The dense darkness of night-time in rural northern Rwanda completely obliterates the immense hills that surround the village of Muyanza. But piercing this complete darkness a few times a week are two pinpricks of light, from the headlights of the village’s lone ambulance. When someone needs immediate evacuation to the hospital, the ambulance races up out of the valley, bumping over a poorly maintained dirt road. Faustin Musabyimana, the driver, prays that heavy rains haven’t washed away the makeshift bridges made of wooden planks laid over deep ravines.

This ambulance is the strongest link between the isolated villages scattered across the green hills and the government regional hospital on the main road. Four Kenyan sisters from the Little Daughters of St Joseph Congregation run the Muyanza Health Centre for the Catholic Diocese of Byomba.

Sr Margaret Ekali Londung’a manages the health centre, along with Sr Margaret Wanjiku Njuguna, a nurse, and Sr Rose Wanjiru Kimani, a pharmacist, while Sr Martha Chebon Jeptarus runs a Catholic nursery school. Raising funds to buy the ambulance from their international congregation was one of their first projects when they took over management of the health center in 2001. “There are regions [of Rwanda] where there is good communications and fertile areas, and they are easy to reach, and there are also difficult areas,” said Londung’a, a nurse who is also the community animator, or community director. “Our spirituality as the Little Daughters of St. Joseph is going to the needy, the poorest of the poor, the marginalized. After Mother [Superior Licia Rebonato] visited many places, she chose the hardest, the most difficult, the most marginalized, and that’s why we ended up in Muyanza.”

An internationally renowned group of reform-minded priests in Austria has criticized the world’s bishops for not capitalizing on Pope Francis’ openness to make significant changes in Church ministry and pastoral practice.

The Austrian Priests’ Initiative (API) is urging the bishops to take up the leeway the pope has given them to look at such issues as the possibility of ordaining married men of proven virtue (viri probati) to the priesthood, women to the diaconate and allowing remarried divorcees to receive the Eucharist in certain cases.

At a press conference in Vienna on May 4th, the API, which was founded in 2006, said Francis had opened door after door for a new way of dealing with these urgent questions in our Church.
But it said that while the pope has invited the bishops’ conferences to make “courageous suggestions” the bishops “have, for the most part, failed to respond.”

“We would like to wake up our bishops and encourage them to take up the pope’s suggestions,” said API initiator, Fr Helmut Schüller.

The 64-year-old priest, whose group includes more than 400 members, previously served as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s vicar general in the Archdiocese of Vienna. A former head of Caritas Austria, he led a “call to disobedience” in 2011, which led to the Vatican (under Benedict XVI) to strip him of the honorary title, “monsignor.”

However, he has remained a priest in good standing in the archdiocese and has continued to lead calls for Church reform.

At the recent press conference in Vienna, the Schüller-led API said there was little understanding for mandatory priestly celibacy in the parishes, especially since some parishes now have married (Greek-Catholic) priests.

Leonardo Boff, the popular liberation theologian from Brazil and former Franciscan priest, has expressed a desire to “embrace” and effect a “kind of reconciliation” with the man who once silenced him – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the now-retired Benedict XVI.

Boff told Germany’s Catholic media site katholisch.de on 7 April that he hoped to have the opportunity to do that when he comes to Rome to visit Pope Francis, though he did not say when that would be.

The 78-year-old theologian also said he wished Benedict all the best for his 90th birthday, which his former mentor celebrates on Easter Sunday.

Before becoming Pope, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). And in 1985 his office and the Congregation for Religious sentenced Boff to a yearlong “period of obsequious silence” for publishing a book the CDF had earlier said, “endanger(ed) the sound doctrine of the faith.” He then described the second phase of their relationship as “some-what controversial.” That was in the 1980s when Ratzinger was the CDF prefect and called Boff to Rome. “I had to sit on the very same chair Galileo (1564-1642) and Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) had sat on and I was put through a proper canonical and juridical doctrinal process,” he recalled.

A new Swedish study has shown that women who are taking the contraceptive pill might be putting themselves at risk for decreasing their overall health and well-being.

Mood swings, energy level shifts, and a “significantly lower” quality of  life were the reported side effects of the contraceptive pill when the three-month study had concluded.

“Despite the fact that an estimated 100 million women around the world use contrace-ptive pills we know surprisingly little today about the pill’s effect on women’s health,” said Pro-fessor Angelica Linden Hirsch-berg, one of the study’s leaders, according to the Karolinska Institute. “The scientific base is very limited as regards the contrace-ptive pill’s effect on quality of life and depression and there is a great need for rando-mized studies where it is compa-red to placebos,” Dr Hirschberg continued.

The study that explored the side effects of contraception was conducted by the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm School of Economics, and included 340 healthy women between the age of 18-35. Their findings were recently published in the scientific journal “Fertility and Sterility.”

“This possible degradation of quality of life should be paid attention to and taken into account in conjunctions with prescribing of contraceptive pills and when choosing a method of contra-ception,” stated Niklas Zethra-eus, one of the study’s co-authors, according to the Inde-pendent. “All types of hormonal contraception have advantages and disadvantages. This possible effect on life quality adds to this knowledge and could be of particular import-ance for women who have experi-enced negative mood symptoms previously,” Dr Hirschberg stated.

