Month: February 2019

No Picture
News Briefs

Venezuelan bishops meet with Guaidó

February 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Caracas, Venezuela, Feb 4, 2019 / 03:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Venezuelan bishops met Friday with Juan Guaidó, the national opposition leader who has declared himself interim president, in an effort to mobilize the entrance of humanitarian aid to the crisis-stricken country.

“Today, February 1, we are continuing to coordinate efforts to mobilize humanitarian aid and to assist Venezuelans. We will be allowing the entry of food and medicine,” Guaidó wrote on Twitter.

Guaidó also called upon all citizens and the Venezuelan armed forces to act in the face of the humanitarian crisis the country is going through.

Attending the meeting were the president and vice presidents of the bishops’ conference: Archbishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Maracaibo, Bishop Mario del Valle Moronta Rodriguez of San Cristobal, and Bishop Raúl Biord Castillo of La Guaira. Also present was Miguel Pizzarro, a legislator in the National Assembly.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>Hoy <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/1Feb?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#1Feb</a> seguimos articulando esfuerzos para movilizar la ayuda humanitaria y atender a los venezolanos. Nosotros sí vamos a permitir la entrada de alimentos y medicinas. <br><br>Convocamos a todos los ciudadanos y a la FAN a que actuemos  ante la crisis humanitaria que vivimos. <a href=”https://t.co/KO8pgOlFUd”>pic.twitter.com/KO8pgOlFUd</a></p>&mdash; Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) <a href=”https://twitter.com/jguaido/status/1091392062669422592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

The leadership of the bishops’ conference had met Jan. 31 with the superiors of religious congregations to address the pastoral challenges of the Church in Venezuela.

Archbishop Azuaje said that one of the goals of the meeting with religious superiors was to have “a profound encounter of faith, to meet together as servants of the Venezuelan people in the religious sphere and also in the area of human development.”

He affirmed that it was “necessary to propose to all the religious communities some actions that go from the spiritual sphere to the solidarity sphere” and to achieve a joint commitment.

Also participating in the meeting were representatives from the educational field and Caritas Venezuela.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a second term as president Jan. 10, after winning a contested election in which oppositon candidates were barred from running or imprisoned. Venezuela’s bishops have called his new term illegitimate, and Guaidó, head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president Jan. 23.

Guaidó has been recognized as Venezuelan president by the US, Canada, much of the European Union, and several Latin American nations.

Since Jan. 21, at least 40 people have died and hundreds have been arrested amid protests against Maduro.

Since Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval. Under the socialist government, the country has seen severe shortages and hyperinflation, and millions have emigrated.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

‘Heat is a human right’- Power restored to Brooklyn jail after week without heat and lights

February 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

New York City, N.Y., Feb 4, 2019 / 01:48 pm (CNA).- Power and heat were restored Sunday to a federal detention center that had been without electricity and mostly unheated for a full week.

The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, had until Feb. 3 only backup power after a Jan. 27 electrical fire disrupted power in the building. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Feb. 3 that power and heat had been fully restored to the building by Sunday evening.

More than 1,600 inmates are incarcerated at the facility; most of them are awaiting federal trials and have not yet been convicted of crimes.

During the week-long ordeal many inmates had no heat, hot meals, or lights in their cells, according to the New York Times. Some were also reportedly without hot water.

The federal Bureau of Prisons denied that heat and hot water had been affected in housing blocks, the New York Times reported on Feb. 1, though accounts from prisoners, visitors to the prison, and staffers said that cells were unheated.  

The inmates were on partial lockdown for several days.

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), who toured the facility, described conditions in the unheated cells as a “nightmare,” akin to “living in a closet without lights.”

Winter temperatures in New York plunged last week to as low as 2 degrees Fahrenheit; New York City officials sent blankets and hand warmers to the facility on Feb. 2. Aid groups sent socks, sweatshirts, and extra blankets.

Inmates who use electrical sleep apnea machines were at an elevated risk of stroke without the machines, and inmates were unable to request prescription refills, including for psychiatric medicine, the New York Times reported.

