Knights across the world are considering leaving the Catholic Church because of Pope Francis’ reforms, the former grand chancellor of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta revealed.
In a confidential letter obtained by Church Militant, Albrecht von Boeselager lamented that many confreres had expressed to him “their great dis-appointment in the Holy Father – they could no longer regard him as the father he promised to be for the order.”
Boeselager sent the letter to an elite group of knights after Pope Francis issued a September 3 decree that makes sweeping changes to the Order of Malta and undermines the ancient order’s sovereignty. The Associated Press described the papal action as tantamount to “one sovereign country annexing another, if on a very small scale.”
In his decree, the Pope order-ed the dismissal of the order’s four highest-ranking officers, including Boeselager. Invoking papal authority, Francis also dissolved the order’s Sovereign Council and established a provisional council to oversee governance.
Francis also approved a new constitutional charter and code, while appointing his own men to the highest offices and the provisional council. These actions triggered questions about the sovereignty of the institution, founded in 1048.
Vatican cardinal cancels trip amid backlash over synodal way remarks
A Vatican cardinal cancelled a weekend visit to Germany after reportedly receiving threats re-lated to his recent remarks about the country’s “synodal way.”
Cardinal Kurt Koch was due to celebrate Mass and give a lecture on Oct. 2 in the southern German city of Schwäbisch Gmünd. He was also expected to celebrate Mass in the nearby town of Ellwangen on Oct. 3.
But local media reported that the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity pulled out of the trip for “security reasons.”
The 72-year-old cardinal pro-voked anger in Germany when he invoked the Nazi era while criticizing the synodal way, a controversial initiative bringing together bishops and lay people to discuss hot-button issues.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, chair-man of the German bishops’ con-ference, called on Koch to apolo-gize publicly after the cardinal referred to the virulently anti-Semitic “German Christian” movement in a Sept. 29 interview with the newspaper Die Tage-spost.
He said that if the cardinal did not withdraw his remarks, he would make an “official com-plaint” to Pope Francis.
In the interview, Koch argued that the synodal way was seeking to establish “new sources” for Catholic teaching, “in addition to the sources of revelation of Scripture and Tradition.”
He added that it frightened him “that this is happening again in Germany.”
Synodal way has no power “to compel the bishops …to adopt new ways of governance” German bishops’ ad limina visit
Germany’s bishops are meeting in Fulda, a town in the centre of the country, this week ahead of a crucial trip to the Vatican.
Their fall plenary meeting, which began on September 26, is dedicated to two major themes: the controversial “synodal way” and the bishops’ November ad limina visit to Rome. The stakes are high: The Vatican has repeatedly expressed misgivings about the synodal way – the multi-year German initiative bringing together bishops and lay people to discuss four main topics: power, the priesthood, women in the Church, and sexual morality.
In July, the Vatican’s Secretariat of State underlined that the synodal way has no power “to compel the bishops and the faithful to adopt new ways of governance and new approaches to doctrine and morals.”
Earlier this month, the bishops attended an acrimonious session of the synodal way at which they endorsed documents propo-sing new ways of governance and new app-roaches to doctrine and morals.
The votes pave the way for a potential showdown between the German bishops and Vatican officials in Rome.
Subscribe The nuncio emphasized that “secret voting is one of the Church’s methods, practiced for centuries in important votes, in elections of superiors in many orders and congregations, right up to the election of the Pope in a conclave.”
“A high level of approval of draft reso-lutions in a secret ballot depends on the depth of dialogue in the assembly hall and the working groups, as well as on the willingness to accept changes in the draft texts,” he said.
Eteroviæ is not a lone voice: last weekend, the Swiss Vatican official Cardinal Kurt Koch expressed alarm at the proceedings in Frankfurt. “This is the papal magisterium on the synodal way,” Francis said in July.
He has made it clear that the letter is the baseline by which the initiative will be judged. If he feels the German bishops have ignored it, they could have a frosty reception in November.
Karnataka schools to teach Bhagavad Gita from December
The Karnataka government has announced that it would include teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as part of moral education in schools from December this year.
B.C. Nagesh, the state’s primary and secondary education minister, said the government has amended its earlier proposal to introduce Gita as a separate subject in schools and decided to teach it as part of moral education.
However, some section of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has objected to introducing the Hindu scripture only as part of moral education and not as a separate topic in syllabus.
However, Nagesh said the government has already appointed an expert panel to give their recommendations and suggestions after consulting with various stakeholders.
The minister also hinted that some historical mistakes will be corrected in the textbooks like the lesson on Baba Dudan-giri, a holy place of Muslims in Chikmagaluru to ‘Inam Dattatreya Peeta,’ a Hindu pilgrim center in the same hills. The text books will have more information on some local kings and their kingdoms too, he added.
Last year, several school days were disrupted on account of the hijab row by Muslim girls and attacks on some Christian schools for propagating Christian principles in schools.
Father Faustine Lobo, the spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Karnataka, said he welcomes the government decision to teach Bhagavad Gita in schools as part of moral education, but it should not be aimed at promoting a single culture.
All regions teach moral principles and India being a multi-cultural country, it is not right to look at morality from only one angle, he pointed out.
“The government should be committed to include moral values from other religions too, if they are really concerned about a moral society based on ethical values and pluralism,” the Catholic priest asserted.
Church congratulates Diliip Tirkey for becoming Hockey India president
The Church in India has congratulated Dilip Tirkey, who was elected unopposed as the president of the Ho-ckey Federation of India.
