The Monastery of Mor Efrem (St Ephrem) in Mardin, southern Turkey, an area which was once the heartland of Syriac Christia-nity, has once again opened its doors to believers.
Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, head of the Syriac Ca-tholic Church, presided over the re-consecration of the building, and celebrated its first Divine Liturgy in a hundred years.
Founded in 1881, the Syriac monastery was seized by the Turkish army during the First World War. It briefly returned to the Church after the war ended, before being transformed into a military hospital in 1922. In more recent times, it had served as a prison and a warehouse.
Patriarch Younan consecrat-ed the church according to the Syriac rite on 13 October, anoint-ing the altar, walls, and doors with oil of chrism, before cele-brating the Divine Liturgy.
The ceremony was attended by Syriac Catholic prelates from across Turkey and the Middle East, the Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey, and Syriac Orthodox bishops and clergy.
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New synod doc highlights challenges, but offers few solutions
On October 27 the Vatican released the working document for the next stage in Pope Francis’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which offered a global view of what faithful at all levels of the Church believe needs to happen for it to be a true place of inclusion.
The document, published Oct. 27 and titled “Enlarge the Space of your Tent,” is a summary of reports from national bishops’ conferences, who compiled the reports based on contributions from individual dioceses after an initial consultation phase with local parish communities.
It will serve as the working document for the next, continental stage of the synod, in which episcopal conferences on all seven continents will hold assemblies to reflect on and discuss the contents of the document. These assemblies will then submit a new report based on that discussion, which will be used to draft the working document for the final, universal stage in Rome.
Formally called “For a synodal Church: Communion, participation, mission,” the synod was opened by Pope Francis last October and, rather than the typical month-long meeting of bishops at the Vatican that a synod usually is, this one is unfolding in a multi-stage process extending into 2024.
An initial, diocesan phase of the process lasted from October 2021 to April 2022 and was designed as a consultative process that took place according to certain guidelines issued by the Synod of Bishops. A second, continental phase, began in September and will last through March 2023, when continental bishops’ conferences will coordinate and evaluate the results of the diocesan consultations.
Though notoriously difficult to define, “synodality” is generally understood to refer to a collaborative and consultative style of management in which all members, clerical and lay, participate in making decisions about the church’s life and mission.
In terms of listening and inclusion, the document said groups that often feel excluded are women, remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in a polygamous marriage, LGBTQ individuals, and men who have left the priesthood, as well as the poor, the elderly, indigenous people and migrants, drug and alcohol addicts, and victims of trafficking.
“A growing awareness and sensitivity towards this issue is registered all over the world,” the document said, noting that reports from all continents included an appeal for women, both lay and religious, to be valued as “equal members of the People of God.”
80 years of Vatican ties with the Republic of China
Oct. 23 marks the 80th anniversary of diplomatic re-lations between the Holy See and the Republic of China, which exists today in Taiwan.
As surprising as it may seem to many, in Via della Conciliazione 4 in Rome there is the embassy of the Republic of China. Its red flag with a white sun amid a blue rectangle flutters from the balcony.
There is, therefore, a Chinese ambassador to the Holy See, Matthew S. M. Lee, and he comes from Taiwan.
The Embassy of the Re-public of China represents the island of Taiwan. Yet the Va-tican’s diplomatic recognition of China, which began in 1942, does not concern either the People’s Republic of China (which came into existence in 1949) nor, strictly speaking, is it an agreement with Taiwan. Taiwan as such does not exist as an independent legal entity. What we are commenting on here is precisely the relationship between the Holy See and the Republic of China, based in Taiwan.
Myanmar blacklisted, Russia side-lined by global watchdog
Myanmar was added on October 21 to a global financial blacklist while Russia was sidelined by the international money-laundering watchdog FATF. The move by the Financial Action Task Force puts Myanmar alongside North Korea and Iran as outcasts of the global financial system.
Citing a “continued lack of progress” and the fact the majority of the actions Myanmar had promised to take had not been completed more than a year after a deadline, the FATF put the country on the so-called blacklist.
Other nations are required to apply enhanced measures to screen transactions with countries on the blacklist to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Those measures can act as an impediment to trade and investment.
The Paris-based FATF also further cut back Russia’s role in the organization due to its invasion of Ukraine.
Bangkok’s Priest to the Poor Finds His Fit Among Fellow Outcasts
Born in Longview, Wash., on Oct. 31, 1939, he was abandoned by his father, a house painter and farmer, whom his mother repeatedly took to court in fruitless attempts to gain child support.
“He wasn’t abusive; he just left us, and it hurts so badly,” he said. “That’s the essence of it all: I wanted to become a priest to help other kids so they wouldn’t suffer and hurt like I did.”
While still a boy, he left home to join Roman Catholic Redemptorist seminaries in Oakland, Calif., and in Oconomowoc, Wis.
After ordination, he recalled the thrill of preaching his first sermon in a tiny wooden church in South Dakota that had been built by his Irish relatives and seated just 40 people.
“That’s a very important moment for a priest,” he said, pointing to a small framed black-and-white photograph of the church hanging on a wall above his dining table.
When he arrived in Thailand in 1967, on his assigned mission by the Redemptorists, he was first dispatched to the far northeastern part of the country and to Laos. Returning to Bangkok in 1971, after war came to Laos, he was reassigned to Klong Toey, almost as far out of sight as if he had been in the distant highlands.
“The priest there was drunk,” he said, “and I replaced him there, as a drunk and a priest.”
