The world-wide restrictions on public events to deal with the coronavirus pandemic are the latest blow to Pope Francis, whose pontificate has been struggling in recent years to sustain the progressive hopes that the Argentine raised early in his reign.
The pandemic has hindered Pope Francis’ ability to communicate his teachings and promote his causes, from the environment to the rights of migrants, as well as his efforts to tackle the Vatican’s financial troubles. The lack of public events and personal interactions are particular burdens for a Pope who is more at home communicating with crowds than in dealing with the Vatican’s bureaucracy.

Even before the pandemic, the early progressive trend of his pontificate, exemplified by openings toward divorced and gay Catholics, had run out of momentum amid internal church divisions. A series of scandals over clerical sex abuse of minors in various countries around the world, as well as affairs involving financial mismanagement at the Vatican, had cast a shadow on the institution.

Now, in the eighth year of the 83-year-old Pope’s reign, some Vatican insiders and observers are even looking toward its end. “The Next Pope” is the title of two books scheduled for publication over the next few weeks.

In an impassioned address in London, the Rt Rev Bashar Warda said Iraq’s Christians now faced extinction after 1,400 years of persecution.
Since the US-led invasion toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he said, the Christian community had dwindled by 83%, from around 1.5 million to just 250,000.
“Christianity in Iraq,” he said, “one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom.”
He referred to the current, pressing threat from Islamic State (IS) jihadists as a “final, existential struggle,” following the group’s initial assault in 2014 that displaced more than 125,000 Christians from their historic homelands.

“Our tormentors confiscated our present,” he said, “while seeking to wipe out our history and destroy our future. In Iraq there is no redress for those who have lost properties, homes and businesses. Tens of thousands of Christians have nothing to show for their life’s work, for generations of work, in places where their families have lived, maybe, for thousands of years.”

IS, known in the Arab world as Daesh, was driven from its last stronghold at Baghuz in Syria in March after a massive multi-national military campaign, effectively spelling the end of its self-declared “caliphate.”

As Europe slowly but steadily re-opens after coronavirus closures, Catholics across the continent are being allowed back to Mass. However, organized groups of pilgrims in large numbers are still a long way off, leading the famed Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes to organize an online pilgrimage and crowd funding drive to try to make up a $9 million deficit.

“Lourdes needs the world, and the world needs Lourdes,” said Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France.

“Lourdes United” took place on July 16, and it included a 15-hour live session, in different languages, with Masses, proce-ssions, rosaries and other prayers. The date was significant: It’s the anniversary of the last Marian apparition recorded in Lourdes.

While the Vatican has approved devotion to the apparition and installed a feast day to Our Lady of Lourdes, it and other apparitions still are considered “private revelations” and thus not mandatory for Catholic belief.

Following the decision on 29 June to establish an Amazon Ecclesial Conference, its president, Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, former archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, and its vice-president, Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre, of Puerto Maldonado in southern Peru, have shed further light on the significance of the new body and how it will be structured. A key feature is its synodal nature, which will emphasise the participation of the laity, especially women and indigenous people.

Cardinal Hummes commented: “Following a suggestion from the Pope himself, this is not going to be an episcopal conference, like so many others, but what he has called the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon Region. The reason for this is that it is meant to be an expression of the synodal nature of the Church in the region…Like the Amazon Synod, where there were bishops who had a vote, but many others, laypeople, indigenous, with the right to speak, it is a Church that listens to the communities and with them looks for ways of evangelising that are incarnate and inculturated.”

Bishop Martínez de Aguirre went further and stressed that the new body is intended to be a model for the Church as a whole. “We can say that this could be considered a sort of experiment – I’m not sure if that’s the most appropriate word – for a new form of Church life, based on synodality, in which the bishop is no longer someone that leads the Church on his own, but someone who is part of the whole Church journey…As Pope Francis said in The Joy of the Gospel, the pastors are there, sometimes in front, sometimes in the middle and sometimes at the back.”

