News Briefing: Church in the World

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) threatened to withdraw from the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), established in 2013 to improve relations between Christians and Muslims, because of its failure to respond to attacks on Christians across the country. 

After an emergency meeting in the northern part of the country recently, CAN leaders raised concerns over the continuous killings of Christians, particularly church pastors. On 4 August, a pastor of the Church of Christ in Nations was killed in Plateau State. 

“NIREC was established to promote harmony among both the Christians and the Muslims,” one CAN leader told The Tablet. “However, we are daily faced with continuous attacks and outright killings of our people by the other people from the other side.  We have raised these concerns during our meetings severally, but these killings and attacks have not abated.” 

The source continued: “If NIREC cannot work, we will pull out of it as we cannot see its relevance in the lives of our people.”

A bishop in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo urged young people not to join the many armed groups driving violence in the region.  

“You do not build a nation with a Kalashnikov,” Bishop Sosthène Ayikuli Udjuwa of Mahagi-Nioka in Ituri told young Catholics from his diocese gathered in Mahagi from 31 July to 3 August for a youth meeting.

Addressing the political and administrative authorities, the bishop emphasised that “concrete measures for the benefit of young people are needed: education, employment, and security”. On 1 August, the square in front of Mahagi Cathedral was transformed into a space for spiritual and social dialogue, focusing on a message of peace. 

Children at a summer camp in Ituri were among 40 people killed in a church massacre by Islamist militants on 27 July.

Africa’s Catholic bishops set out a six-point pastoral approach to engage individuals and families in polygamous situations without compromising Church teaching on marriage. 

The proposals confirmed last week include welcoming people in polygamous unions into Church communities, ensuring they feel included, providing special support for widows, emphasising conversion as a primary goal, broadening the concept of fecundity beyond biological parenthood to include charity, and implementing family-focused catechesis.  

Sr Esther Lucas Jose Maria DC, who presented the document to the plenary meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, said these approaches aim to create space for encounter with Christ rather than imposing immediate solutions.  

“We have told the bishops that we have many people who are living in polygamous situation who come to ask for Baptism or other Sacraments, and sometimes we have no answer to them,” she said in her address on the document “Accompaniment of Persons in Polygamous Situations”. 

She explained: “As theologians we have to think about it, to reflect about it, and to give the pastoral ways and to help these people.”  

The approach, she said, allows men in polygamous situations to discern their path forward through exposure to Scripture and participation in liturgical life, rather than forcing them to choose between wives as a condition for participation in the Church.

Bishop Pio Hipunyati of Ondjiva issued a warning against witchcraft beliefs, describing them as “the spirit of evil and the embodiment of evil” that directly threatens Christian faith. 

Speaking at the conclusion of a two-day seminar for pastoral agents in Angola, the bishop emphasised that “believing in witchcraft is a lack of faith” and allowing oneself to be led by witchdoctors is to abandon the faith. 

“Witchcraft causes pain and hatred in families, disrupts family relationships, and damages communal life,” he said. “How many families have been destroyed by belief in witchcraft?”

Bishop Hipunyati said accusations of witchcraft are usually driven by envy and unfounded suspicion. “Those accused of witchcraft are always successful people. Have you ever seen a poor person accused of being a witch?” he asked. “The persistence of belief in witchcraft shows that many Christians have yet to develop a secure and firm faith. This attitude weakens Christian witness.” 

Belief in witchcraft has been a long-standing social problem in Angola. Last year, around 50 people died after being forced to drink an herbal potion to prove they were not sorcerers. 

Bishop Hipunyati urged Christians to flee sin and evil, including witchcraft, and to build trust in Christ. “The sacraments strengthen faith – they are not mere social rituals. Receiving them is a commitment to live according to faith. Sacraments are acts of faith, celebrated and lived with faith,” he said.

A South African bishop said the recent expulsion of priests from the country after they were denied work permits can be traced to xenophobia that continues to plague the country. 

Two priests from Uganda posted to work in South Africa expressed frustration when they were denied work visas despite spirited efforts to continue their pastoral work. They were forced to leave the country. 

“We are having many problems at the moment, not only about priests not being able to renew their visas,” said Cardinal Stephen Brislin of Johannesburg. 

“With the rise of xenophobia in South Africa the government is trying to show that they’re really toughening up on immigrants coming in from other countries, particularly African countries unfortunately, and therefore some people have become rather overzealous and priests and religious sisters, religious brothers are being refused their visas.”

Nearly 60,000 people have fled Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province after a wave of attacks by jihadists linked to Islamic State.  

