Reflecting both the symbolic and the strategic importance of the world’s youngest independent nation, Pope Francis’s top dip-lomat recently urged South Sudan not to succumb to the “plague of vengeance” on his third trip to the African state.
Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on August 17 in the largely Christian nation, which has been marred by violence since gaining independence in 2011, that for-giveness is “the key that unlocks the door to peace and justice – the forgiveness that Christ won for us on the cross.”
The Vatican Secretary of State was speaking in the South Suda-nese city of Rumbek.
“Either we disarm our heart and give up violent means of solv-ing our differences, or we destroy ourselves,” Parolin said.
He called on South Sudan to “look beyond all differences” and explore ways of bridging the country’s divides.
After winning its independe-nce from Sudan in 2011, the new nation quickly became mired in seemingly intractable internal conflict.
What started as a political spat between the dominant political elite has degenerated into ethnic violence, pitting President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against Vice President Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Kiir accused Machar of fomenting a coup, prompting Machar to flee the capital city of Juba.
“The return of the country to violence is more evident than the country staying in stability,” he said.
“We know what it means to live in a continual state of inse-curity and fear,” Parolin told con-gregants in Rumbek, but noted that perfect love can drive out fear.
New Colonialism’ and local elites complicit in African conflicts, expert says
A leading Catholic expert on African affairs has said that competition over mineral wealth as part of what’s often referred to as a “New Colonialism” is at the heart of most of the continent’s conflicts, and that African leaders themselves are often complicit in creating and prolonging the violence.
Referring specifically to a conflict between the government of Mozambique and Islamic militants in the country’s northeastern province of Cabo Delgado, which has claimed an estimated 5,000 lives and displaced some 1 million people since fighting broke out in 2017, Johan Viljoen of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of South Africa told Crux that “the conflict in Mozambique (and in most other parts of Africa) is about control over mineral wealth.”
Viljoen’s institute is an associate body of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference.
His comments came in the wake of the institute’s recent second International Symposium, which was organized collaboratively with the Technical University of Würzburg-Schweinfurt and other Catholic and civil society organizations.
Bringing together scholars, religious leaders, community members as well as internally displaced persons who fled from the conflict in Cabo Delgado province, the symposium took place in the Diocese of Nicala, Mozambique, under the theme “Working for a just, socially cohesive and conflict-resistant economic trans-formation to build lasting peace processes.”
It focused on decolonization, with Viljoen stating that most African countries rich in natural resources are “subject to economic colonialism coupled with endless wars.”
Don’t be rigid, but be ‘docile to change’ as Jesus was, Pope tells pilgrims
Reflecting on Christ’s encounter with the Canaanite woman who pleaded for the healing of her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28), Pope Francis said during his August 20 Angelus address that “Jesus changed his attitude. What made him change it was the strength of the woman’s faith.”
Jesus “was directing his preaching to the chosen people,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “Later the Holy Spirit would push the Church to the ends of the world. But what happens here, we could say, is an anticipation through which the universality of God’s work is already manifested in the episode of the Canaanite woman.”
“Jesus’ openness is interesting,” the Pope continued, as he commented on what he described as the Savior’s change in attitude. “Faced with her concrete case, he becomes even more sympathetic and compassionate. This is what God is like: he is love, and the one who loves does not remain rigid.”
The Pope added: Yes, he or she stands firm, but not rigid, they do not remain rigid in their own positions, but allow themselves to be moved and touched. He or she knows how to change their plans.
Love is creative. And we Christians who want to imitate Christ, we are invited to be open to change. How good it would do our relationships, as well as our lives of faith, if we were to be docile, to truly pay attention, to soften up in the name of compassion and the good of others, like Jesus did with the Canaanite woman. The docility to change. Hearts docile to change.
“We can ask ourselves a few questions, beginning with the change in Jesus,” Pope Francis said at the conclusion of his address. “For example: Am I capable of changing opinion? Do I know how to be understanding and do I know how to be compassionate, or do I remain rigid in my position? Is there some rigidity in my heart? Which is not firmness: rigidity is awful, firmness is good.”
The Pontiff also commented on the Canaanite woman’s faith and prayer, as he had done in his previous Angelus addresses on the Gospel passage (2017, 2020).
INDIAN PASTOR, WIFE HELD FOR ALLEGED RELIGIOUS CONVERSION
A Protestant pastor in a northern Indian state has been attacked for allegedly conducting religious conver-sions. Pastor Shyju Joseph was condu-cting Sunday worship on Aug. 6 at his place in Bihar state’s Nawada district. Members of the Bajrang Dal (brigade of Lord Hanuman), a Hindu nationalist organisation, disrupted the service after accusing him of conver-ting people to Christianity.
