News Briefing: Church in the World

United States House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the role of religion in public life in an address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on 19 March in Washington, DC. 

“Religion in the public sphere happens to be one of my favourite topics,” said Johnson, an Evangelical Christian and Republican from Louisiana. “I’m convinced it’s one of the most misunderstood issues in American public life.” 

Johnson cited Thomas Jefferson’s January 1802 Letter to the Danbury Baptists that refers to “a wall of separation between Church and State”. He argued that some “take that phrase and they turn it around”. 

He continued: “Jefferson clearly did not mean at all to keep religion from influencing our government.” He argued that “the founders understood that a free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue”. 

Organisers said the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast was established in 2004 in response to John Paul II’s call for a new evangelisation.

The late US labour leader César Chavez, celebrated as a champion of Catholic social teaching, allegedly sexually abused labour rights leader Dolores Huerta and others while he was president of the United Farm Workers union from 1962. In a statement on 18 March, Huerta said she stayed silent for 60 years because she feared the revelations would hurt the movement. 

“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was life’s work,” Huerta said. “The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let César or anyone else get in the way.” 

A two-year investigation by The New York Times uncovered evidence that Chavez, who died in 1993 at the age of 66, groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the movement, including Huerta. In her statement, Huerta emphasised that Chavez’s actions “do not reflect the values of our community and our movement”. 

“The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual,” she said. “César’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.”

The sixth meeting of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (Ceama) took place in the Colombian capital Bogotá on 16-20 March. 

“Inculturation is a difficult but necessary journey,” Pope Leo told the assembly in a message. “With the inculturation of the faith, the Church is enriched with new expressions and values.”  

The meeting took as its inspiration Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”  Ceama defined four pastoral priorities, including a proclamation of the Gospel “stamped with the features of the people of the Amazon”.  

This involved promoting formation in inculturation and adapting the liturgy in dialogue with the worldview of original peoples, it said. Other priorities included growing as a synodal Church, living out holistic ecology and encouraging communion and sustainability among local Churches in the Amazon region.  

At the meeting, delegates emphasised the key role of local churches as the starting point for building up an ecclesial network encompassing the vast Amazonian terrain.

Two priests drowned off the southern coast of Ecuador on 13 March after rescuing an altar server who was struggling to swim back to shore.

Fr Alfonso Avilés, 60, originally from Murcia, south-east Spain, and Fr Pedro Anzoátegui, 43, saved the boy who was attending the Lent retreat the priests were holding for altar servers in the south-eastern province of Guayas. Both priests were themselves overcome by the waves. 

The Archbishop of Guayaquil Luis Cabrera Herrera said in a message that the Church gave thanks to God “for the precious gift of the life and priestly vocation” of Fr Avilés, who served the parish of St Albert the Great, and belonged to the congregation of the priests of Jesus Christ the Priest, founded in Murcia in 1980 by Fr Alfonso Gálvez. His body was found shortly after the incident.  

Archbishop Cabrera also issued a message of condolence for the death of Fr Anzoátegui, whose body surfaced on the beach the day after he drowned.

The Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Jose Advincula urged Filipino pro-life advocates to go beyond speaking against abortion, as thousands of them joined a penitential “Walk for Life” procession on 20 March. Advincula, 73, drew attention to the plight of the unborn, “who have no voice and no defence”.  

“We are called to be their voice, but to be pro-life is not only to speak. It is to live it,” said Advincula, emphasising that the defence of life “comes not only in words but also in actions”. He spoke of the importance of respecting one’s neighbours, caring for the poor, staying faithful and being merciful. 

Walk for Life is a Catholic event that began in 2017 to oppose the killings in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. The tradition has continued as a means of rejecting all types of “anti-life” laws or proposals, such as those that promote abortion or divorce. 

Advincula, a canon lawyer, has often taken a nuanced position on pro-life issues. At the Walk for Life in 2024, he challenged participants to listen more closely to modern Filipino families rather than judge them at the outset. “We need to engage in more listening and dialogue,” the cardinal said.

Thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics joined a pilgrimage in March to the tomb of Fr Francis Xavier Truong Buu Diep, a Vietnamese priest who will be beatified in July.  

Born in 1897 in An Giang province in the Mekong Delta, south Vietnam, he served Tac Say parish in the Delta’s Bac Lieu province for 16 years. Parishioners urged Fr Diep to leave the parish for his own safety as the region was engulfed after the Second World War in violent clashes between French and Japanese troops, Vietnamese nationalist forces and local militias in the Mekong Delta, but the priest refused.