The head of the Vati-can’s coronavirus taskforce said that humanity is facing “a tsunami of humanitarian crises” caused by the con-vergence of medical, eco-nomic and environmental factors.

This tsunami “has spread and spared no human life and no institution,” said Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, who also heads the Vatican department for Integral Human Development, and in the wake of the pandemic and its lockdowns domestic violence, discrimination, prejudice, and global conflicts have all “reared their ugly head.”

Cardinal Turkson spoke these words during a July 7 Vatican press briefing, in which he added that the world is currently “facing one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War.”
The cardinal noted his appreciation for the recent United Nations appeal for a global ceasefire, insisting that “there should be only one battle in the world: the battle against COVID-19.”

“Political tensions are rising, because of the decline in employment or the restrictions on movements,” he suggested, adding that the commission recognizes that “there can be no peace without reconciliation and healing.”

Cue the soundtrack from film adaptations of the Dickens classic, because what Pope Francis has given us, ladies and gentlemen, is a Tale of Two Cities… only the settings aren’t London and Paris, they’re Beijing and Ankara.
We’re in the middle of July, which means most of Italy, including the Vatican, is down-shifting in preparation for the August holidays. Though a Pope can make news anytime he wants, in reality about the only time he’s on the public stage is for his noontime Sunday Angelus address, and the last two have been humdingers.
The headline was what the pope didn’t say. An advance text circulated by the Vatican included a passage about Hong Kong which Francis chose to skip, fueling endless speculation about whether China had somehow exercised pressure on the Vatican, or whether the Pope maybe got cold feet.
On July 13, by way of contrast, the story was what the Pope did say that wasn’t in the advance text. He spoke out on Turkey’s decision to revert the fabled Christian basilica of Hagia Sophia from a museum to an active mosque, a move which had been strenuously resisted by Turkey’s small Christian co-mmunity centering on the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
“I’m thinking of Santa Sophia … I am very pained,” he said, in language that did not appear in the advance version of his remarks circulated by the Vatican Press Office.
So, the obvious question presents itself: Why did Francis speak out on Hagia Sophia, but bite his tongue on Hong Kong? In all likelihood, the distinction, at least in part, has to do with who’s most likely to be paying attention and most likely to be unhappy: Turkey, in the case of Hagia Sophia, and China with regard to Hong Kong.
In other words, it’s the difference between Ankara and Beijing.
To begin with, Turkey is a regional power while China is a global superpower. Diplo-matically, there’s a lot more to lose in fraying relations with Beijing than Ankara.

Nearly every bishop responding to a survey said the coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the celebration of the sacraments and rites and sacramental preparation programs in their dioceses.
Confirmations, first Communions, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and other sacramental preparation were the ministries most often cited by the bishops as being affected, according to the survey conducted by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
In addition, six out of 10 bishops said that since March when restrictions on ministry and Mass attendance were put in place, the morale of priests, lay ecclesial ministers, deacons and chancery staff has been at least somewhat affected, according to the findings released on July 9.

Titled “Ministry in the Midst of Pande-mic,” the survey asked bishops about six areas of concern that have arisen in dioceses since the pandemic caused public Masses to be suspended and the celebration of sacraments to be restricted or postponed.

The questions focused on the pandemic’s effect on dioceses; special pastoral provisions issued by dioceses; financial concerns raised by the pandemic; actions to address a diocese’s financial health; the pandemic effect’s on parish assessments; and diocesan technological assistance to schools and parishes.
CARA staff members mailed the survey to bishops in 177 archdioceses and dioceses and 20 eparchies on May 18 and followed up with a mailing June 8 to those who did not respond. Overall, 116 bishops, 59%, had responded by the release of the report. About 60% of diocesan bishops responded and about 50% of eparchial bishops responded, the report’s authors said.

