Crux

Brazilian Supreme Court justice accuses bishops of ‘disinformation’ on marijuana debate

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(Crux. Eduardo Campos Lima).

As the Supreme Court of Brazil prepared to examine the decriminalization of marijuana possession, Justice Luis Roberto Barroso said the head of the Bishops’ Conference called him earlier to express his concerns over “the legalization of drugs,” adding it was a sign that he had been exposed to “disinformation.” Barroso claimed Archbishop Jaime Spengler of Porto Alegre had been misguided by “fake news,” since the court is not willing to allow the consumption of illicit drugs in Brazil.

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Major Archbishop Shevchuk says Ukraine’s freedom is essential for religious freedom

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(Crux).

Ukraine’s leading Catholic archbishop says an independent Ukraine is synonymous with religious freedom. The Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk was speaking in his address marking the 122th week of the full-scale Russian invasion. In his video message, Shevchuk said the last week was marked by Russia’s “war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine.” Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There have been increased aerial attacks by both sides in the past few months, and intense fighting continues in the east of the country.

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Archdiocese in Kerala, India, refuses to follow decree from Syro-Malabar Major Archbishop

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

Tensions are continuing to rise within the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala, India, as clergy and laypeople resist efforts to impose a new liturgy on their parishes. A circular letter was issued by Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil – the head of the Syro-Malabar Church – and archdiocesan administrator Bosco Puthur was supposed to be read at Masses last week, but 321 churches in in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese refused to do so, resulting in protests and verbal assaults. The Syro-Malabar Church, with an estimated following of 4.25 million worldwide, is the second largest of the eastern Churches in communion with Rome. Ever since its synod decided in 2021 to adopt a new, unified mode of celebrating the Mass, the Church has been gripped by controversy, above all in its largest jurisdiction of Ernakulam-Algamany. The synod required that Mass be celebrated facing the people during the Liturgy of the Word, and facing the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

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Kenya president joins Pope Francis in calling for end of conflicts in Africa

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(Crux. Ngala Killian Chimtom).

Kenyan President William Ruto has joined Pope Francis in calling for peace in Africa, including an end to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan and South Sudan. Addressing the G7 members in Apulia, Italy, the Kenyan president painted a disturbing picture of a world torn by conflict, and the horrible humanitarian toll they have inflicted on humanity. “In Sudan, hundreds of thousands have died; millions are displaced and face starvation. In the Middle East, the conflict in Gaza has claimed tens of thousands of lives, devastated the livelihoods of millions, and caused global economic shockwaves,” Ruto said on June 15. “Europe is grappling with a major conflict that has brought unthinkable carnage and widespread economic disruption,” he said, and added that the world finds itself “in the grip of relentless global challenges of unprecedented magnitude.”

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In reimagining the papacy, don’t underestimate its star power

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(Crux. John L. Allen Jr.).

Friday was among the most remarkable single days in the entire Pope Francis era, and given the way this papacy has generated non-stop thrills, chills and spills for more than 11 years now, that’s truly saying something. It was a long day’s journey into night, beginning at 8:30 a.m. with a still-unexplained, but nonetheless deeply amusing, encounter with more than 100 comedians from around the world – virtually every one of whom, for the record, told reporters they had no idea what they were doing in the Vatican – and ended fourteen hours later when Francis’s helicopter landed back in Rome, after the pontiff spent several hours at a G7 summit in the southern Italian region of Puglia. Any day that begins with the likes of Whoppi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien, and then ends in the company of Joe Biden, Giorgia Meloni and Emanuel Macron, has to go down as memorable. (I leave it to the reader to mull which cast of characters, in the end, is the more laughable.) In addition to cajoling the G7 on the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence while in Puglia, Pope Francis also conducted bilateral meetings with nine heads of state, including not only Biden but President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, as well as the Director General of the International Monetary Fund.

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Mexican Church criticizes Biden’s ban on asylum claims.

Posted on by Catholic Radar FF

(Eduardo Campos Lima. CRUX).

After President Joe Biden’s new directive on asylum claims on the border with Mexico made it even more difficult for refugees to get into the United States, the Mexican Church said such issues “shouldn’t be guided by the pressures of electoral times and politics.”

In a declaration released on Jun. 10 by the Bishops’ Conference’s Human Mobility Pastoral, Bishop J. Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juarez said “every country has a right to manage its borders, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to restrict the people’s right to ask for asylum and international protection.”

“The new migratory policies of the United States’ government announced last week leave under the discretionary power of migratory agents of that country the access of a person to manifest her or his wish to request asylum, something that allows – without formalities, nor a due process or a thorough analysis of each person’s particular situation – arbitrary deportations without any guarantee for asylum claiming,” the letter read.

