The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force on 22 January 2021. Adopted on 7 July 2017, it outlaws the use, threat, possession and stationing of atomic weapons.
To mark the event, the world’s Catholic bishops issued a statement. It reads: “The worst of all weapons of mass destruction has long been deemed immoral. Now it is also finally illegal”. It is encouraging that the “majority of UN member states actively support the new treaty by adopting, signing, and ratifying it”; what is more, public opinion polls show that most people believe that nuclear weapons must be abolished.
Last Wednesday, Pope Francis also spoke about the entry into force of the Treaty, underlining that “This is the first legally binding international instrument explicitly prohibiting these weapons, whose use has an indiscriminate impact, strikes a large amount of people in a short time and causes long-lasting damage to the environment.”
For this reason, “I strongly encourage all States and all people to work decisively toward promoting conditions necessary for a world without nuclear weapons, contributing to the advancement of peace and to multilateral cooperation which humanity greatly needs today.”
Adopted by 122 member states of the United Nations General Assembly in 2017, the treaty was ratified by 50 signatories at the end of October 2020, which allowed it to enter into force 90 days after the 50th signature.
However, the signatures of existing nuclear powers –  United States, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – are missing. Japan, the only country struck by nuclear weapons, has refused to sign the treaty arguing that its effectiveness is doubtful without the participation of nuclear powers.
In a recent interview with Vatican News, Mgr Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, said: “On the one hand, we are concerned that the nuclear powers often seem to be turning away from nuclear multilateralism and the negotiating table, as evidenced by a certain erosion of the nuclear weapons architecture, highlighted by the abandonment of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the weakening of the Iranian JCPOA (Comprehensive Joint Plan of Action), the uncertainty of the future of the aforementioned START, and increasing military spending not only on maintenance but also on the modernization of nuclear arsenals.

At least 750 people are reported dead after an attack on an Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, according to a European watchgroup.
On Jan. 9, the Europe External Programme with Africa reported that the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, about 80 miles west of Adigrat, had been attacked, and that hundreds of people who hid inside were brought out to the front square and shot to death.
According to Church Times UK, the attack was carried out by Ethiopian government troops and Amhara militia from central Ethiopia. At least 1,000 people were estimated to be hiding in the church at the time of the attack.
Locals have said they believe the church was targeted by raiders of the lost ark. The church is thought to contain the original Ark of the Covenant, a sacred golden chest first mentioned in the book of Exodus that carried the 10 commandments, parts of sacred scripture, Aaron’s rod, and a pot of manna. They believed the attackers wanted to steal the Ark of the Covenant and take it to the capital city of Addis Ababa, the Church Times reported. This ark is guided by a single priest who never leaves the compound, and it is not allowed to be seen by anyone else, so whether it is really the true Ark has been debated by historians for centuries.
The church belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, an Oriental Orthodox Church that is estimated to have about 36 million members. Tigray has been the site of the Tigray War since November of last year. In the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, the regional government is run by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The group once dominated the ruling coalition of Ethiopia but felt marginalized by Prime Minister Abiy’s political changes after he took office in 2018. He dissolved the ruling coalition and merged its ethnicity-based re-gional parties into a single party, the Prospe-rity Party, which the TPLF refused to join.

More than a third of U.S. Catholics say their own personal faith has become stronger during the coronavirus pandemic, and 3 in 10 Catholics believe the virus has strengthened the religious faith of other people in the country, according to a study released Jan. 27 by the Pew Research Centre.
Overall, 28% of Americans said their own faith had become stronger during the pandemic, with 49% of white evangelical Protestants, 21% of white non-evangelical Protestants, and 35% of Catholics agreeing.
The majority of Americans  — 68% — said the pandemic has not changed their personal faith much, but despite the cancellation of religious activities and in-person services, few Americans — only 4% — say their religious faith has weakened as a result of the outbreak.
The study, conducted last summer, found that Americans are more likely than people in 14 other countries surveyed to say that their religious faith has strengthened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The U.S. has by far the highest share of respondents who say their faith has strengthened, with about three-in-ten holding this view,” the study reports.
In Spain and Italy, the countries with the second- and third-highest percentages, only 16% and 15%, respectively, said their faith had grown stronger. (10% was the 14-country median.)
As the study points out, Americans are more likely than people in the other surveyed countries to be religious in the first place — in Italy, for example, 25% say religion is “very important” in their lives. That number is 49% in the U.S. — and people who are religious are more likely to say the pandemic has strengthened their faith.
In countries hit by large waves of infections and deaths in the spring of 2020, the pandemic also strengthened family ties, the study found. Spain, Italy, the U.S. and the U.K. had the highest proportions of respondents who said their relationships with their immediate family members had become stronger because of the pandemic. With college and university campuses closed throughout the U.S., more young people than older people said their family connections had grown closer: Half of Americans aged 18 to 29 said so, whereas only 38% of Americans older than 50 said the same.
In nine of the 14 countries, personal religious faith grew more among lower-income people than among higher-income people. In five of the countries surveyed, the study says, those with less education are also more likely to say their faith has become stronger.

As this new year begins, it’s obvious that America is facing many challenges—some old, some new. And they most certainly cannot be taken lightly. However, those of us who focus on international religious freedom also concentrate on concerns beyond our shores, and a look at Africa’s recent history in the rear-view mirror reflects terrifying images. As one deadly assault after another fades out of sight, encroaching assailants are rushing forward at terrifying speed.
The largest country in Africa and the most commercially significant, Nigeria is the site of what has been described as a slow-motion genocide in which tens of thousands of Nigerian Christians have been massacred in recent years. A Family Research Council report published in July 2020 documents horrifying statistics of mass murders there, almost entirely at the hands of three Islamist terrorist groups: Boko Haram, Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWA-P), and Fulani jihadis.
Nigeria may be the worst example of violence against African Christi-ans, but it is far from the only one. Violent incidents across the African continent are increasing. One notorious example in November 2020 was the reported beheading of 50 civilians in Mozambique—many of them Catholic Christians.
Fighters linked to Islamic State attacked several villages in Mozambique, killing civilians, abducting women and children, and burning down homes. The gruesome description of innocent people “herded” to their death on a soccer field, where they were systematically decapitated and dismembered, was nightmarish. That wasn’t the only such incident in 2020, and it certainly won’t be the last. Due to a hapless government response, ISIS continues its assaults, most recently on January 2, 2021.

A cardinal said on Jan 22 that a proposed law in Denmark requiring the translation of all homilies into Danish is a threat to religious freedom.
In a Jan. 22 statement, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), objected to the bill demanding that all addresses in a liturgical setting are either given in Danish or made accessible in the language.
“De facto, the impact would be of imposing undue hindrance on the fundamental right to freedom of religion,” he said.
The Catholic Church in Denmark has also expressed concern about the bill, which is thought to be directed primarily at the country’s Muslim congregations where sermons are often preached in Arabic.
Catholics comprise 1.3% of the 5.8 million population of Denmark, a historically Lutheran country neighbouring Germany, Norway, and Sweden.
Roughly a third of Catholics in Denmark are born outside the country, according to the Catholics & Cultures website. Masses in Metropolitan Copenhagen, the area surrounding the capital city, are conducted in Polish, English, Ukrainian, Croatian, Chaldean, French, Spanish, and Italian, as well as Danish.