Peace, justice, climate justice, the war in the Ukraine and its global impact and the ongoing crisis in the German Catholic Church were some of the themes Catholic laity, bishops and politicians and activists discussed during the five-day 102nd Ger-man Katholikentag.
The biannual festival and meeting for German-speaking Catholic laity took place for the first time in four years May 25-29 in Stuttgart. Participants heard from political and church leaders.
Speaking May 27, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is directed against “the values and convictions that unite us as a society.” Putin, he said, “must not be allowed to get away with his cynical, inhuman war.”
Scholz, who had just returned from a three-day trip to Senegal, Niger and South Africa, blamed the Russian president for an impending food crisis that is expected to hit the global south the hardest.
Scholz thanked the churches for their aid to Ukraine and for receiving refugees in Germany. He admitted that the war raises questions that are both political and ethical and that need to be discussed.
“At the heart of the matter is the question of whether violence can be fought with violence,” said the chancellor, who as a young man was a conscientious objector to compulsory military service.
About 200 demonstrators were chanting “Arm Ukraine now” in front of the hall where Scholz was speaking. On placards, they criticized that the arms deliveries were not arriving fast enough.
Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, the diocese hosting the event, said he was in favor of arms deliveries to Ukraine.
“I observe that some things are delayed there, and it is, however, urgently necessary that much that is necessary for self-defense continues to be delivered. That’s a commitment to peace when you resist the aggressor,” he told the audience.

The president of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi Germany, Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, said in an interview with KNA, the German Catholic news agency, that he believed a reorientation and new reflection of Christian peace ethics is necessary. Situations like Russia’s current war of aggression against Ukraine are not usually foreseen in most of the peace ethics theories, books and debates, he said.
Also May 27, a rally for peace among participants found many Ukrainians joining in. A local radio station spoke to one of the participants, Father Roman Wruszczak, a parish priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “We suffer with Ukraine, we cry every day. Personally, I do too. There are days when I find it difficult to celebrate the liturgy,” he said during the interview.

His name is Juan Vicente Pérez Mora, he’s Venezuelan, passionate about his faith, prays the rosary twice a day, and is in the Guinness World Records as the oldest man in the world.
Mora was born on May 27, 1909 and this year he turned 113 years old.
In an article published on May 17 on the Guinness World Records website, Mora said his secret to living a long life is to “work hard, rest on holidays, go to bed early, drink a glass of aguardiente (a strong liquor made from sugarcane) every day, love God, and always carry him in your heart.”
He says his family and friends are his greatest life companions and that the greatest thing he has learned in life is “the love of God, the love of family, and that we must get up early to work.”
According to the Guinness World Records, Mora was officially confirmed the oldest living man in the world on Feb. 4, 2022.

There will be 16 cardinals under the age of 80 elevated at the next consistory, to be held Aug. 27. This will be the eighth consistory of Pope Francis’ pontificate, and the first of his to be held in August.
The last time a cardinal was made in August, a torrid month in Rome when all things slow down in the Vatican Curia, was on Aug. 24, 1807 when Pius VII created Francesco Guidobono Cavalchini a cardinal “in pectore”, announcing his name only in April 1808.
With these new cardinals, Pope Francis will have created 122. There are three members of the Curia:  The cardinals are:
— Cardinal Jean-Marc Noël Aveline, 63, Archbishop of Marseille, who will become the first French diocesan bishop to get the honor during Pope Francis’ pontificate;
— Peter Ebere Okpaleke, 59, Bishop of Ekwulobia in the central region of Nigeria, who was created bishop in 2012 by Benedict XVI;
— Leonardo Ullrich, 77, Archbishop of Manaus, in Brazil’s Amazon region, a Franciscan who played a leading role during the Amazon Synod and the current Vice President of the recently created Amazonian Bishops’ Conference;
— Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, 69, Archbishop of Goa, appointed bishop by St. John Paul II in 1993 and currently the President of Latin-rite bishops of India;
— Robert McElroy, 68, Bishop of San Diego (United States), whose diocese is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, led by the President of the USCCB, Archbishop José Gomez;
— Virgilio do Carmo Da Silva, 68, a Salesian, Archbishop of Dili (East Timor);
— Oscar Cantoni, 71, Bishop of Como (Italy), appointed in January 2005 by St. John Paul II, who is suffragan to Milan;
— Anthony Poola, 60, Archbishop of Hyderabad (India), a bishop since 2008 and the first dalit to become a cardinal;
— Paulo Cezar Costa, 54, Archbishop of Brasilia (Brazil), the fourth archbishop of the Brazilian capital to become a cardinal;
— Richard Kuuia Baawobr, 62, Bishop of Wa (Ghana), former Superior General of the White Fathers, and bishop since 2016;
— William Goh Seng Chye, 62, Arch-bishop of Singapore since 2013;  — Adalberto Martinez Flores, 70, Archbishop of Asunción (Paraguay) and the first Paraguayan cardinal;
— Giorgio Marengo, 47, Italian Missionary of the Consolata and Apostolic Prefect of Ulan Bator in Mongolia, who will be the youngest cardinal in recent history, along with Karol Wojtyla, who also was created a cardinal at 47, during the consistory of June 26, 1967.

