Greta Thunberg, the teen activist from Sweden who has urged immediate action to address a global climate crisis, was named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2019. She is the youngest person to have ever received the accolade.

Thunberg, 16, was lauded by Time for starting an environmental campaign in August 2018 which became a global movement, initially skipping school and camping out in front of the Swedish parliament to demand action.

“In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the UN, met with the Pope, sparred with the president of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history,” the magazine said.

“Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year,” Time said.

The scheduled beatification of Ven. Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen has been postponed after several U.S. bishops asked that the cause be given more time for examination. The Diocese of Peoria announced the delay on Dec. 3. Archbishop Sheen’s beatification was set to take place on Dec. 21. “With deep regret, Bishop Daniel Jenky, C.S.C, Bishop of Peoria, announces that he has been informed by the Holy See that the beatification of Fulton Sheen will be postponed,” said the press release from the diocese.

It took little more than an hour. In that amount of time, the spire had fallen, most of the roof had given way, and that was that. Notre Dame — the literal and figurative heart of Paris, the point from which all distances in the city are measured and the seemingly eternal backdrop to life in the French capital — was essentially no more.

Granted, the facade was preserved, and the bell towers remain intact. But this is without question a story of loss on an otherwise perfect spring day.

To have lived in Paris in recent years is to be well acquainted with loss and even unspeakable tragedy. The killing of 12 people in the attack at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo after a morning meeting in January 2015. The bombings and shootings that claimed 130 lives at the national stadium, the Bataclan concert hall and on random cafe terraces near the Canal Saint-Martin. The killings of two elderly Jewish women — one hurled from her apartment window. The omnipresence of armed guards at any site where crowds may gather.

But through all of these nightmares, there has been one constant, collective refrain. This was the comforting reality — or at least the comforting belief — that somehow, through it all, Paris was indestructible. The idea that Paris will always be Paris felt truer nowhere else than in front of Notre Dame.

In his remarks to a grieving nation close to midnight, President Emmanuel Macron called the cathedral a metaphor for France. “Notre Dame is our history, our literature, our imagination,” he said. “The place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives.”

The quiet broke every so often — gasps when the spire finally tipped over and fell, the whistles of police officers pushing back the crowds. People did move away, but everyone walked backward, so as not to miss a single moment of a spectacle that was both spellbinding and terrifying.

Many were in silent tears; many others embraced strangers. But in general, thousands gathered because they realized they could do nothing else but catch a final glimpse of the place they had known and loved, a place that Macron immediately promised to rebuild but that can never quite be the same again. The fate of certain stained-glass windows — kaleidoscopes in the sunlight — remains unknown.

Assyrians and Chaldeans in Turkey and across the border, in north-eastern Syria, are increasingly victims of violence despite proclamations by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan that he is a defender of minorities, a claim also relayed by Catholic media.

In reality, repression and attacks have increased in recent weeks in connection with the sultan’s offensive against the Kurds in Syria, which has turned into softer version of ethnic cleansing that has crushed even Christians.

In the 1960s, several hundred Christian families lived in Diyarbakir, the most important (and mostly Kurdish) city in south-eastern Turkey. Today only four are left, two of whom live inside the parish Church of the Virgin Mary in Sur district.

For 43-year-old SalibaAcis, the others “left for different reasons: economic pressure, political pressure”. Some moved to Istanbul, but most fled to Europe, Australia or America.

There are many reasons that have generated the Christian diaspora from Middle East, from the war in Syria to the violence of the Islamic State group,

But what the members of the parish of the Virgin Mary fear the most is President Erdoðan’s war on the Kurds and the destruction by the Turkish State of their living heritage (Christian history and culture).

Last August, in Istanbul, Erdoðan took part in the laying of the foundation stone of a new Assyrian church in the Yesilkoy district. On that occasion, he said that “the true target of terror groups is our common homeland” and the best way to fight them is to “see our differences as our most important richness.”

