The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar has issued a statement last week calling for humanitarian assistance to thou-sands of people who have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in the country.
In a letter of appeal released on Jan. 14, the Church leaders called on “all concerned” to facilitate “humanitarian access to suffering and internally displaced people.” “Human dignity and the right to life can never be compromised,” the Church leaders said in the letter following their general assembly in Yangon last week.
The bishops also called for “respect for life, respect for the sanctity of sanctuary in places of worship, hospitals, and schools.”
The letter also expressed their appreciation to priests, nuns, and catechists who continue to take care of the people “in their flight from dangers of life.”
The bishops called on all Church workers, especially priests, religious men and women, and catechists, to continue the “mission of love and sacrifice for the people irrespective of the faith, race, and place.”
Vatican official launches nunciature in Abu Dhabi
The opening of a new apostolic nunciature in the United Arab Emirates is a testament to fraternity and goodwill between Muslims and Christians, said Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony in Abu Dhabi Feb. 4, Archbishop Peña, the substitute secretary for general affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State, said the new nunciature is also “a further sign of the Holy Father’s solicitude and concern for all the people in this land.”
“May this new embassy of the Holy See serve as a place of encounter and dialogue for our bilateral cooperation for many years to come,” the Archbishop said.
Among those present at the inauguration were Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince and minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation; Bishop Paul Hinder, apostolic vicar for Southern Arabia; and Msgr. Yoannis Gaid, member of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity.
The Holy See and the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic relations in 2007, but the nuncio resided in Kuwait. Currently the nunciature is headed by Slovenian Msgr. Kryspin Dubiel, who serves as chargé d’affaires.
The opening of the nunciature coincided with the third anniversary of the day that Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar in Egypt, signed a document on promoting dialogue and “human fraternity” during the Pope’s 2019 apostolic visit to the United Arab Emirates.
The document, Archbishop Peña said, showed that unity between Muslims and Christians is possible through the “shared belief in God the creator of all things” from which “stems the call for believers to live in fraternity with all people regardless of race, religion or creed and to safeguard creation, our common home.”
“Contrary to any distortion or manipulation of religion, the response to this call can be nothing other than choosing the path of dialogue, which leads to better mutual understanding and cooperation,” he said.
Synodal process: Indian laity group pleads for extension
A laity group in India has urged the Vatican to extend the primary synthesis stage of the Rome Synod for another three more months. “The third wave of corona pandemic is sweeping across the world. As such it is impossible for people to travel or organize physical gatherings, so critical to discerning God’s will for the future of the Church,” says a letter from the Indian Catholic Forum addressed to Sister Nathalie Becquart, the Under Secretary of the Synod in Rome.
Pope appoints new archbishop of Trivandrum
Pope Francis on Feb. 2 appointed Msgr Thomas J Netto as the new head of the Trivandrum Latin rite Archdiocese.
The Pope has also accepted the resignation of Archbishop M Calist Soosa Pakiam, who headed the archdiocese since February 2, 1990.
These details were made public at noon time in Rome, says a press release from Father Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in India, the national body for Latin rite bishop in the country.
Priest musician, Siddha practitioner dies
Father A. Pitchaimuthu, a practitioner of Siddha medicine famous for composing the Catholic liturgy in folk style, died January 30 in Tamil Nadu, southern India. He was 82.
The death of the priest, who was also an educationist, occurred at 5:30 am in Viruthachalam town in Cuddalore district, some 225 km southwest of Chennai, the state capital.
Minorities support former VP’s views on India
Indian minorities have come out in support of former vice president Hamid Ansari, who is being criticized for his brief statement expressing concern over the rising trend of Hindu nationalism in the country.
Ansari was speaking at a virtual panel discussion on Jan. 27 organized by the US-based Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and is reported to have said how in recent years India had seen a rise in trends and practices that “dispute the well-established principle of civic nationalism and imaginary practice of cultural nationalism.”
He also expressed concern about how citizens were being distinguished “on the basis of their faith” amid “rising intolerance, disquiet and insecurity.”
Kerala bishop arrested for “illegal” sand mining in Tamil Nadu
A Catholic bishop and five priests from Kerala, southern India, have been arrested on charges of illegal sand mining in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district court has remanded all the six in judicial custody, but Bishop Samuel Mar Irenios Kaattukallil of Pathanamthitta and Father Jose Chamakala were admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Tirunelveli after they fell ill.