The Bureau of Prisons said it worked as quickly as possible to resolve electrical and heating issues at the jail, although protesters said that jail officials did not work quickly enough, and complained Friday when it appeared that electrical contractors left the job site in late afternoon. Justice Department officials have promised a thorough investigation.

Protesters attempted on Sunday to enter the jail. They were deterred by police and corrections officers, some of whom used pepper spray to deter the demonstrators, who mostly returned to protesting after the melee. Some of the protesters said they were relatives of men incarcerated at the detention center.

As they attempted to enter the jail, some demonstrators chanted “heat is a human right.”

In 2014, Pope Francis called on “Christians and men of good will” to “improve prison conditions, with respect for the human dignity of the people deprived of their freedom.”

“The deplorable conditions of detention which are observed in various parts of the planet, are often genuinely inhuman and degrading deficiencies, often the result of the penal system, at other times due to the lack of infrastructure and of planning, while in more than a few cases they represent the arbitrary and unscrupulous exercise of power over people deprived of freedom.”

Fordham University theologian Charlie Camosy told CNA that “If you are leading a life in which you feel comfortable and at home in our current culture, then there is a good chance you aren’t living out the fullness of the Gospel.”

“It is deeply counter-cultural, but Christians are called to see the Face of the Lord in prisoners, who are among the ‘least ones’ that Jesus explicitly mentions in Matthew 25. What we do to prisoners we do to Christ. A shocking thing to think about when we think about the inmates at MDC Brooklyn,” Camosy added.

At the Brooklyn jail, inmate cells face the outside of the building. While power was out, inmates could often be heard and seen banging loudly against narrow cell windows from darkened cells, on some occasions waving small lights and appearing to be shouting.

After power was restored, inmates flicked the lights in their cells on and off, while protestors gathered in the streets below cheered.

 

 

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Open letter to Cardinal Marx urges changes to Church teaching on sexual morality

February 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 10

Mainz, Germany, Feb 4, 2019 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- In an open letter published Sunday by a German daily, nine German Catholics, including two prominent Jesuits, demand a break with the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

The signatories call for a reworking of ecclesial structure, namely a “separation of powers”, the priestly ordination of women, an end to mandatory priestly celibacy, and other changes.

Published in the Feb. 3 edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the letter is addressed to Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, president of the German bishops’ conference, and tells him that if he and other bishops were to decide to “spearhead the Reform movement”, they would be assured of the signatories’ full support.

Among those who signed the letter are the rector of the Sankt Georgen Graduate School in Frankfurt, Jesuit Father Ansgar Wucherpfennig, as well as Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes and the Frankfurt City’s Catholic Dean, Fr Johannes zu Eltz.

Father Wucherpfennig re-election as rector was recently called into question by the Vatican, because of comments made in 2016 in which claimed, among other things, that passages condemning homosexuality in the Bible had been “misread”. He has since been reinstated.

The three priests are joined by former Jesuit Jörg Splett, an academic philosopher, as well as his wife Ingrid, the “Greens” politician Bettina Jarasch, the Frankfurt Caritas director Gaby Hagemans, and two members of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Claudia Lücking-Michel and Dagmar Mensink.

The signatories demand the Catholic Church should hit “reset” and make a fresh start when it comes to the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, including a “reasonable and just evaluation of homosexuality”.

The letter further calls on bishops to pursue a “genuine separation of powers”, claiming that this would “conform better with Christ’s humility”, and to “open (…) ordained ministry up to women”. What is more, the signatories demand that diocesan priests should freely choose whether to live a celibate life or not: This way, “celibacy can again credibly point to the Kingdom of Heaven”, the letter states.

Finally, the signatories wish Cardinal Marx a “good trip to Rome” when attending the Feb. 21-24 sexual abuse summit, and to pass on their greetings to Pope Francis.

