Bishops attacked by pro-government mob at basilica in Nicaragua

Pope Francis meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Vatican on May 29, 2017. / © L’Osservatore Romano.

Denver Newsroom, Jul 27, 2022 / 16:28 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this afternoon, July 27, in Quebec City, as part of his weeklong “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada. 

Today’s encounter wasn’t Pope Francis’ first meeting with Trudeau; the Prime Minister welcomed the pope when he arrived at Edmonton International Airport on Sunday. And Trudeau and Pope Francis have had one face-to-face meeting before, at the Vatican in 2017. 

In their 36-minute 2017 meeting, which the Vatican described as “cordial,” the pope gave Trudeau a medallion symbolizing forgiveness, joy, and mutual acceptance. The medallion also references Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

During that meeting, their conversation focused on religious freedom as well as reconciliation with native people of Canada. Trudeau at that time reiterated his open invitation to the pope to come to Canada and for “reconciliation” with the indigenous communities. 

That trip to Canada has now come to fruition and has included a public apology from Pope Francis for the Catholic Church’s role in running much of Canada’s government-sponsored residential school system. During more than a century of operation, the system worked to stamp out aspects of native culture, language, and religious practice. Former students at the schools have described mistreatment and even abuse within their walls, along with broad criticisms of the quality of education they received, psychological damage, and other problems such as malnutrition and unsanitary conditions. 

The meeting between the two leaders in 2017 was not Trudeau’s first visit to the Vatican. A Catholic, he met St. John Paul II in 1980 during the meeting of his father, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, with the pope.

Trudeau has been criticized during his tenure as prime minister for pushing policies that are at odds with his Catholic faith, including strongly pushing for the continuation of legal abortion in Canada, as well as assisted suicide. 

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Managua, Nicaragua, Jun 12, 2019 / 02:13 pm (CNA).- The results of a Nicaraguan law granting amnesty to both anti-government activists and security forces will determine whether the legislation is good for the country, the Archbishop of Managua has said.

Nicaragua’s unicameral National Assembly passed the amnesty law June 8. Though it has allowed the release of a group of political prisoners, the law has been criticized by the opposition over fears it will also give impunity to troops and paramilitaries responsible for crimes and arbitrary arrests that have taken place during the past 14 months of protests.

The law also requires those released to refrain from future protests.

Fifty-six activists were released June 11, and 50 protesters June 10. The government has detained more than 700 in connection with the protests.

Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solorzano of Managua commented June 9: “I’m just thinking of a text in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke: ‘By their fruits you will know them.’ I think there have been a lot of amnesties that have been given in Nicaragua, and here we would have to evaluate what fruits they have borne.”

He added that it will be the implementation of the law that will end up vindicating the detractors or defenders of this legislation. However, he said that more time “ would have been helpful” to deliberate calmly “such an important law like amnesty.”

“That all the prisoners are getting out is a joy for the families because they’re waiting for them to return. Now we’re going to see how this law will be implemented and hopefully it won’t be to their detriment, and that all detainees can live freely in their country,” Cardinal Brenes reflected.

Anti-government protests in Nicaragua began in April 2018. They have resulted in more than 320 deaths, and the country’s bishops mediated on-again, off-again peace talks until they broke down that June.

A new round of dialogue began in February, but the opposition has made the timely release of all protesters a condition of its resumption.

Nicaragua’s crisis began last year after president Daniel Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces.

The pension reforms which triggered the unrest were modest, but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

The Church had suggested that elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, be held this year, but Ortega has ruled this out.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

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Panama City, Panama, Jan 26, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A diocesan youth minister who lunched with Pope Francis Saturday said that he spoke about the necessity of prayer in responding to the clerical sex abuse crisis.
 
Brenda Noriega, young adults ministry coordinator for the Diocese of San Bernardino, was among the 10 young people who dined with Pope Francis Jan. 26 at San Jose Major Seminary in Panama City. She spoke about the experience at a World Youth Day press conference.
 
Asked about the pope’s reflections on the abuse crisis in the US, Noriega responded: “The pope said that it’s a horrible crime, and the Church doesn’t support these kind of crimes. He expressed the importance of prayer.”
 
She reflected on the US bishops’ January retreat, directed by the apostolic preacher, saying Pope Francis wanted the Church in the US “to pray, and [that] before making any decision, we need to pray. That’s what he expressed. For me as a youth minister, that means a lot.”
 
“Sometimes we forget about prayer,” Noriega stated, “because we react too easy and too fast, so I think what His Holiness is telling us, to the Church, is to first pray, and build community.”
 
Noriega said the pope also spoke about the importance of ensuring that “all the victims of the sexual crisis are heard, and the Church is committed to support them, that the church is committed to walk with them, as we have done it.”
 
“We as a Church we need to be a pastoral Church,” she said, “so it was important for me to hear from the Holy Father his affirmation about the support of the Church to the victims.”
 
Noriega was selected to attend the luncheon with Pope Francis by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
 
She spoke about the fact that the US representative was not “blonde”, but a Hispanic, born and raised in Mexico.
 
“The new face of the Catholic Church in the US has my face,” Noriega reflected, noting that most young Catholics in the country are Hispanic.
 
“This is the way for the USCCB to say we are … ready to let you be protagonists of Catholicism in the US,” she said.

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