Religious repression in Hong Kong could soon worsen, Christian cleric warns
Speaking anonymously during an online discussion, a Christian cleric in Hong Kong said he thinks it is likely that greater repression by the Chinese government of religious freedom in Hong Kong, particularly the freedom of religious schools, is about to occur.
The cleric, identified only as Reverend L, told the Hudson Institute’s Nina Shea on Feb. 10 that the Chinese Communist Party appears to be using ideological tactics, such as education, to chip away at the freedom of religion in Hong Kong, which came under Chinese control in 1997.
“In terms of restricting the rights of religious freedom, the CCP is doing it step-by-step,” Reverend L said, noting that China has in recent years imposed serious restrictions on the rights of assembly, press, and speech in Hong Kong. “Freedom of religion is the only remaining freedom in Hong Kong at this moment,” he said.
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, whose citizens have historically enjoyed freedom of religion, “comparable to any country in the free world,” Reverend L said. In contrast, on the Chinese mainland, religious believers of all stripes are routinely restricted, surveilled, and oppressed by the communist government.
However, Reverend L says that religious freedom has been particularly eroded in Hong Kong since 2019, thanks to the CCP’s efforts to control the populace through an “ideological war.”
Reverend L pointed to a Reuters report from late December documenting an October meeting at which Chinese bishops and religious leaders briefed senior Hong Kong Catholic clergymen on President Xi Jinping’s vision of religion with “Chinese characteristics.”
Reverend L opined that the meeting sounded like a “brainwashing session” to attempt to make the faith more Chinese, and thus more expedient for the CCP.
At the end of January 2022, the Chinese-language newspaper Ta Kung Pao, which Reverend L described as a CCP propaganda publication, published four articles about Catholicism in Hong Kong, one of them about Hong Kong archbishop emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen.
Zen, 90, has been a strong advocate of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement for years, and is a sharp critic of the 2018 Vatican-China deal on the appointment of bishops.
We have reduced costs and will show our accounts to Bishops’ Conferences
“To help the economy of the Holy See to meet its needs, taking care that economic activity does not distract or detract from the credibility of the Holy See’s mission of fostering unity in charity and the evangelising mission of the Church, which is what matters.”
In this interview with Vatican Media, Guerrero offers some data on the new budget of the Holy See, which has increased significantly this year due to the inclusion of new entities. Cost containment continues (further reduced by €4 million). The budgeted deficit is lower than that of last year, and the Prefect hopes to soon be able to provide data on the income and expenditure of Peter’s Pence as well, anticipating that this year too contribution of the faithful has decreased.
We are well aware that we have made major mistakes in financial management, which have undermined the credibility of the Holy See. We seek to learn from them and we believe we have remedied them so that they do not happen again. In recent years, encouraged by the Holy Father, we have taken important steps in the right direction in economic management: greater professionalisation, more teamwork, more transparency and less secrecy, establishment of oversight procedures, greater recognition of our weaknesses and attempting to remedy them… Important changes have been made with the publication of certain laws. But slowly, the culture is changing. We are working in the right direction.
Top European cardinals want changes on homosexuality, priestly celibacy
Over the past week, two leading European Cardinals, both of whom enjoy broad favour with Pope Francis, have made public statements calling for a change in the Catholic Church’s current position on the issues of homo-sexuality and priestly celibacy.
In an interview published in Germany’s Catholic News Agency (KNA) earlier this week, Jesuit Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg, voiced his belief that the Church’s position viewing homosexual relationships is wrong.
“I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct,” he said, saying the time has come to revise this position, and suggesting that Pope Francis’s own rhetoric on homosexuality could open the door for this change to take place.
Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis, who has also voiced concern over homosexuality in the priesthood, has taken a softer approach to the issue and has urged the Church to be more welcoming to homosexual individuals and to families with homosexual members.
In 2013, he signalled a new approach to the issue with his famous declaration that if a person “is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will … Who am I to judge?”
In 2018, he said that the Church has to find a way to help the parents of gays and lesbians so that they “stand by” their children, telling parents with LGBT children, “Do not condemn. Dialogue. Understand.”