It was a great privilege for me to participate in the Synod on Young People in the fall of 2018. Along with about three hundred other bishops and ecclesial experts from around the world, I […]
Mosul, Iraq, Feb 18, 2020 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The rebuilding of a Syriac Catholic church in Mosul, Iraq, destroyed by ISIS will begin soon, the U.N.’s heritage agency (UNESCO) announced last week.
Al-Tahera church, in the old city of Mosul, was severely damaged after ISIS invaded the city in June of 2014.
Among numerous documented murders and other atrocities committed against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in the area, ISIS destroyed at least 28 significant religious sites in the city, one of which was the Al-Tahera church.
The church suffered extensive damage to its arcade and outer wall which must be rebuilt, as well as its remaining ceiling which will be demolished and reconstructed. Landmines inside the church will also have to be removed.
UNESCO announced in October that it was partnering with the United Arab Emirates to rebuild the church which was built in 1862. The partnership said that another church in the city, the Dominican Al-Saa’a church which dates to 1873, will also be rebuilt.
The reconstruction will be part of the agency-led “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” initiative. UNESCO says the reconstruction project will create jobs and provide further education, training, and experience for local young professionals and craftsmen.
The second largest city in Iraq, Mosul is the seat of two bishoprics in Iraq for the Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Catholic churches. Its Christian population fell from 35,000 in 2003 to only around 15,000 at the time of the ISIS invasion in 2014.
After the ISIS takeover of Mosul and the surrounding region, there were numerous reports of militants forcing Christians to convert to Islam, pay a tax, or be killed.
The Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch estimated that ISIS killed 500 people in its conquest; thousands were killed during the ISIS occupation and nearly one million people fled the city.
In 2016, a report by the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians documented accounts by victims or witnesses of killings, rapes, and girls and women being forced into sex slavery. A separate U.N. report said that ISIS had abducted 800 to 900 children in Mosul and subjected them to religious and military training.
In March of 2016, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that ISIS was committing genocide against Christians, Yezidis, and Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and Syria.
ISIS was driven out of Mosul in 2017, but conditions in the city and in much of Northern Iraq remain tenuous for Christians.
Barely 40 Christians have returned to live in Mosul, according to Syriac Catholic priest Father Amanuel Adel Kloo, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) from July of 2019. Around 1,000 other Christians commute into the city to attend the University of Mosul by day, but they leave the city at night due to continued fears of insecurity, he said.
In an April, 2019, interview with ACN, Archbishop Petros Mouche of the Syriac-Catholic Archdiocese of Mosul expressed concern at a lack of funds to rebuild homes in the region and “very few initiatives” for jobs.
Washington D.C., Feb 18, 2020 / 02:41 pm (CNA).- American bishops and leaders of Catholic aid agencies have praised Vatican and U.S. responses to the coronavirus outbreak, and encouraged the faithful to stay informed about the disease.
“As commu… […]
Vatican City, Feb 18, 2020 / 01:26 pm (CNA).- The Vatican announced Feb. 17 that Pope Francis had approved changes to Caritas Internationalis’ governing statutes and internal rules.
The new statutes had been in effect since May 2019 after a decr… […]
Lagos, Nigeria, Feb 18, 2020 / 01:25 pm (CNA).- The Nigerian priest who was abducted by gunmen last week has been freed. Fr. Nicholas Oboh was kidnapped last week in the southwest region of Nigeria and was freed Tuesday evening, his diocese reported.
“I am pleased to inform this house that our priest who was kidnapped last week Thursday, Rev. Fr. Nicolas Oboh, has regained his freedom,” a spokesman for the Diocese of Uromi told Nigerian Catholic leaders in a WhatsApp message Feb. 18.
“He was released this evening,” the spokesman said. ““Many thanks for your prayers and goodwill.”
The Uromi diocese is expected to release additional details about the priest’s release.
Nigerian media reported that several children were kidnapped at the same time Oboh was abducted Feb. 13. The condition and circumstances of those children are not yet known.
Oboh’s kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions and killings in Nigeria which have involved Catholics and other Christians; clergy, seminarians, and lay people.
Earlier this week, suspected Islamist militants in Borno state staged an arson attack which killed 30 people, including a pregnant mother and her baby. The attack also destroyed 18 vehicles filled with food supplies for the region.
Seminarian Michael Nnadi, 18, was killed in late January, weeks after he and three other seminarians were abducted from their seminary in Nigeria. The seminarians kidnapped with Nnadi have been released, but one is facing life-threatening injuries.
Also in January, Rev. Lawan Andima, a local Government Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the married father of nine children, was beheaded by Boko Haram.
Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City said Andima was killed “simply because he was a Christian.”