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

Evangelizing Arabia: Parish life in Abu Dhabi

February 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Feb 4, 2019 / 11:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday, Pope Francis will visit St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi — one of two total Catholic churches for the Arabian city with a population of 1.42 million.

While… […]

No Picture
News Briefs

Justice and peace are inseparable, Pope Francis says in UAE

February 4, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Feb 4, 2019 / 10:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In an interreligious meeting in Abu Dhabi Monday, Pope Francis said that for peace to flourish among religions, there must be justice, and respect for human dignity and freedom.

“Justice is the second wing of peace. No one, therefore, can believe in God and not seek to live in justice with everyone, according to the Golden Rule,” the pope said Feb. 4. “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”

“Peace and justice are inseparable!”

Speaking at Abu Dhabi’s “Founder’s Monument,” which commemorates the founder and first president of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the pope emphasized that is the task of religions to promote human dignity, particularly for the least and the poor.

Religions “should keep watch as sentinels of fraternity in the night of conflict. They should be vigilant warnings to humanity not to close our eyes in the face of injustice and never to resign ourselves to the many tragedies in the world,” he said.

This “human fraternity” also comes with the duty of rejecting and condemning war, he stated, noting its “miserable crudeness” and “fateful consequences.”

“I am thinking in particular of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya,” he said. “Together, as brothers and sisters in the one human family willed by God, let us commit ourselves against the logic of armed power … let us oppose all this with the sweet power of prayer and daily commitment to dialogue.”

Pope Francis, the first pope to visit the Arabian peninsula, is in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, Feb. 3-5 to promote interreligious dialogue and give support to the country’s Christian minority.

Before the interreligious meeting, he met for around 30 minutes with the Muslim Council of Elders. He then visited the city’s Grand Mosque with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, before paying his respects at Zayed’s tomb.

At the interreligious meeting, the pope praised last November’s meeting, the first, of the Forum of the Interreligious Alliance for Safer Communities, which was on the theme of child dignity in the digital world.

“I thank, therefore, all the leaders who are engaged in this field,” he said, “and I assure them of my support, solidarity and participation and that of the Catholic Church, in this very important cause of the protection of minors in all its forms.”

Reflecting on interreligious dialogue, he said the point of departure is recognizing God as the origin of “one human family,” that “He who is the Creator of all things and of all persons wants us to live as brothers and sisters, dwelling in the common home of creation which he has given us.”

Francis pointed out that to honor the creator requires valuing the sacredness of each human life, “equally precious in the eyes of God.”

“Thus, to recognize the same rights for every human being is to glorify the name of God on earth. In the name of God the Creator, therefore, every form of violence must be condemned without hesitation, because we gravely profane God’s name when we use it to justify hatred and violence against a brother or sister,” he said.

An important part of effective dialogue and human fraternity is prayer, he said. It “purifies the heart from turning in on itself. Prayer of the heart restores fraternity.”

Quoting The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, he said: “May our prayer – each one according to his or her own tradition – adhere fully to the will of God, who wants all men and women to recognize they are brothers and sisters and live as such, forming the great human family in the harmony of diversity.”

“There is no alternative: we will either build the future together or there will not be a future,” he continued. “The time has come when religions should more actively exert themselves, with courage and audacity, and without pretense, to help the human family deepen the capacity for reconciliation, the vision of hope and the concrete paths of peace.”

During the meeting, Pope Francis and Tayeb signed a joint declaration “on human fraternity for world peace and living together,” asking that the document “become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation.”

The four-and-a-half-page declaration condemned issues such as the taking of innocent human life, terrorism, world hunger, materialism, and a lack of equitable distribution of natural resources.

It also stated that the family is “the fundamental nucleus of society and humanity,” and noted that to attack, to regard with contempt, or to doubt the importance of the institution of the family “is one of the most threatening evils of our era.”

“In conclusion, our aspiration is that … this Declaration may be a sign of the closeness between East and West, between North and South, and between all who believe that God has created us to understand one another, cooperate with one another and live as brothers and sisters who love one another,” it stated.

[…]