Nigerian bishops call for fair elections, warn against selling votes

Asmara, Eritrea, Sep 17, 2019 / 01:45 pm (CNA).- Seven religious schools in Eritrea, four of them sponsored by the Catholic Church, have been seized by the country’s government this month. Catholic bishops in the country say the move was motivated by “hatred against the faith.”

“If this is not hatred against the faith and against religion what else can it be?” Eritrea’s bishops asked in a Sept. 4 letter addressed to the Minister of Public Education, Semere Re’esom.

The seven schools seized by the government include three run Protestant and Muslim groups, according to Comboni Catholic missionaries serving in the area. The schools have been nationalized, and will reportedly now be run by the country’s education ministry.

The Eritrean government has also seized Church-run health facilities.

“The actions that are being taken against our educational and health institutions are contrary to the rights and to the legitimate freedom of the Church,” the bishops wrote in their Sept. 4 letter.

The bishops also suggested that the government raise to them any objections to the way in which Catholic schools and hospitals are administered in Eritrea.

“If there are situations that need to be corrected or adjusted, not only is it good, but even the only viable way, in order for this to take place in a context of an open and constructive dialogue,” the bishops wrote.

Eritrea is a one-party state whose human rights record has frequently been deplored.

It is believed the seizures are retaliatory, after the Church in April called for reforms to reduce emigration.

The bishops had also called for national reconciliation.
Government seizure of Church property is not new, however.

A 1995 decree restricting social and welfare projects to the state has been used intermittently since then to seize or close ecclesial services.

In July 2018, an Eritrean Catholic priest helping immigrants and refugees in Italy told EWTN that authorities had recently shut down eight free Catholic-run medical clinics. He said authorities claimed the clinics were unnecessary because of the presence of state clinics.

Christian and Muslim schools have also been closed under the 1995 decree, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2019 annual report.

Eritrea has been designated a Country of Particular Concern since 2004 for its religious freedom abuses by the US Department of State.

Many Eritreans, especially youth, emigrate, due to a military conscription, and a lack of opportunities, freedom, education, and health care.

A July 2018 peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ended a conflict over their mutual border, led to an open border which has allowed for easier emigration.

Catholics make up 4 percent of Eritrea’s population.

ACI Africa contributed to this report.

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CNA Staff, Mar 25, 2020 / 07:11 pm (CNA).- The Italian bishop of a missionary region of Ethiopia is the first Catholic bishop known to have died of the global coronavirus pandemic. He died March 25.

Bishop Angelo Moreschi, 67, was the leader of Ethiopia’s Apostolic Vicariate of Gambella, a missionary region of 25,000 Catholics in the western part of the country. He died Wednesday in the Italian city of Brescia, in the Lombardy region that has become the European epicenter of the pandemic.

A member of the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order, Moreschi had been a missionary in Ethiopia since 1991. He was ordained a bishop in January 2010.

“The Salesian community mourns the death of the Apostolic Vicar of Gambella (Ethiopia), namely Msgr. Angelo Moreschi, SDB, who died today, March 25, in Brescia (Italy) due to the coronavirus,” the Salesians of Don Bosco said in a statement released through the order’s information bureau.
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The secretary general of Ethiopia’s bishops’ conference announced the news in the country, announced conveying “deep condolences to the Clergy, religious, bereaved family and the lay faithful in the Apostolic Vicariate of Gambella.”

To the mourning people of the Gambella vicariate, the country’s bishops pledged the “closeness and prayers of members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ethiopia and the entire Catholic Church in Ethiopia. May his soul rest in peace.”

Bishop Moreschi was renowned in Ethiopia for his pastoral ministry to the service of young people and the poor. In the local dialect, he was afforded the title “Abba,” meaning “Father.”

“In his mission as prefect and then as apostolic vicar, he continued to embody the Salesian focus in helping children, accompanying them by his practical spirit and his strong apostolic zeal,” the Salesians of Don Bosco stated.

“In his visits to the villages, they still remember when the Salesian arrived with a battered SUV – or by motorboat in the villages along the Baro river when the roads were flooded – and he immediately began to distribute multi-vitamin biscuits to malnourished children.”

Bishop Moreschi died “after serving the young, the poor and his flock of souls as a Salesian for 46 years, as a priest for 38, and as a bishop for over 10,” the Salesians said.

More than 60 priests have died in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 21,000 lives globally. Several bishops have contracted the virus.

This story was first reported by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.

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A pedestrian uses a smartphone as she walks past a collapsed building in Antakya, southern Turkey on Feb. 21, 2023. A 6.4-magnitude earthquake late Feb. 20, 2023, rocked Turkey’s southern province of Hatay and northern Syria. / Photo by SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP via Getty Images

ACI Prensa Staff, Feb 21, 2023 / 11:35 am (CNA).

Antoine Chahda, the Syrian Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Syria, asked for prayers after a new 6.4-magnitude earthquake shook Turkey and Syria on Feb. 20.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, after the earthquake Chahda encouraged prayers “for us because all the people are out on the streets, the whole city. It was horrible, very terrible, we’re all trembling.”

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake occurred three kilometers (about two miles) southwest of Uzunbağ, Turkey, near the Syrian border, at 8:04 p.m. local time.

This was one of the most intense of the thousands of aftershocks that have followed the Feb. 6 earthquake, which to date has claimed more than 47,000 lives and more than 122,000 injuries in the border region.

The Syrian Catholic archbishop of Aleppo said that “so far, no buildings have collapsed, the cathedral is okay. But tomorrow, when the sun rises, we will see what will happen.”

“People are out on the street. We’re okay. There seem to be no injuries in Aleppo. We won’t know until tomorrow,” the prelate commented.

The archbishop said that “for now we are receiving people who like to come to the cathedral. It’s full of people, just like the street.”

“We don’t know what will happen,” he added. “Only God knows. Pray for us.”

Father Esteban Dumont, who lives in Tarsus, Turkey, about 135 miles by air from Aleppo, said “We’re okay. It felt strong, but we didn’t suffer any damage.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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