Recently, after he met US President Donald Trump, Erdoðan said that the Turkish government is not indifferent to the condition of Christians, and pledged a “contribution” to the reconstruction of churches and shrines. Ankara, he added, was drafting plans for communities in the border areas, starting with “health care and humanitarian aid”.

Such words sound hollow in Diyarbakir, where the congregation says it has very little reason to thank the Turkish president. “We get no support from the state,” said Acis. “This church is alive thanks to the community.”

Catholic theology lost a giant on December 2 with the death of German Father Johann Baptist Metz, a disciple of famed Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner and the father of what was known as “new political theology,” at the age of 91.

“In 1998, I covered a story centering on Metz, who was celebrating his 70th birthday. A number of friends in the theological guild had organized a symposium in Ahaus in Metz’s honor, and to the surprise of many, a star guest had agreed to be the featured speaker: Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, at the time the Vatican’s doctrinal czar and a sort of love-to-hate figure for many in Metz’s circles.” writesJohn L. Allen Jr.

Ratzinger’s appearance raised eyebrows, and not only because he and Metz frequently had crossed theological swords over the years. (Among other things, Ratzinger saw the roots of Latin American liberation theology, and the distortions of it he faced during the 1980s, in Metz’s work. As a point of fact, the Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff, perhaps the most pugnacious of the liberation theologians, studied under Metz.)

The animus between Ratzinger and Metz was also personal. In 1979, when Ratzinger was the Archbishop of Munich, he denied Metz permission to accept a teaching appointment at the local university.

Later, Metz was among the signatories to a statement criticizing Vatican attempts under Ratzinger to erode academic freedom, and Metz also signed the famed “Cologne statement” in 1989 Complaining that the collegiality called for by Vatican II was “being smothered by a new Roman centralism,” and predicting: “If the pope undertakes things that are not part of his role, then he cannot demand obedience in the name of Catholicism. He must expect dissent.”

He told of how the group of attackers crossed the border from Niger with motorcycles. Of how they separated the men from the women, told the men to lie down on the ground, covered their heads with a cloth, then killed them one by one.  Several of those murdered were children.

Bishop Justin Kientega of Ouahigouya decried the violence and said that Western governments have a responsibility to stop the flow of weapons to militants in the region.

Speaking to the charity Aid to the Church in Need, he voiced his belief that the attack is part of an attempt by radical Islamists to provoke a religious conflict in a country where Christians and Muslims have always lived peaceably side by side, and he argued that the Western world has been ignoring the plight of Christians in West Africa.

“There is an ongoing persecution of Christians. For months, we bishops have been denouncing what is happening in Burkina Faso,” Bishop Kientega said,  ”but nobody is listening to us.”  ”Evidently,” he concluded, “the West is more concerned with protecting its own interests.”

In Turin, Italy, the Daughters of Jesus the King is a religious community of blind and visually impaired sisters who aim for holiness, and to be a sign that in Christ, there are no barriers that cannot be overcome.

Sister Lorena Logrono, superior of the Daughters of Jesus the King, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the origin of the congregation traces back to the Poor Daughters of Saint Cajetan, which was founded by Blessed Giovanni Maria Boccardo 135 years ago.

“When Blessed Giovanni Maria Boccardo became ill, he left the Congregation of the Poor Daughters of Saint Cajetan in the hands of his brother Luigi, who was also appointed head of the institutes for blind girls in Turin,” she explained.

“There a young woman asked Fr. Boccardo about becoming a religious, but she couldn’t be admitted because she was blind. Some time later, he received the inspiration to found a congregation for blind people, which would have the charism of the Poor Daughters of Saint Cajetan but be dedicated to contemplation.” “And then, in 1932, the contemplative branch, the Daughters of Jesus the King, began,” the sister said. There are eight members of the Daughters of Jesus the King, and they are between 38 and 100 years of age.

The Senate on Dec 12passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide, after several previous attempts to do so were blocked at the direction of the White House.

Senate Resolution 150, introduced by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), expresses “the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.”

It was passed with unanimous consent by the chamber on Thursday.