Fr Kwiriwi Fonseca, of the Diocese of Pemba in Cabo Degado, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that children have been abducted, saying “this aimless war only kills, kills, kills, and takes away the little hope that the people – especially the children – had”. He said that “these children deserve to have a better future”. 

Human Rights Watch reported last month that the armed group had “ramped up abductions of children”, using them as fighters or for labour or marriage. The agency said using children under the age of 15 to participate in hostilities constitutes a war crime.

Young artists and artisans from Africa have been invited to join a school of Arts and Crafts run by the body responsible for the care of St Peter’s.

The Fabbrica di San Pietro is running a project in partnership with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, which seeks to conserve cultural heritage in regions across the world. Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, president of the Fabbrica, said the programme would allow students to acquire “unique skills in the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage”.

He continued: “Sharing the knowledge gained over the centuries and transmitting the craftsmanship excellence that preserves St Peter’s Basilica represents a commitment to the growth of new generations of professionals in the field of cultural heritage protection, in a spirit of service, authentic fraternity and love for the beauty that leads to God.”  

The project will allow students to integrate skills acquired in the Vatican with the traditional craft-knowledge of their home countries. It will be supported by partner institutions in Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya and Tunisia.

The Maronite Archbishop of Beirut Paul Abdel Sater celebrated Mass at St George’s Cathedral to mark five years since the catastrophic explosion in the city’s port, remembering those killed and injured.  

“Our beloved martyrs and victims of the 4 August 2020 explosion, you remain in us, and we remain faithful,” he said. “The blood of the innocent cries out to God for justice and he hears it.”  

The apostolic nuncio to Lebanon Archbishop Paolo Borgia shared a message from Pope Leo during a prayer vigil on 3 August, where participants delivered testimonies and planted trees bearing the names of the blast victims. “The families of the victims need justice and truth about what happened,” Archbishop Borgia said. 

The Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Rai called the blast a “crime against humanity”. He has led calls for truth and justice over the last five years, amid stalled investigations and unresolved questions of accountability. 

The explosion was set off by 2,750 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate in the port’s silos. It killed more than 200 people, injured around 7,000 others and displaced more than 300,000.

Archaeologists excavated a fifth-century church in the Turkish city of Olympos near Antalya. There have been excavations on the Olympus site since 2006, funded by Ankara’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which have unearthed remnants of Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine architecture. Olympus has surprised archaeologists with its rich mosaics which often show elaborate geometrical and plant motives.

On the floor of the church an inscription reads: “Only those who are on the righteous path may enter here.” Other mosaics found on the site bear the names of the church’s benefactors. “These finds confirm Olympos as one of the richest ancient cities in the Lycia region in terms of mosaic flooring,” said excavation director Gökçen Kurtuluş Öztaşkın of Pamukkale University.

Pope Leo said he hoped the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan signed on 8 August “will contribute to a stable and lasting peace in the South Caucasus”. 

US President Donald Trump hosted talks last week between Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who signed an agreement to end decades of hostilities over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. More than 100,000 Armenians fled the territory after Azeri forces occupied it in 2023. 

Pashinyan said the agreements, which opened the way to further talks on trade and development, allowed both countries “to write a better story than the one we had in the past”. 

However, he has faced domestic opposition to the negotiations, particularly from the Armenian Apostolic Church, while some Armenian Christians have accused the Vatican of ignoring Azerbaijan’s attacks on their heritage as it receives significant funding from Baku for restoration projects.

The apostolic nuncio to Cambodia and Thailand said both countries should “focus our efforts on helping the displaced” after they reached an agreement to end a border conflict that claimed more than 40 lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes over five days. 

Archbishop Peter Bryan Wells said he was “very pleased” with the path of dialogue undertaken by the two countries, adding that “we hope that this commitment will continue in the future to avoid a recurrence of the violence we have seen in recent weeks”. The nuncio said efforts would now go into assisting up to 300,000 people displaced by last month’s conflict.  

Reception centres were set up for the displaced in several provinces of Cambodia and Thailand, many of them run by local dioceses, such as Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand. 

A ceasefire came into force on 28 July that ended the conflict, which originated in century-old disputes over territory and temples on the border established at the end of the French occupation of Cambodia.

Catholic bishops with the backing of other religious communities appealed to the Indonesian government to tackle intolerance after the destruction of several Christian places of worship and an attack on a Protestant Christian school, besides persistent opposition to the construction of churches. 