“We extend our congratulations to Dilip Tirkey for this new top job in India. The Church of India is definitely proud of him,” said Divine Word Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Office of Tribal Affairs under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).
Tirkey, a former India captain, on September 23 became Hockey India’s first player-president of the federation.
Hockey India elections were scheduled for October 1 but the results were de-clared in advance as there were no contestants.
Tirkey was elected after Uttar Pradesh Hockey chief Rakesh Katyal and Hockey Jharkhand’s Bhola Nath Singh withdrew their nominations.
Father Barla says Tirkey has come up from a rural set up in Sundargarh district of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, considered the hockey garden of the country. “We expect him to provide opportunities for rural as well talented youth,” he continued.
Remembering the crimes of India’s Dara Singh
The Christian community in India remembers Jan. 22, 1999, as the day Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines, who worked with leprosy patients in Odisha, and his young sons Timothy and Philip, were burned alive. It was on that day that the Western world really came face to face with the violence being meted out to the minuscule reli-gious minority by the Hindutva extremist groups collectively known as the Sangh Parivar.
The trio was sleeping in their jeep in a clearing in the Manour-harpur-Baripada forest when they were surrounded by a mob led by Dara Singh, a local chief of the militant Bajrang Dal, who had gained a reputation as the scourge of cattle traders driving their animals through forest roads in the state on the east coast of India. Dara Singh had earlier slain a man called Rahman, a Muslim cattle trader.
The Staines family massacre remained international news, both in the West and especially in his home country, Australia, for a long time. The triple deaths were horrendous. The father and sons had been set on fire as they slept. As the flames rose, they tried to escape the vehicle but were beaten back into the fire by the mob with bamboo sticks.
The ups and downs of the trial in the superior courts were equally dramatic. It would seem the courts had not fully under-stood the murderous ideology of the killer group. The Supreme Court of India, which finally sentenced Dara Singh to a life term in prison, agreed with the High Court of Orissa (the state high court of Odisha) that the killers did not deserve the death penalty handed to them by the trial court.
The system was not shamed by the words of Graham Staines’ widow Gladys who told TV news reporters that she had “forgiven the murderers of her husband and her two young sons.” The criminal justice system was the job of the government.
US Congress seeks independent probe into Stan Swamy’s death
An organization engaged in spreading awareness about Chri-stian contribution to the Indian society has urged the Karnataka governor not to sign a bill against religious conversions.
“It is nothing but a dictatorial bill,” says a letter the Reverend Ferdinand Kittle Foundation wrote to the state Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot September 17, a day after the Karnataka Legislative Council, the upper house of the state legislature, passed the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, (anti-conversion bill).
The bill that now awaits the governor’s signature to become a law “is undemocratic” and against the “spirit of secularism of India,” asserts the Bengaluru-based organization and pleaded the governor to consider points such as the bill’s harmful and detrimental impact on the Indian secular society.
“The Indian Constitution has given the right to practice and propagate one’s religion. And every Indian citizen has the right to choose his/her own religion,” asserted the letter signed by or-ganization president Anthony Vikram, vice president Solomon Raj and general secretary Dalith Francis.
They warn that bringing such a “draconian law” has created fear as it takes away people’s right to change religion “freely without fear of atrocities by self-proclaimed moral policing group.”
The Filipino shepherd has spoken but will the sheep listen
Filipino Catholic bishops led by the Archbishop of Manila have urged church-goers not to forget the atrocities during the martial law era. But will the people heed their advice?
The Catholic Church’s hierarchy had gone silent after the presidential election results in May. It was perhaps a painful realization for them that very few Catholics listened to their call to support opposition candidate and for-mer Vice President Leonor Robredo.
The Catholic Church had not involved itself in national politics since the Church-supported 1986 People Power Revolution, which removed Dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power.
During the presidential election, clergy-men wore pink masks and shirts — the color adopted by Robredo supporters. Pastoral letters were issued against martial law and election frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s purported effort to revise Philippine history.
Despite accusations of electioneering by conservatives, priests formed associations to support Robredo. The Canon law’s provision for the Church’s non-partisanship was stretched to the limit. But still, Robredo lost. Marcos, Jr. won by an overwhelming majority with 31 million votes.
What happened to the Catholic consci-ence? Do Catholics in the Philippines still listen to their bishops and priests? Or have they pushed them aside while they themselves decide on matters that directly affect the nation?
On the 50th anniversary of martial law, the Catholic prelates spoke.
Perceived to be a clergyman who doesn’t engage in politics, Archbishop Cardinal Jose Fuerte Advincula broke his silence on martial law. Now the stance of the Archbishop of Manila is clear. His statement should silence any critics. He’s not an archbishop sitting in an ivory tower while looking at his flock in the old walled city of Intramuros in the capital.
Cardinal Advincula is still a pastor who does not want to erase the atrocities of martial law from Philippine history, and I suppose, from the history of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Karnataka governor urged not to sign anti-conversion law
Mother of renowned author Arundhati Roy passes away
Mary Roy, an educator and a women’s rights activist, died September 1 after a brief ill-ness in Kottayam, a town in the southern Indian state of Kerala. She was 89.
She was survived by two children, son Lalit Roy and daughter Arundhati Roy, renowned writer and activist who won the 1997 Man Booker prize for her novel “God of Small Things.”
Roy was known for winning a landmark Supreme Court case in 1986 that ensured equal rights in family property for women belonging to the Syrian Christian community in Kerala. She fought a 39-year-long legal battle to gain equal access to the property of her deceased father that led to the Supreme Court judgment against the archaic Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916.