In March 1946, he was arrested by an armed group along with 100 mainly Catholic villagers. Fr Diep was questioned, and while the villagers were released he was executed and his body thrown into a nearby pond. Local Catholics later recovered his body.

Non-Catholics have requested baptism after reporting blessings received through Diep’s intercession. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, is to preside over Fr Diep’s beatification on 2 July.

India’s federal government dismissed the latest report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) which sought “targeted sanctions” against its intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and the right-wing volunteer paramilitary organisation Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). 

Rejecting the report as “motivated and biased”, Randhir Jaiswal, official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, said that “instead of persisting with selective criticism of India, USCIRF would do well to reflect on the disturbing incidents of vandalism and attacks on Hindu temples in the United States”.  

The rights activist Fr Cedric Prakash SJ observed: “It was the usual denial by a regime, which desperately wants to sweep the truth under the carpet.” 

The United Christian Forum (UCF), an ecumenical persecution watchdog, has recorded a steady increase in the number of attacks on Christians since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.

The USCIRF recommended that the US administration “freeze” the assets of the RAW and RSS, as well as of individuals associated with them. It also noted that anti-conversion laws enacted in 13 states encourage vigilante attacks against minorities. 

A.C. Michael, the national coordinator of the UCF, said the anti-conversion laws have been introduced in most BJP-ruled states “under pressure from the RSS”.

Catholic bishops called for the resolution of tensions between Rwanda and Burundi which has forced the closure of their border for more than two years. A statement, issued by the Rwandan bishops’ conference, also appealed for the re-opening of churches that have been closed due to sectarian violence.  

Rwanda and Burundi share a violent past marked by ethnic hostilities. The statement responded to the 2024 decision by Burundi to shut their border after accusing Rwanda of being a “bad neighbour”. The bishops called on both governments “to continue negotiations aimed at normalising relations and allowing the free movement of people and goods”. 

The bishops said that peaceful relations remain between the two countries needed to develop into greater regional cooperation, as victims of violence in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo flee to Rwanda and Burundi. 

“DRC remains affected by war and deadly violence which, in addition to causing human and material losses, has forced thousands of Congolese to flee to Burundi and Rwanda,” the bishops said.

The Christian Association of Nigeria called for national renewal and religious freedom to enable the country to respond to insecurity, days before the latest kidnapping attack on a church. Terrorists seized eight Christians from a morning service on Sunday 22 March at an ECWA (Evangelical Church Winning All) church in Omugo community in the Irepodun Local Government of Kwara State, in the North Central part of the country. 

Two days earlier, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, who heads the Christ Holy Church International and is president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), had issued a message congratulating Nigerian Muslims on Eid-el-Fitr celebrations. 

“At a time like this, our nation needs unity more than ever,” he said. “From insecurity to religious freedom, economic hardship, the challenges before us are real, but so too is our shared strength.” He emphasised that the CAN believes the nation thrives only when its people stand together: “Not divided by faith or ethnicity, but united by a common purpose and a shared future.”

The apostolic nunciature in Cameroon and local Church leaders issued warnings against “scammers” attempting to extort money from the faithful “by claiming to sell tickets to participate in the celebrations of Pope Leo XIV’s visit”. 

Fraudulent messages circulating on apps attempt to induce Catholics to pay to attend liturgies with the Pope who is due to visit Cameroon on 15-18 April. The nuncio Archbishop José Avelino Bettencourt emphasised that “access to all liturgical celebrations presided over by Pope Leo XIV, particularly in Yaoundé, Bamenda and Douala, will be completely free”.

His statement added: “No tickets or seats will be sold for these celebrations. Therefore, the faithful are urged not to be deceived by any private initiative that attempts to monetise access to the papal celebrations.” 

The Archdiocese of Yaoundé and Archdiocese of Douala reiterated that no tickets would be sold for the papal liturgies.

The Bishops’ Conference of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe (CEAST) unveiled the logo and motto for Pope Leo’s visit to Angola scheduled for 18-21 April, and launched a nationwide prayer campaign in preparation. 

CEAST president Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba of Saurímo announced the motto as “Pope Leo XIV, pilgrim of hope, reconciliation, and peace”, and described it as the start of a spiritual mobilisation aimed at preparing the hearts of Angolans to welcome the Pope. 