In Klong Toey, he met a Catholic nun, Sister Maria Chantavarodom, now 92, who led him through the narrow lanes and joined him in founding the tiny school in a former pigsty.
Bishops want Asian Church to respond to social realities
Catholic bishops in Asia are working on a pastoral plan for the Church in Asia, taking into consideration the emerging so-cial, economic, religious and po-litical realities on a continent whe-re Christians are a minority.
“What exactly is the reality? How should the Church respond? What priority should we have in the next few years? What should the churches in Asia do? We are in the process of identifying and trying to open ourselves to under-stand these priorities and to see what is the way forward. We want to commit ourselves, the bishops of Asia, to work for a better Asia,” said Cardinal Os-wald Gracias.
“We will present a message to the peoples of Asia and also begin the elements of a final docu-ment which will be like a guide document, a pastoral plan for the Church of Asia,” said the Indian cardinal.
He was among three Asian cardinals, including the president of the Federation of Asian Bi-shops’ Conference (FABC) gene-ral conference, who addressed the press on Oct 24 to help sum up the last 12 days of their meet-ing. Some 20 Cardinals, 120 Bi-shops, 37 priests, eight nuns, and 41 laypeople from 29 coun-tries are taking part in that confe-rence.
Vietnamese Redemptorist forbidden to go abroad
A Redemptorist priest who works to console old soldiers in southern Vietnam has been ba-nned from flying to the United States for social safety.
On Oct. 24, Redemptorist Father Joseph Truong Hoang Vu was stopped by public security officers at Tan Son Nhat Inter-national Airport in Ho Chi Minh City while he was due to take a flight to Manila, the Philippines, and then to the US.
In a report issued by the airport’s public security unit, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Doan Van Dac said the 45-year-old priest was not allowed to leave the country for “reasons of social order and safety specified in Article 36 of the 2019 Immigra-tion Law.” The article presents those whose leaving for foreign countries is considered to affect national defence and security by government authorities.
Father Vu, who serves at Can Gio parish in the city, was asked to contact the Public Security Department in Ho Chi Minh City to deal with his complaints.
However, the priest, who was accompanied by two other Re-demptorists, reportedly returned home without filing a complaint about the ban.
Japan premier orders probe into Unification Church
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered a government probe into the Unifi-cation Church on October 17, after the assa-ssination of former premier Shinzo Abe re-newed scrutiny of the sect.
The church has been in the spotlight because the man accused of killing Abe was reportedly motivated by resentment against the group, which has been accused of pre-ssuring adherents to make hefty donations and blamed for child neglect among mem-bers.
Officially known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the organi-zation was founded in Korea by Sun Myung Moon and its members are sometimes called “Moonies.”
The church has denied wrongdoing, but a parade of former members have gone public with criticism of its practices, and revelations about its links with top politicians have help-ed tank Kishida’s approval ratings.
Kishida told parliament on Monday that there were “many victims” of the church and its related groups who had found them-selves in poverty or facing family breakdown.
“Efforts to help them are still insuffi-cient,” he said, so “the government will ex-ercise its right to probe the church, based on the Religious Corporations Act.”
The government also wants to implement other measures, such as strengthening “ini-tiatives to prevent child abuse and help the offspring of religious followers with their education and employment,” Kishida said.
Bishops caution against rising occult practices
Catholic bishops in Kerala have cautioned people against rising occult practices in the wake of reported cases of human sacrifices in the southern Indian state.
“No civilized society can image such ghastly murders. We are shocked,” Father Jacob G Palakkappilly, the spokesperson of Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), told Matters India on October 13, two days after the gruesome murders came to light following investigation into the missing complaint of one of the women.
According to the police, two middle aged women were sacrificed for prosperity and wealth in the past four months in Pathanamthitta district.
“Nothing but shocked. It has happened in Kerala,” said Sister Jessy Kurian, a Supreme Court lawyer, reacting to the reports of human sacrifices in a state that boasts of the highest literacy rate and a model women empowerment in India.
Religious polarization in India seeping into US diaspora
In Edison, New Jersey, a bulldozer, which has become a symbol of oppression of India’s Muslim minority, rolled down the street during a parade mark-ing that country’s Independence Day. At an event in Anaheim, California, a shouting match eru-pted between people celebrating the holiday and those who show-ed up to protest violence against Muslims in India.
Indian Americans from di-verse faith backgrounds have peacefully co-existed stateside for several decades. But these recent events in the U.S. — and violent confrontations between some Hindus and Muslims last month in Leicester, England — have heightened concerns that stark political and religious polariza-tion in India is seeping into dias-pora communities.
In India, Hindu nationalism has surged under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, which rose to power in 2014 and won a landslide ele-ction in 2019. The ruling party has faced fierce criticism over rising attacks against Muslims in recent years, from the Muslim community and other religious minorities as well as some Hindus who say Modi’s silence embold-ens right-wing groups and threat-ens national unity.
Hindu nationalism has split the Indian expatriate community just as Donald Trump’s presid-ency polarized the U.S., said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at the University of Southern California. It has about 2,000 students from India, among the highest in the country.
Soni has not seen these ten-sions surface yet on campus. But he said USC received blowback for being one of more than 50 U.S. universities that co-sponsor-ed an online conference called “Dismantling Global Hindutva.”
The 2021 event aimed to spread awareness of Hindutva, Sanskrit for the essence of being Hindu, a political ideology that claims India as a predominantly Hindu nation plus some minority faiths with roots in the country such as Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. Critics say that exclu-des other minority religious groups such as Muslims and Christians.