Manipur elders declare indefinite fast, prayer for “immature youth”
The elders of Vaishnavite commu-nity in Imphal have declared indefinite fast and prayer after taking moral responsibility for what they call the misdeeds of their immature youth.
The declaration came during the third visit of Archbishop Emeritus Thomas Menamparampil to the violence-torn northeastern Indian state.
Mangaluru Catholics remember Jesuit who helped make Indian Republic
The contribution of Jesuit Father Jerome D’Souza as one of the architects of the Indian Constitution was recalled at a function in Mangaluru, southern India.
Father D’Souza (1897-1977), a native of Mangaluru, was a member of India’s Constituent Assembly that met 1946-1950 in New Delhi to draft the country’s Constitution that came into effect on January 26, 1950.
Vatican delegate’s mission questioned in Indian Church
The appointment of a Vatican re-presentative, who arrived to help find a solution to the lingering liturgical dispute in India’s eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church, has turned contro-versial after a section of Catholics maintained that his papal delegation itself is suspect.
Jesuit Archbishop Cyril Vasil of Slovakia arrived at the Church’s base in southern Kerala state on Aug. 4. But a group of Catholics in the Chur-ch’s Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdio-cese say his letter of appointment from the Vatican is not made available to the archdiocese, nor published anywhere.
Goa Church distances from layman’s “unite or perish” call
The Catholic Church in Goa has distanced itself from a layman’s call to fellow Goans to unite or be doomed.
The call appeared in an article published in the August 1-15 edition of the “Renewal,” the bimonthly pastoral bulletin of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman.
The writer, F E Noronha, in his one-page article, titled “Goans need to Unite …or they will perish,” referred to politicians such as the state chief minister talking about destroying traces of Portuguese culture. Such announcements are part of a holocaust under preparation, he warned.
The Goa edition of The Times of India on August 5 carried a report with the headline, “Church bulletin article warns Manipur-like situation in Goa.”
Reacting to such reports, Father Barry Cardozo, director of the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, asked the newspaper to publish a corrigendum, stating the Church’s stand on the matter.
“A section of the print media has recently carried a misleading report titled ‘Church predicts Manipur-like situation in Goa.’ We would like to state that the Church in Goa has never made such a statement. Statements made by an individual contributor to the pastoral bulletin of this Archdiocese have been made to appear as (official) statements of the Church. The pertinent newspaper has been asked to issue a corrigendum.”
Iran targets minorities one year after Mahsa Amini’s death, 69 Christians arrested
Iran arrested scores of Christians, mostly converts from Islam but also some Assyrian-Chaldeans baptised as children, over a seven-week period in June and July in 11 different cities of the country, this according to Article18, a human rights organisation that advocates on behalf of Iranian Christians and religious freedom.
In an early report, the NGO had reported 50 arrests by mid-July in five cities, but its latest update indicates that at least 69 people were taken into custody, 10 of which – four men and six women – are still held by the authorities.
The arrests occurred between 1 June and 17 July in the following cities: Tehran, Karaj, Rasht, Orumiyeh, Aligoudarz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Semnan, Garmsar, Varamin, and Eslamshahr.
In the capital Tehran and the other cities, after their arrest, people were forced to sign statements pledging to refrain from Christian activities or undergo Islamic re-education in order to be released.
Some say that after their release they were summoned for further questioning, or were ordered to leave Iran. One said he lost his job at the request of intelligence agents. For those granted bail, families had to pay between US$ 8,000 and US$ 40,000.
The majority of those arrested are converts from Islam, but at least two are Iranian-Armenians, who were born into Christian families..
The wave of arrests among Christians also coincides with a new crackdown on Iran’s Baha’i community, which, along with Christian converts, is a minority religious group not recognised by the Islamic Republic.
Indian Christians organize prayer meet for Manipur before UN
The Indian Christian community in the Tri-state area organized a vigil in front of the United Nations to pray for peace and justice in Manipur where ethnic clashes have raged since May 3.
The participants of the August 5 program prayed for good sense to come to the perpetrators of the violence and for the authorities to have the courage to reign in the continuing attacks on the Kuki-Zo tribal people, mostly Christians, in the northeastern Indian state.
The vigil, attended by more than 700 people, expressed solidarity with the grieving people of Manipur. “Prayers by the clergy reflected the deep pain felt across the Indian Christian Community in the United States for the great calamity that befell Manipur with tremendous loss of human lives and destruction of homes and churches,” says a press statement from the Federation of Indian American Christians of North America (FIACONA), one of the organizers.
“This is not a protest rally. We aim not to examine why the riots happened, who is responsible, or politics. We are here today to pray for the rule of law in Manipur, and obviously, there are limits as to what we can do to help. However, Prayer does not have any limitations,” said FIACONA president Koshy George.