The document emphasizes that Mexico keeps receiving deportees from the United States, which leaves them in a vulnerable situation, given that there are no conditions to ensure the respect to their human rights.

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Japanese archbishop speaks about environmental issues at Caritas meeting

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

Climate change, deforestation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity is a “stark reminder of the urgent need for collective action to protect and preserve our planet for future generations,” according to Japanese Archbishop Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, the head of Caritas Internationalis.

Speaking at the Caritas Asia Partners Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 12, Kikuchi said the cry of the poor, “expressed through poverty, inequality, displacement, and marginalization, calls us to address the root causes of human suffering and to build societies that are more just, equitable, and inclusive.” Speaking to Crux, the archbishop said climate change “is not fictional talk but reality of the people in Asia especially people in socially challenging situation and in poverty, that is common understanding of both donor side and receiving side of Caritas members and that is why we have to pay respect to partnership principle of Caritas and that is in fact synodality.” In his speech, he noted many countries in Asia are already struggling with a multitude of environmental challenges.

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Mexican Church criticizes Biden’s ban on asylum claims

Posted on by Catholic Radar Is

(Crux. Eduardo Campos Lima)

After President Joe Biden’s new directive on asylum claims on the border with Mexico made it even more difficult for refugees to get into the United States, the Mexican Church said such issues “shouldn’t be guided by the pressures of electoral times and politics.” In a declaration released on Jun. 10 by the Bishops’ Conference’s Human Mobility Pastoral, Bishop J. Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juarez said “every country has a right to manage its borders, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to restrict the people’s right to ask for asylum and international protection.” “The new migratory policies of the United States’ government announced last week leave under the discretionary power of migratory agents of that country the access of a person to manifest her or his wish to request asylum, something that allows – without formalities, nor a due process or a thorough analysis of each person’s particular situation – arbitrary deportations without any guarantee for asylum claiming,” the letter read. The document emphasizes that Mexico keeps receiving deportees from the United States, which leaves them in a vulnerable situation, given that there are no conditions to ensure the respect to their human rights.

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Malawi mourns death of Vice President, a devout Catholic, in a plane crash

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(Crux. Ngala Killian Chimtom).

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – In an address to the nation June 11, Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera announced the death of the country’s Vice President Saulos Chilima, described as a “devout Catholic” by Church leaders. Chilima was killed along with nine others in a military plane that crashed at a hill near Lunjika Turn Off in Chikangawa forest plantations in Mzimba.

“Something terrible went wrong with that aircraft on its way back to Lillongwe, sending it crashing down and killing everyone on board, and leaving us all devastated and asking ourselves questions whose answers cannot take away the pain and the helplessness we feel from this loss,” the president told the nation from Kamuzu Palace, the country’s presidential residence. The military plane on Monday June 10 left the Kamuzu International Airport with the Vice President and nine others, including the crew. The aircraft was to land at the Mzuzu International Airport, approximately 230 miles to the north of the country. Chilima was going “to attend the funeral of Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, late Honourable Ralph Kasambara,” in the words of the president.

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Bill aims to equate abortion and homicide in Brazil

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(Crux. Eduardo Campos Lima).

Pro-life movements in Brazil are campaigning for a fast approval in Congress of a bill aiming to equate abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy to homicide, carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Christian bloc in the Chamber of Deputies – formed mainly by Evangelical Congressmembers – has been pushing for the approval of a “regime of urgency” for the bill. That measure would exempt it from the need to be approved by different Congress’s commissions before being moved to be voted in the assembly. The bill was introduced by Congressman Sóstenes Cavalcante, an Assembly of God theologian who formerly led the Christian bloc and is a member of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party. Nowadays, abortions are legal in Brazil if the pregnancy was the result of rape, if it puts the mother’s life in danger, or if the unborn child has no brain. There is no time limit for the practice of an abortion in such cases.

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Catholic charity says Bangladesh can’t support Rohingya refugees on its own

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

MUMBAI, India – A leading Catholic aid agency says the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are “forgotten.” Caritas Internationalis General-Secretary Alistair Dutton recently visited the population last week, and thanked the Bangladesh government for supporting the Rohingya for so many years. Most of the Rohingya at the Bangladesh camps have arrived from Myanmar since August 2017, when the military began conducting clearance operations after a series of rebel attacks in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The Rohingya are Muslims and have long faced discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, including being denied citizenship since 1982. The military coup in Myanmar in February 2021 further heightened their vulnerability. The population density of the camps is staggering: About 103,600 per square mile, more than 40 times the average population density in Bangladesh as a whole – and it is one of the most crowded countries on earth. Refugees live in side-by-side plastic huts, each just a little larger than 100 square feet, and some holding a dozen residents. “I am profoundly moved by the hospitality and enduring support that the Bangladesh government has shown for Rohingya refugees for the past seven years,” Dutton said.