Archbishop Imbamba also published a new prayer “prepared as an instrument of spiritual preparation for all the people of God in Angola”. 

“The goal is for the faithful to pray for the Pope’s visit and for the spiritual fruits it may bear in the country,” the archbishop said. “Angola is called to transform pain into hope and a past marked by war into a future rooted in peace and reconciliation under the Pope’s blessing.”

The Patriarch of Lisbon Archbishop Rui Valério said an attack on a pro-life march in the city was “gravely unacceptable”. A demonstrator threw a Molotov cocktail at families attending the march last Saturday.  

Nearly 4,000 people – the largest number to attend the non-denominational “Marcha Pela Vida” since it began in 2007 – were near the Portuguese Parliament Building in Lisbon when the protestor hurled a bottle filled with petrol at participants. The fuse failed to ignite but some families, including children, were drenched in petrol. Participants detained the protester who was subsequently arrested by police and taken to the Hospital São José in Lisbon.  

The patriarch’s statement continued: “Violence is never the way. It does not build up, it does not dignify, it does not serve the truth. And it is all the more painful when it threatens the more fragile among us, especially children, who should always be a sign of hope, and not exposed to fear.”

Despite the emphasis on strict Church and State separation in French law, three monks won seats on local councils in recent municipal elections. All came from villages dominated by their abbeys, and were elected on lists backed by the local mayor.

In Solesmes, Fr Jean-Philippe Duval belongs to the Benedictine abbey in the village of 1,200 people near Le Mans. Monks have been on this council since 1855. 

Br Benoît Charbonneau won in Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, a Burgundy village of 463. The abbey there was the mother house of the Cistercian order until 1790, and the Trappists revived it in 1898. 

Br Luc Bourgoin is a spokesman at the ecumenical community of Taizé in Burgundy. The village has only 171 permanent residents, many of them brothers, so one is usually on the local council.  

The latest laïcité row pitting state neutrality versus personal belief – both protected by law – flared in Chalon-sur-Saône near Dijon after a hijab-wearing member was barred from a council session.

The bishops of the seven dioceses in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria called for greater commitment to democracy at their annual meeting in Bamberg. 

A statement from the Archbishop of Munich and Freising Cardinal Reinhard Marx identified the “normalisation of far-right positions” as a cause for grave concern. He said democracy “is not a mowed meadow” but requires real work.  

Some, especially young people, have not understood that what is at stake is democracy itself: “I’ll be long in my grave, and you will still be fighting for freedom. That is the programme for the coming decades.”  

The bishops called for pastoral support and accompaniment for young people in the light of plans for the reintroduction of compulsory military service. Marx said the bishops had reported terror among young people contemplating the global crisis.

The Synod of Bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church will meet in Rome on 9-15 April to elect a new Patriarch of Babylon following the resignation of Cardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako. 

Archbishop Habib Hormiz Jajou Al Nawfali of Basra has administered the patriarchate since Cardinal Sako resigned on 10 March and is responsible for organising the election of his successor. 

In a letter to the archbishop on 14 March, Sako said he would not take part in the synod “so that it may not be said that I intervened, influenced or supported one candidate or another”. He also announced his intention to leave the patriarchal residence in Baghdad imminently and to move to Erbil in northern Iraq.

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (PWPN) released new general regulations on 19 March. It said the document “offers an organic and updated vision of the identity, mission and structure”, emphasising that the PWPN’s nature as not “just another movement within the Church” or a “closed association”, but “a universal network at the direct service of the pontiff and of all those who join him through bonds of prayer and service”.  

The PWPN’s purpose is to mobilise Christians to respond through prayer, spiritual formation and service to the challenges of humanity and of the Church’s mission, as discerned and expressed monthly in the Pope’s prayer intentions. The document defines the identity and nature of the work as a Vatican foundation, its international, national, diocesan and community structure, modes of participation and a framework for safeguarding.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) expects to present the Pope with a final version of its Universal Guidelines Framework for church safeguarding later this year. In a report on its plenary meeting in Rome on 16-20 March, the PCPM said it was developing the guidelines as “clear, accessible and culturally adaptable guidance”. 

Participants addressed several other themes during the meeting, including the importance of engagement with victims and survivors in the commission’s work. In his address at the opening of the plenary, Pope Leo said its task was to develop “a culture of care, in which the protection of minors and persons in vulnerable situations is not seen as an obligation imposed from outside, but as a natural expression of faith”.

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