“We must take decisive action against anyone who adopts intolerant behaviour, even more so when it is accompanied by violent acts that constitute criminal offenses,” said the bishops. Their statement was endorsed by the Supreme Council of the Confucian Religion (MATAKIN) and other Buddhist and Protestant organisations.  

The appeal emphasised that freedom of religion and worship is guaranteed by the constitution, and that “any form of intimidation, violence, or unilateral restriction of religious activities” undermines “the fundamental values of living together as citizens of the same nation”. The state “has a duty to intervene decisively”, said the bishops.

A Filipino archbishop led a ritual of reparation on 7 August after a 28-year-old vlogger, in a viral video, spat into the holy water font of a historic Catholic parish in the southern Philippines.  

The Archbishop of Ozamis Martin Jumoad, along with the clergy of his archdiocese, led the Holy Hour and the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the nineteenth-century St John the Baptist Parish in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental. Jumoad, in a decree dated 4 August, said the parish “shall remain closed until further notice as a sign of penance and reparation”. 

He then issued a “serious warning” against the vlogger for her “grave sin and desecration”, which “incurs not only ecclesiastical penalties but endangers the sinner’s communion with the Church and God”. 

It continued: “By this decree, may the faithful be reminded that sacred objects and places are vessels of God’s grace and deserve our utmost respect and reverence. Let us all renew our commitment to holiness, reverence, and communal harmony.”

Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David criticised the Philippines’ 1978 anti-gambling law after the death of an alleged gambler’s 20-year-old son, which he called “a parable for our time”. 

Dion Angelo dela Rosa died of leptospirosis, which he contracted after he waded in floodwaters to look for his father who had been missing for 24 hours. Dela Rosa, an altar boy in David’s Diocese of Kalookan, would later find that his father had been detained for playing cara y cruz, a poor man’s game, which was outlawed in 1978. 

David said it was ironic that while the poor are sued for playing cara y cruz, Filipinos “are powerless against the biggest operator of the gambling business today through online gambling” – the government itself, through the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation. 

“In the past, the government was strict about the public accessibility of gambling. By law, slot machines were not allowed in supermarkets and crowded places. Casinos even had to hire bouncers to check minors and those who could not prove that they earned at least P50,000 (£653) a month. Now, gambling can be accessed on every cell phone. Anyone can gamble in their bedroom, on a jeepney, or in bed – 24/7,” said David. 

The 66-year-old cardinal is known as a human rights advocate who staunchly opposed the Duterte government’s war on drugs.

The Argentinian Cardinal Estanislao Karlic who helped re-draft the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church died on 8 August aged 99.

The son of Croatian immigrants, Karlic was Archbishop of Paraná, in eastern Argentina, from 1987 to 2003. He served as president of the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference in 1996-2002. After retirement, he lived in the Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of Paraná. In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal.  

Theologically moderate, Karlic once famously described the family as a “sanctuary of love”. In a telegram to the current Archbishop of Paraná Raúl Martín, Pope Leo XIV wrote: “For many years, and with great fidelity, he dedicated his life to the service of God and the Church bringing the light of the Gospel to various areas of life and culture.”

The Diocese of San Diego formed a cadre of around 70 volunteers to accompany migrants on court-ordered appearances, to frustrate or at least document the practice of sending US government agents to arrest them when they arrive at court.

The new ministry follows the example of Bishop Michael Pham, who went to the courthouse on 20 June causing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stationed there to scatter.

Migrants who entered the United States legally under Temporary Protected Status, or finalising their citizenship process under President Barack Obama’s “Dreamers” initiative for those brought to the country as children, are among those detained by ICE agents when they appeared for court-ordered check-ins with immigration judges. 

“We want to make a difference because each of us have value and dignity,” Pham told the volunteers who came to be trained at the Pastoral Centre. “In communion with each other, we are stronger.”

The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey reached a financial settlement with two persons who alleged they had been abused by the former Bishop of Brooklyn Bishop DiMarzio when he was a priest in Jersey City more than 50 years ago.  

“As I have said from the very beginning, in my 50-plus-year priesthood, I never abused anyone,” said DiMarzio after the settlements were announced. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced in 2021 that the allegations “do not have the semblance of truth”.  

A statement from the archdiocese said: “The settlements are not an admission of fact or liability. The Archdiocese of Newark chose to settle the lawsuits to avoid the costs of litigation and help bring resolution to painful matters for everyone involved.”  

Some experts estimate that between a tenth and a quarter of all allegations of clergy sex abuse filed currently are fraudulent, but dioceses settle because the cost of litigation is greater.