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Syro-Malabar synod in India threated to excommunicate priests who defy change to Mass

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

MUMBAI, India – Syro-Malabar Church leaders in India are threatening to excommunicate priests who do not comply with facing the altar during Mass by July. The Syro-Malabar Church, with an estimated following of 4.25 million worldwide, is the second largest of the eastern Churches in communion with Rome. Ever since its synod decided in 2021 to adopt a new, unified mode of celebrating the Mass, the Church has been gripped by controversy, above all in its largest jurisdiction of Ernakulam-Algamany. he synod required that Mass be celebrated facing the people during the Liturgy of the Word, and facing the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. That decree, however, was resisted by a swath of clergy and laity in Ernakulam-Angamaly, on the grounds that Mass facing the people throughout the celebration represented their local tradition and is also more in keeping with the liturgical teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The dispute occasionally has turned nasty, with angry public protests and the burning of decrees in public. St. Mary’s Cathedral in the archdiocese has been closed for the last two Christmas seasons amid the controversy. Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil and Bishop Bosco Puthur set a deadline for the Ernakulam-Angamaly clergy to comply with Eastern Rite’s Mass structure  in a joint pastoral letter issued on June 9. The letter is also supposed to be read in all parishes on June 16.

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Traditional African king says meeting Francis was ‘like a miracle’

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(Crux. Ngala Killian Chimtom).

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A traditional African leader from a region of Cameroon currently torn by conflict has described a June 3 meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican as “like a miracle,” saying it may contribute to the cause of dialogue and peace. Fon Moolo II of Nkar was in Rome for an interreligious dialogue conference sponsored by the Focolare movement. In Cameroon, “Fon” is the local term for a king. Moolo II’s territory is in the troubled English-speaking northwestern region of Cameroon, a nation of roughly 30 million people in west Africa. “I could never have imagined that I would ever see the pope, much less meeting him,” Moolo II told Crux upon his return to the Douala International Airport in Cameroon on Saturday.

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European voters deal blow to Pope’s agenda on migration, climate change

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(Crux. John L. Allen Jr.).

Less than a week after Pope Francis called on people to recognize migrants as “a living image of God’s people on their way to the eternal homeland,” voters across Europe dealt a potentially serious blow to that vision by rewarding far-right, anti-immigrant parties in elections for the European parliament. While mainstream, pro-EU forces are still expected to put together a governing majority, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proclaiming the results show that “the center is holding,” a major storyline in the June 6-9 elections nevertheless was the strong showing of far-right parties in several nations. The results were most dramatic in France, where President Emanuel Macron’s faction was swamped by the National Rally party under Marine Le Pen, forcing Macron to dissolve parliament and call snap elections for June 30. In Austria, Germany and the Netherlands too, far-right parties scored major gains. Conversely, Green and liberal parties each lost an estimated 20 seats, with the Greens dipping from 72 seats in the current parliament to just 53 in the new one.

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A modest proposal for choosing the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican

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(Crux. John L. Allen Jr.).

With the imminent departure of Joseph Donnelly as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, it seems likely the post will be vacant for a while. It would make little sense to try to ram through a nominee before the election in November, and afterwards it can take a new (or returning) administration six months, or more, to work its way down to the Vatican gig on the list of federal jobs to fill. As a result, we have a cesura, a pregnant pause, which could provide a moment to rethink America’s approach to whom it sends as its envoy to the Vatican. I’m going to lay out here a modest proposal I’ve been floating periodically for the better part of two decades, in the serene confidence that it’s no more likely to be taken up now than at any other point over that span. The fact I can’t get anyone to listen, however, doesn’t, ipso facto, make me wrong. Both elements of this modest proposal are intended to expand the talent pool, as well as privileging competence and preparation over politics. To wit, I suggest the United States break with what have been two unquestioned assumptions about the position since full diplomatic relations were first launched under President Ronald Reagan in 1984:

  • First, we should end the bias in favor of political appointees in favor of giving consideration to career foreign service professionals.
  • Second, we should also break with the convention that the ambassador to the Vatican has to be a Catholic.

To be clear, these are American conventions, not Vatican requirements. Plenty of other nations appoint career diplomats to the Vatican role, and plenty also name non-Catholics. Let’s take each point in turn.

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Sri Lanka bishops deny support for extending attorney general’s mandate

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(Crux.  Nirmala Carvalho).

MUMBAI, India – Sri Lanka’s reported plans to extend the mandate of its attorney general was not made after a dialogue with the South Asian country’s Catholic Church, according to the nation’s bishops’ conference.

