Addressing a group of liturgical experts on August 24, 2017, Pope Francis said that after the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and a long path of experience, “We can affirm with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.” The declaration came in a speech to Italy’s “Centre of Liturgical Action,” which sponsors an annual National Liturgical Week.

By “liturgical reform,” Pope Francis meant the changes in Catholic rituals and modes of worship which followed from Vatican II, the most immediately visible elements of which included Mass facing the congregation, the use of vernacular languages, and a stronger emphasis on the “full, conscious and active” participation of the people.

Although Pope Francis is often seen as having less interest in liturgical questions than some of his predecessors, this was a lengthy and carefully footnoted reflection, roughly 2,500 words in all. He began by highlighting some of the cornerstones of the liturgical movement of the 20th century, a reminder that the ongoing reform is rooted in tradition, and was actually kick-started by two Popes often seen as  ”conservative”: Pius X, who created a commission for renewal in 1913, and Pius XII, with his encyclical Mediator Dei and changes to the liturgy of Holy Week.

According to Francis, these changes came to fruition with 1963’sSacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, the application of which is still ongoing, including overcoming “unfounded and superficial interpretations, partial revelations and practices that disfigure” [the liturgy].

Quoting Pope Paul VI, the Argentine pontiff added that this process is still ongoing in part because reforming the liturgical books is not enough to “renew the mentality.”

Also using the words of his predecessor, Francis called Catholics – priests and laity alike – to leave behind “disruptive ferments, which are equally pernicious in one sense and the other,” and to “apply integrally” the reform approved by the bishops who took part in the Council.

Battles over liturgical practice have been a chronic feature of Catholic life since Vatican II. A desire to maintain the older Latin Mass, for instance, was a primary force prompting French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to lead a group of traditionalist Catholics into a break with Rome. During the 1990s, the church in the United States engaged in a decade-long debate over how to translate liturgical texts into English and other matters dubbed the “liturgy wars.”

A Nigerian archbishop has called on the government to compensate churches and other victims of Islamist terror group Boko Haram.

“In the past six years, insurgents have attacked churches and other Christian places in the north, but the federal government is yet to compensate the victims,” said His Excellency Msgr Mathews Manoso Ndagoso, Archbishop of Kaduna, speaking on behalf of the Catholic Bishops of Kaduna Ecclesiastical Province.

The conference comprises the dioceses of Kaduna, Sokoto, Kotangora, Zaria, Minna, Kano and Kafanchan in the north of Nigeria, who held their plenary session, at the cathedral in Minna this week. Archbishop Ndagoso told journalists: “I want to inform you that the Catholic Church has not received any support from the federal government for the Churches affected.”

The first terrorist attack was on St Theresa Catholic Church, Madalla, on Christ-mas Day, 2011 in which 32 people were killed and many more injured. Last year, some youths attacked St Philips Catholic Church, Bakin Iku, near Suleja, destroying properties valued at several millions of Naira.

“No one has even sympathised with us,” the Archbishop said. Msgr Ndagoso said that the federal government was supposed to be responsible for giving assistance to the churches and the victims.
In May 2015, Aid to the Church in Need reported that more than 5,000 Catholics in northeast Nigeria had been killed and at least 100,000 had been displaced.

Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian news agency, said in a recent report that Christianity is spreading rapidly among youth in some cities. “This high rate of conversion of Iranian youth to Christianity is in spite of rigorous Islamic indoctrination of the youth in their families and educational system,” according to the report.

“The Islamic government of Iran dedicates massive budgets to the support of Islamic organiza-tions that promote Islam among the youth within and without Iran’s borders,” the report continued. “Regardless of such efforts, Iranian youth seem to become increasingly distant from Islam, which is a cause of great concern for the Iranian Islamic govern-ment.”

One of the most senior Islamic Shi’ite clerics who has repeatedly expressed his concern over the spread of Christianity among the youth in the country is Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. He, as well as most of his colleagues blame the foreign influence for the conver-sion of young Iranians to Christia-nity. The question that comes up however, is that what could be the real cause for Iranian youths’ rejection of Islam and its princi-ples, despite the serious risks involved with conversion to Christianity in an Islamic country such as Iran?

Last year, after Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi expressed his deepest concern over the popula-rity of Christianity in the suburbs of Mashhad, the city’s religious and political officials immediately sent a vast number of Islamic tea-chers and preachers to Mashhad’s suburbs in order to turn the youth away from Christianity. The next phase in dealing with this matter was to crack down on the youth who refused to turn back following the efforts of Islamic teachers and preachers.

Unidentified persons attacked the headquarters of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference on August 25, stealing several items. The bishops’ conference reported in two tweets August 25 that “the headquarters of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Confe-rence were the victim of the mob that morning.”

Though details of what happened have not been given, the pictures show the damage was not insignificant, and that various items were stolen from the offices of the Venezuelan bishops in Caracas.

This is not the first time a place belonging to the Church in Venezuela has suffered such an attack. In fact the pressure and aggression have also come down on important church leaders such as Cardinal Jorge Urosa of Cara-cas who in April this year had to confront a Chavista mob which wanted to attack him after he had said a Mass.

The aggression is also of a religious nature. In March this year, unknown persons entered a church to steal the Consecrated Hosts. The thieves took nothing else.

On Jan. 1, a group of criminals entered the head-quarters of the Bishop of Maracay, and stole various equipment and cash kept in the administration’s safe.

Three days before, heavily armed unknown persons entered a Trappist monastery and stole everything they came across.

In July 2016, another group of thieves sacked an educational facility affiliated with the diocese and stole a large amount of equipment and other items and then went on to destroy everything in the place.

Frustration in Venezuela has been building for years due to poor economic policies, including strict price controls coupled with high inflation rates, which have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers, and medi-cines. Venezuela’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while they are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates.

Three Kenyan Christians were hacked to death by Al-Shabaab militants on August 18 after they refused to recite the Islamic prayer of faith. A fourth Christian – the mentally challenged older brother of one of the three – was also killed. At around 9 pm, Changawa Muthemba, who was in his forties, was dragged out of his home in Kasala Kairu, Lamu County, by a group of armed men and taken to the nearby home of his brother-in-law, Joseph Kasena, 42, where a 17-year-old neighbour, Kadenge Katana, also happened to be at the time. The three men were held at machete point and ordered to recite the Shahada. When none of them did, the attackers began to tie them up. When the men resisted, they were hacked to death. Then the attackers went to the home of Joseph’s older brother, Charo, who was in his late forties, and killed him.