The people of Egypt see Pope Francis as a “man of peace who resists terror and extremism with great courage and wisdom,” according to a priest in the country. Jesuit Father Bimal Kerketta from India is the principal of a French school in Cairo, and has lived in the country for 14 years.

Kerketta said “Egypt is a land of peace,” and the Muslim population “prefers peace because so far violence has not brought any solution to any problem.”

Before taking charge of his current school, the priest was principal of an Arabic language school in Minya, in Upper Egypt.

He told Crux the people of the country are impressed the pontiff is coming to Egypt so soon after the terrorist attacks at two Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday, which killed dozens of people.

“People are still terrified and not secured, and they feel uneasy; and yet, he accepted this invitation and would like to go ahead,” the priest said.

“Pope Francis is a world leader who is known for his initiatives, especially in middle east countries that are troubled by civil war such as Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and neighbouring countries where there is unrest,” Kerketta said, “people look for peace, and they would like to have peace in their existence with each other, so in that way that is the expectation of the people.”

Christians make up about ten percent of the country’s 90 million people, and 90 percent of the Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church. The head of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, was targeted in the Palm Sunday attack in Alexandria, but was unharmed. The Catholics make up less than 200,000 people. The majority of them belong to the Catholic Coptic Church, although there are also Latin, Armenian, Maronite and Melkite Catholics in the country.

“Here, less people know about Catholicism, since they only know the Coptic Orthodox Church,” Kerketta said, “so it will be an eye opening for them.” Tawadros and Francis, joined by the spiritual head of the Orthodox communion Patriarch Bartholomew, will attend an International Peace Conference in Cairo hosted by Al Azhar University, the most prominent institution in Sunni Islam.

The Bible may be a source of wisdom for many Americans but most don’t read it for themselves, a new survey shows. More than half have read little or none of it, reports LifeWay Research. “Even among worship attendees less than half read the Bible daily,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of the evangelical research firm based in Nashville, Tennessee. “The only time most Americans hear from the Bible is when someone else is reading it.”

“Among Americans: How much of the Bible have you personally read?” The survey of 1,000 people found disparate approaches to the Christian Scriptures. For instance, North-easterners are less likely to give it a look than people in other regions. And men are less inclined than women to pick it up.

One in five Americans have read the entire Bible at least once – including 9% who’ve read it through multiple times. Just over half (53%) have read relatively little of it, and 1 in 10 haven’t read it at all.

“Among Americans: Which of the following describe the Bible?”

Among those who read at least a few sentences of the Bible, slightly more than a fifth of Americans (22%) read a little Scripture each day, taking a systematic approach. About a quarter (27%) read parts others have suggested, and 16 % look up portions to help others. Almost one-fifth (19%) reread their favourite passages. Researchers found that Americans tend to view the Bible positively, with half (52%) saying it is a good source for morals. More than a third say it is helpful today (37%), true (36%) or life-changing (35%). And far fewer say it is outdated (14%), bigoted (8%) or harmful (7%).

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told the daily La Croix: “I am angry with the Church because I think it interferes with everything except what it should really be concerned with.”

Le Pen said that she has a “strong faith, and I am fortunate that I have never doubted it.” But she was blunt in her criticism of Pope Francis, particularly on the issue of immigration. She insisted that charitable activities should be the responsibilities of individuals, while states should pursue their national interests. When the Pope urges nations to accept immigrants without restrictions, she said, “this falls within the realm of politics and even interference.”

Le Pen said that if she is elected as president of France, she will “with great pleasure” invite Pope Francis to visit. “And I will tell him exactly what I have just told you,” she added.

Pollsters in France have consistently rated Le Pen as likely to emerge as a finalists in the presidential race. The first round of balloting will take place and unless one candidate wins a majority—a highly unlikely outcome—the two leading vote-getters will pair off for a final contest on May 7.

In her interview with La Croix, Le Pen took a strong stand for the French tradition of secularity in government and in public affairs generally. She argued that religious symbols such as the Islamic veil should not be allowed in public, explaining: “Secularism means that one can pass someone in the street without either one knowing what faith the other follows.”

When asked whether religious leaders have a right to enter into public debates, Le Pen replied: “I don’t get involved with what the Pope should say to his followers. I don’t think religious should tell the French people how to vote.” She complained that the French bishops’ conference—which has clearly signaled a distaste for Le Pen’s National Front—has also overstepped its proper bounds.

Russia’s Supreme Court formally banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organization and ordered the state to seize its property in Russia, according to Russian news media. The court, after six days of hearings, ordered the closing of the group’s Russia headquarters and its 395 local chapters on April 20.

The Interfax news agency quoted Justice Ministry attorney Svetlana Borisova in court as saying the Jehovah’s Witnesses pose a threat to Russians.
“They pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security,” she told the court. Borisova also said the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ opposition to blood transfusions violates Russian health care laws.

“We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,” said Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. “We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible.”