of lay Catholics and bishops has increased worldwide but there are fewer priests, according to data from the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of Catholics worldwide increased by 1.15 per cent, from 1.39 billion to 1.406 billion.  

There are now 5,430 bishops worldwide, an increase of just over one per cent.  By the end of 2023, the number of priests worldwide had decreased by 734 to 406,996, according to figures released in the 2023 Pontifical Yearbook 2025 and the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023.

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