The French bishops’ conference asked Archbishop Guy de Kerimel of Toulouse to reconsider his decision to appoint a priest convicted of sexual abuse as chancellor of his diocese and episcopal delegate for marriage. 

“Such an appointment to such an important position, canonically and symbolically, can only revive wounds, awaken suspicions and disconcert the people of God,” said Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseilles, the new head of the bishops’ conference, and his two vice-presidents in a statement on 10 August. 

Fr Dominique Spina was promoted in June despite his conviction for raping and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old student while his spiritual director in the 1990s at Notre-Dame de Bétharram school in the Pyrénées- Atlantiques department of south-west France. Archbishop Kerimel said Fr Spina served four years in prison for “very serious acts that took place nearly 30 years ago” and the Church had “nothing to reproach this priest” since then. 

In their statement, Cardinal Aveline and his assistants said “our Church, for several years, has courageously taken the path of truth in the painful issue of abuses committed within it … Little by little, we have learned to look at these facts first from the point of view of the people who have been victims and who suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives.” This shift in perspective has, they said, begun “a long and demanding work of conversion, which we are determined to continue”. 

Responding to the outrage at the appointment, Kerimel appealed for more mercy: “To refuse mercy is to confine the perpetrator of the abuse to social death – it is to reinstate a form of the death penalty.”

A Swiss gallery cancelled plans to display a controversial sculpture of a “crucified” Donald Trump at Basel’s main railway station. Galerie Gleis 4 said the reactions to the British artist Mason Storm’s Saint or Sinner mean it could not guarantee security and would seek an alternative location. 

Mason’s artwork, depicting Trump in Guantanamo Bay orange prison uniform and tied to a white cross reminiscent of the stretchers used for execution by lethal injection, had raised strong reactions from church leaders and theologians.  

The Bishop of Innsbruck Hermann Glettler, called it “simply deviant”, while Zurich theologian Simon Peng-Keller said it was a “colossal misplacement”, suggesting Trump’s place in a Passion story would be with “the representatives of the brutal Roman Empire, who wash their hands of guilt and, in their fortresses and palaces, issue decrees that plunge countless people into poverty, misery, and death”.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, said that it would “be desirable” to promote access to greater liturgical diversity, including the old form of the Roman rite alongside the Novus Ordo. 

He told Switzerland’s kath.net outlet he had not discussed this with the Pope and did not want to raise any false hopes, but added: “I personally would welcome it if we could find a good way forward.” 

Koch observed that something that had been practised for centuries could not simply be banned, though Pope Francis had chosen a more restrictive approach. “It would surely be desirable to reopen the door which has now been closed a bit more,” he said. 

Koch has been prefect of the dicastery since 2010 and since 2012 pro-rector of the Neuer Schülerkreis Ratzinger, an association of students of Benedict XVI’s theology. Koch was Bishop of Zurich from 1990 to 2010 and president of the Swiss bishops’ conference from 2017 to 2019.

A fire damaged two chapels at the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba in southern Spain. The blaze in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption on 8 August spread from a chapel in the eastern nave to the thirteenth-century Chapel of the Annunciation. The cause is believed to have been a short circuit in an electric floor-sweeping machine.  

The Plataforma Mezquita-Catedral civic group described the use of an historic chapel as a storeroom as reflecting “a dangerous lack of risk prevention”. The cathedral dean Joaquín Alberto Nieva described the damage which affected an altarpiece and led a chapel roof to collapse as “very small”, explaining that the oldest parts of the building were untouched.  

Designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1984, the mosque was built on the site of a Visigothic church destroyed after the Arabic invasion of Spain in 711. It became a cathedral after the Christian conquest of Córdoba in 1236.

The Portuguese WYD Foundation (Fundação Jornada) announced that it will make €400,000 available for youth-related projects in a tender opening in October.

The foundation, established to manage the €35 million surplus of the 2023 World Youth Day in Lisbon, plans to make available up to €800,000 euros every year from 2026. The funds are invested and the interest generated will be distributed to relevant projects, according to the foundation’s current president Bishop Alexandre Palma, an auxiliary of the Patriarchate of Lisbon.  

The goal is to perpetuate the spirit of the WYD, benefiting young people aged 15-35 in the fields of education, training, spirituality, mental health, leadership and citizenship. The first public tender, which will officially open on 16 October, will be mostly for projects in Portugal, although the foundation has said that any organisation that is legally present in Portugal can apply for funds even if its scope of action is outside the country. 

Bishop Palma said the foundation does not want to merely provide money and sit on the sidelines: “We want to be present as a friend, partner and support for the youth. We want to walk alongside them, not just watch them progress.”

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