From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in eastern Anatolia in systematic fashion, with reports of forced displacement, torture, mass killings and mass graves in the region.

Thursday’s Senate resolution recognizes the empire’s “campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians.” It comes after the House passed a similar resolution in October recognizing the genocide.

Turkey has long denied that the genocide took place, claiming that the number of those killed was far less than is commonly estimated and that many deaths were due to the ongoing First World War.

Pope Francis has asked Thai priests to give Christianity “a Thai face and flesh” on the third day of his visit to the kingdom.

He was speaking during a meeting with priests, religious, seminarians and catechists at St Peter’s Parish of Wat Roman village in Tha Kham, Bangkok, on Nov. 22.

“As I prepared for this meeting, I read, with some pain, that for many people Christianity is a foreign faith, a religion for foreigners. This should spur us to find ways to talk about the faith ‘in dialect,’ like a mother who sings lullabies to her child,” the Pope said.

“With that same intimacy, let us give faith a Thai face and flesh, which involves much more than making translations. It is about letting the Gospel be stripped of fine but foreign garb; to let it ‘sing’ with the native music of this land and inspire the hearts of our brothers and sisters with the same beauty that set our own hearts on fire.”

The Pope recalled Pope Benedict XVI saying that the Church does not grow by proselytizing but by attraction.

“Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties,” Pope Francis said.

“This means we are not afraid to look for new symbols and images, for that particular music which can help awaken in the Thai people the amazement that the Lord wants to give us. Let us not be afraid to continue inculturating the Gospel.

“We need to seek new ways of transmitting the word, ways that are capable of mobilizing and awakening a desire to know the Lord. Who is that man? Who are these people who follow a man who was crucified?”

Thousands of people lined the roads of the predominantly Catholic village of Wat Roman and filled the grounds of a church complex to greet Pope Francis.

Homemade signs included one that said, “You really know how to pope.” Another said, “Credo in PapamFranciscum” (I believe in Pope Francis).

Pope Francis focused on Asia’s migration crisis on November 21 as he made his first public speech on his seven-day visit to Thailand and Japan.

After being given an official welcome at Government House in Bangkok and meeting Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, he addressed civil and religious leaders and members of the diplomatic corps.

The Pope called migration “one of the defining signs of our time” and “one of the principal moral issues facing our generation.”

He said he hopes “the international community will act with responsibility and foresight to resolve the issues that have led to this tragic exodus and will promote safe, orderly and regulated migration.”

“The crisis of migration cannot be ignored,” the Pope said. “Thailand itself, known for the welcome it has given to migrants and refugees, has experienced this crisis as a result of the tragic flight of refugees from nearby countries.”

According to the 2019 report of the UN working group on migration in Thailand, of the 69 million people living in Thailand, 4.9 million are non-Thais, an increase of 1.2 million in five years. The largest groups come from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Thailand has about 93,000 refugees living in nine camps. Most are ethnic minorities from Myanmar. Bangladesh is accommodating more than one million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar.

Pope Francis described Thailand as “the guardian of age-old spiritual and cultural traditions,” a multiethnic and diverse nation that has “long known the importance of building harmony and peaceful coexistence between its numerous ethnic groups.”

Human trafficking, especially of women and children for prostitution and for domestic service, is a major problem in Thailand, according to the UN Action for Cooperation Against Trafficking in Persons.

“Thailand is recognized as a key destination for human trafficking in the Mekong region in addition to being a source and transit country for forced labor and sex trafficking,” the UN said. The problem involves poor Thais as well as migrants.

Addressing Thai leaders, Pope Francis drew special attention to women and children “who are wounded, violated and exposed to every form of exploitation, enslavement, violence and abuse.”

“Our age is marked by a globalization that is all too often viewed in narrowly economic terms, tending to erase the distinguishing features that shape the beauty and soul of our peoples,” he said. “Yet the experience of a unity that respects and makes room for diversity serves as an inspiration and incentive for all those concerned about the kind of world we wish to leave to our children.”