Local newspapers said President Ranil Wickremesinghe was extending the tenure of Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam for six months, saying he was “pivotal” in working with the bishops about the investigation of the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings. The attack on three churches and several other buildings killed at least 269 people and was contributed to the ISIS Islamist terrorist group. Local newspapers reported the president told politicians that the report of the Presidential Commission appointed after the Easter Sunday attacks was presented to the President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, Bishop of Kurunegala Harold Anthony Perera and appointed President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake, Chief of Staff Sagala Ratnayaka and Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam to discuss it. The attorney general is a member of this Committee. According to the newspapers, the president said that he had decided to extend his service until the end of the discussions as he is continuously holding discussions with the members of the Bishops’ Conference.

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Cardinal says Catholic Church won’t take mine deals in Indonesia

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

MUMBAI, India – A Catholic cardinal says the Church will not take advantage of a new law in Indonesia allowing religious organizations to get permits to operate mines. President Joko Widodo – called Jokowi – signed the decree last week as a sign of appreciation for the role religious organizations played in the country’s struggle for independence from the Netherlands. A leading Indonesian environmental watchdog, Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM), said the government’s attempt to keep and control natural resources for the benefit of elites. “We saw this as a transaction between Jokowi and religious groups,” JATAM’s national coordinator Melky Nahar told AFP. “We read this as a gratitude from Jokowi to religious groups for supporting him during his two terms,” he said. Jokowi, speaking to reporters, said the requirements are very strict, “whether it’s given to cooperatives within religious organizations or perhaps business entities and others.” “So, it’s the business entity that is given, not the organization,” the president said.

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Brother of ‘Vatican girl’ blasts papally-ordered inquest as a ‘farse’

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(Crux. Crux Staff).

Pietro Orlandi, the brother of a 15-year-old girl whose 1983 disappearance remains the most notorious unsolved Vatican mystery of the 20th century, has called a new Vatican investigation of the case announced in January 2023 a “farce.” “I had great enthusiasm for this investigation,” Orlandi said June 4. “Unfortunately, I’ve come to understand that for me, sincerely, that investigation is a farce. They’re not doing anything.” “I asked people close to Pope Francis to ask the pope, who requested this investigation, if he’s aware of what the people to whom he entrusted it are doing, because it’s the exact opposite of what they should be doing,” he said. Orlandi’s comments came during a June 4 public event in Milan, where he appeared during a discussion of Italy’s femicide crisis along with Father Patrizio Coppola, a well-known Italian priest known as “Father Joystick” for having founded a video game development academy for at-risk youth.

The discussion was moderated by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who was once indicted by a Vatican tribunal for his role in the “Vatileaks” affair. The fate of Emanuela Orlandi, who vanished after a music lesson in the heart of Rome in June 1983, long has been associated with the Vatican because her father was a minor official in the Prefecture of the Papal Household under Pope John Paul II and the family lived in an apartment on Vatican grounds. The case returned to prominence in part thanks to the success of a 2022 Netflix miniseries titled “Vatican Girl.”

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Church leaders happy with peaceful election in India strengthens opposition

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(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).

India’s leading Catholic cardinal says the country’s election results shows it has a “healthy opposition,” after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell below an absolute majority in parliament. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still be prime minister – his third consecutive term – but the BJP will not get the 272 seats required in parliament for a majority, and he will depend on the support of coalition partners. “I am happy that democracy is thriving in India. It shows that the country is vibrant, and people are politically conscious and are voting rightly,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias told Crux. More than 640 million people voted in the elections, which take place over seven weeks in a country with a population of 1.4 billion people. The Congress Party-led INDIA opposition alliance led by Rahul Gandhi did surprisingly well, after pre-election polls predicted it would decline this year. “Whatever government comes to power, the Church will certainly cooperate,” Gracias said. “What is joyful is that the whole process has gone on so peacefully and orderly. It shows that there will also be a healthy opposition. I think this is good for the country, good for democracy and good for the future,” the cardinal said.

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Communion and Liberation is back, wielding an ‘armed beauty’

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(Crux.  John L. Allen Jr.).

New lay movements arguably represent the most distinctive and consequential contribution to Catholic life of the 20th century, from Schoenstatt and Sant’Egidio to the Neocatechumenal Way and the Focolare. When one of them changes course, therefore, inevitably it has consequences across the board. Such would appear to be the case today with Communion and Liberation, once among the biggest and boldest of all the movements, and now struggling to shake off a decade-long period of crisis and retrenchment. The fact that a new CL is taking shape was recently announced in a 17-page manifesto for the future issued May 18 by David Prosperi, the Milan-based biochemist and nanomedicine expert who’s led the group by Vatican edict since November 2021. It came in an address to cultural centers in Italy associated with the movement. (Unfortunately, for the moment the text is available only in Italian.) The heart of Prosperi’s new vision – which, in some ways, amounts to an attempted return to the old vision associated with the movement’s founder, the late Father Luigi Giussani – came in the arresting image of an “armed beauty.”

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