A council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) on May 27 resolved on its “full self-sufficiency and independence,” distancing the Church from Russian Orthodoxy. The decision comes amid the third month of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been prominently supported by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
“The Council adopted relevant amendments and additions to the Statutes on the administration of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, indicating the full self-sufficiency and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” the Church resolved May 27 in Kyiv.
The council also condemned the Russo-Ukrainian War, gave terms for dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and broached the possibility of making chrism, which as been considered a sign of autocephaly in the Russian tradition.
“The council condemns the war as a violation of God’s commandment Thou shalt not kill,” it said, and it expressed its “disagreement with the position of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia regarding the war in Ukraine.”

Christians in eastern China who wish to travel abroad for various reasons including emigration and studies are facing hard times as authorities have denied them passports, citing travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Christians from several families in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces said immigration officials questioned the purpose of their passport applications and later rejected the applications after they discovered their religious adherence, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on May 26.
In Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city, which has a significant concentration of Protestant Christians, authorities have reportedly rejected the passport applications of many students seeking over-seas education, an education consultant said.
The scenario is similar in Jiangsu province as well.
“A bunch of students from Wenzhou with a church back-ground had been planning to go and study at overseas universities, but the government has refused to give them passports,” said Zhu, a Christian from Xu-zhou city in Jiangsu who would be identified only by his surname.

Pope Francis has authorised the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated and Societies of Apostolic Life to grant dispensations that would allow non-clerics to hold the office of Major Superior in some cases.
The Holy Father did so in a rescript promulgated on May 25, concerning the possibility of a dispensation from Canon 588 §2 of the Code of Canon Law (CIC), which stipulates that that clerical institutes be governed by clerics.
Major superiors, along with their vicars, are those who govern an entire or a part of a clerical institute, and are call-ed to “devote themselves diligently to their office and together with the members entrusted to them are to strive to build a community of brothers or sisters in Christ,” according to the CIC.

ISIS extremists executed 20 Nigerian Christians in a brutal knife attack to “avenge the killing of the group’s leaders in the Middle East.” The Islamic State posted footage of their executions in a vile warning to Nigerians, that they are there, are expanding their territory, and have the intent of imposing a draconian and barbaric rule. The militants carried out the merciless executions in Borno state where rival Islamist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) have been abducting, looting and killing on a huge scale.
Footage of the latest massacre shows one of the executioners saying in the Hausa language that the killings are a response to ISIS deaths in the Middle East earlier this year. It came a week after Islamic rebels killed at least seven people in an attack in northeast Borno.
Over 35,000 people have been killed and many more displaced in West Africa as a result of the extremist groups. The groups are clashing with each other, as well as the local and national governments that oppose them.
The ISIS insurgents attacked Kautukari village in the Chibok area at the same time that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in the state to meet with survivors of jihadist violence.
The Chibok area is 70 miles away from Maiduguri, the state capital, where Guterres met with former militants being reintegrated back into the society and thousands of people displaced by the insurgency.
Boko Haram and ISWAP were originally aligned but the groups splintered in 2016 and are now considered rivals. “They came in large numbers with superior firepower (and) took over the community,” said Hassan Chibok, a community leader.
Troops from a nearby military base were deployed to repel the attack but “the damage had been done,” Chibok said, adding that “casualties are up to 10.”
Another resident, Yana Galang, said at least seven people were killed in the latest violence before the Nigerian military intervened.

Pope Francis said on May 25  that Catholics today are living in an “age of fake news, collective superstitions, and pseudo-scientific truths.”
Reflecting on the Book of Ecclesiastes at his general audience on May 25, the Pope suggested that the 21st century was marked not only by scientific knowledge but also what he called a “cultured witchcraft.”
“It is no coincidence that ours is the age of fake news, collective superstitions, and pseudo-scientific truths,” he said.
Speaking off the cuff, he went on: “It’s curious: in this culture of knowledge, of knowing every-thing, even of the precision of knowledge, a lot of witchcraft has spread, but cultured witch-craft.”
“It is witchcraft with a certain culture but that leads you to a life of superstition: on the one hand, to go forward with intelligence in knowing things down to the roots; on the other hand, the soul that needs something else and takes the path of superstitions, and ends up in witch-craft.”
The pope used the Italian word “stregoneria,” which can be translated as “witchcraft,” “sorcery,” or “black magic.”
The Pope’s live-streamed catechesis was the 11th in a cycle on old age that he began in February. He entered St. Peter’s Square in a white jeep, stopping to invite children in brightly colored clothes to join him for part of his journey among the pilgrims.

Pope Francis said May 21  that Catholic schools should not be Christian in name only, but in fact.
Speaking to the De La Salle Christian Brothers, the Pope underlined that Christians educators must first of all be witnesses to the Gospel.
“The Christian educator, in the school of Christ, is first of all a witness, and he is a teacher to the extent that he is a witness,” Pope Francis said on May 21.
“And above all I pray for you, that you may be brothers not only in name, but in fact. And for your schools to be Christian not in name, but in fact,” he said.
The Pope met with the Christian Brothers as the religious institute is participating in its   46th General Chapter in Rome on the theme: “Building new paths to transform lives.”
“We know that the ‘way,’ the truly new path, is Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis said.
“By following him, by walking with him, our lives are trans-formed, and we in turn become leaven, salt, and light.”
The De La Salle Christian Brothers, formally known as the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, were founded by St. John Baptist de La Salle to provide Christian education to the young, especially the poor.