CARA officials said the results of the survey were likely affected by whether a bishop responded while his diocese or eparchy was in total lockdown or as restrictions began to be lifted.

When it came to specific sacraments, 99% of bishops said confirmation had been very much or somewhat affected; 99% said that about first Communion; 92%, about the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process; and 94%, about other sacramental prepa-ration programs.

The uncertainty and restrictive measures in place due to the coronavirus pandemic caused an increase in prayers and religious fervor in Italy, a recent study said.

The study, which was released on May 22, was conducted by the State University of Milan, to “daily monitor public opinion during the COVID-19 emergency” and the impact it “has had on the religiosity of Italians.” After lockdown restrictions forced churches to close their doors, “the frequency of prayer and participation in religious services increased, although these could be attended only virtually,” the report stated.

The study was based on interviews with 4,600 people across Italy from April 20 to May 15. It showed the highest percentage increased in prayer during the pandemic was among Catholics who did not attend church at least once a week; 16 percent more of those who reported going to Mass at least once a month, but not every week, said they prayed each day during the pandemic.

The study, which asked participants about their behaviour prior to the pandemic, reported an 11 percent increase in daily prayer among what it described as “nominal Catholics,” those who said they were Catholics but seldom or never went to Mass.

However, it added, “the growth of religious practice was primarily influenced by the most acute phase of the crisis. In fact, the frequency of prayer decreases with the reduction of those infected.”

Those who had a family member infected by the coronavirus “significantly increased their participation in religious services and prayer,” it said. Participation at Mass – in person before the pandemic and online during it – was only minimally different for people over the age of 45, the study said. However, there was an increase of 17 percent in Mass participation among those under 45.

Moldova’s powerful Orthodox Church has warned the country’s government against using a potential vaccine against Covid-19 on the population, claiming that a “global anti-Christ system” plans to take remote control of people via 5G technology.

The Church said it felt great concern about “technology allowing people to be micro-chipped through a vaccine that would insert nanoparticles that interact with 5G waves into their bodies and allow people to be remotely controlled.” It delivered the warning in a statement to parliament, President Igor Dodon and Prime Minister Ion Chicu.

The statement repeated claims made by far-right groups in Europe and groups in Russia that 5G technology may have been responsible for the Covid-19 outbreak – and that Microsoft boss Bill Gates intended to profit from it by developing a vaccine that enables Microsoft to control people. Moldovan journalist Madalin Necsutu told The Tablet that the Church was “trying to kill two birds with one stone” with its intervention. One was to strike “a general conservative tone, fighting ‘Western liberal values’ and in this regard, a vaccine,” whole the other “was about internal politics – to divert public attention from a recent leaked video showing the President allegedly taking a bribe from a fugitive oligarch.”

He added: “The Church is a close ally of President Igor Do-don and acts as his election agent in the presidential elections.”

Swiss Bishop Charles More-rod of Lausanne, Geneva and Friburg has appointed a woman theologian to succeed the present episcopal vicar.

On 1 August, Marianne Pohl-Henzen will succeed the present episcopal vicar for the German part of the diocese.

Pohl-Henzen (60) studied theology and philology at university and has three children and four grandchildren. For the past eight years, she been the right hand of the present episcopal-vicar of the German-speaking vicariate (region in the diocese) of Fribourg, Fr Pascal Marquard, who is moving to Zurich.

The diocese has announced that in her new post, she will be “the person responsible in the vicariate/diocesan region in the bishop’s name.” In other words, as from 1 August, she will re-present the bishop in the vicariate and will be a member of the episcopal council.

Vatican News first called her an “episcopal vicar” but later withdrew the term. According to church law, only priests can become episcopal vicars. Church papers are now calling her an “episcopal delegate” or “episcopal adjutant.”

She herself recalled in a KNA interview, that, unlike her predecessor, she would not be able to administer confirmation, install parish priests or hold funerals for priests, “that is anything to do with Sacraments and liturgy.”