In a Feb. 7 interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Akubeze, who is president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, warned that “The current situation in Nigeria reflects an unnecessary, unwarranted and self-inflicted tension. A politically polarized nation.”
“The President of Nigeria recently stated that he was shocked at the unabated killing of Nigerians, who are mostly Christians. Many Nigerians wonder whether the president lives in a parallel universe,” Akubeze stated.
“How can he be surprised at this time? After some of us have attended mass burials of Christians killed by Boko Haram? The government is certainly not doing enough to protect both Christians and Muslims.”
Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, has been active in Nigeria for years. While the group has attacked both Muslims and Christians in the past, the archbishop said that recent attacks have focused on the killing and kidnapping of Christians.
Akubeze said that the situation is dire and getting worse.
“One area that I think the Western nations and the media can be of great help is to cover the stories of these atrocities in Nigeria,” Akubeze reflected.
“The number of killings is just mind boggling. Maybe with significant Western coverage, the Government of Nigeria may be put under pressure to act.”
A version of this story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.
Beijing, China, Feb 18, 2020 / 10:40 am (CNA).- A leaked document has revealed China’s criteria for deciding which members of the country’s Uighur population will be detained in camps. Experts have called the document evidence of China&rsqu… […]
Vatican City, Feb 18, 2020 / 09:06 am (CNA).- Vatican authorities have seized documents and computers belonging to a senior curial official as part of an investigation into financial misconduct, the Holy See announced on Tuesday.
In a statement issued Feb. 18, the Vatican press office confirmed that investigators had raided the office and home of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, the former head of the administrative office at the First Section of the Secretariat of State. The raid is part of an ongoing investigation into financial misconduct by officials at the secretariat.
“This morning, as part of a search ordered by the Promoter of Justice, Gian Piero Milano, and the deputy, Alessandro Diddi, documents and computer equipment were seized at the office and home of Msgr. Alberto Perlasca,” the Vatican statement said.
Perlasca was the head of the Secretariat of State’s administrative office from 2009 until July 2019, when Pope Francis appointed him Promoter of Justice at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature; chief prosecutor of the Church’s highest ecclesiastical court.
The statement confirmed that “the measure was taken in the context of the investigation into financial investments and the work of the Secretariat of State.”
Vatican authorities have been investigating financial activities at the Secretariat of State since October, when Gendarmes staged similar raids at the offices of the secretariat and the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority. Those raids resulted in the suspension of four staff at the Secretariat of State as well as the director of the AIF.
The raid on Perlasca’s home and office was in connection with “interrogations” of the five suspended officials, the statement said.
The investigation involves a complicated series of financial transactions through which the Secretariat of State acquired a luxury property development in London for hundreds of millions of euros. Two of the four suspended officials at the Secretariat of State were registered directors of a London holding company controlled by the secretariat.
CNA has reported that the property was acquired by the Secretariat of State in a staggered series of purchases financed through loans by two Swiss banks, Credit Suisse and BSI. BSI was subsequently closed by financial authorities for systematic failures to prevent money laundering activity.
The building, at 60 Sloane Avenue in west London, was bought from Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, who arranged the Vatican’s purchase through a string of his own companies and investment funds, making hundreds of millions of euros in profit from the deal.
The principle vehicle for the Secretariat of State’s investment in the property was Mincione’s Athena Global Fund, which was used by Mincione to make no-strings-attached loans to another of his companies, Time & Life SA, through which he made high-risk speculative investments for himself, and helped an Italian bank illegally evade financial regulations.
CNA has also reported that another fund in which the Secretariat of State invested tens of millions of euros has links to two Swiss banks investigated or implicated in bribery and money laundering scandals involving more than one billion dollars.
The raid on Msgr. Perlasca comes one day after Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former sostituto at the Secretariat of State, told Italian media that “not everything was clear” about the London investment.
“So, I mean, did everything go well? No, there was something that didn’t go well,” Becciu told Huffington Post’s Italian edition.
Although he ommented on the details of the project’s financing, the cardinal insisted that he is not personally not under investigation, pointing instead to two suspended members of his former staff at the Secretariat of State, Msgr. Mauro Carlino and Dr. Caterina Sansone, both of whom reported to Becciu during his time as sostituto and were registered as directors at the London holding company responsible for the development.
Milan, Italy, Feb 18, 2020 / 12:01 am (CNA).- Evidence to be presented in an upcoming criminal trial suggests an elaborate cover-up of sexual abuse allegations against a former priest of the Legionaries of Christ whom an Italian court has convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.
The case, set to begin in March, names four Legion priests and a Legion lawyer who are accused of attempting to obstruct justice and extort the family of a sex abuse victim, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
The names of the priests and lawyer in question have not been released, and the Legion did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.
The Legion of Christ, a religious congregation consisting of fewer than 1,000 priests worldwide, was long the subject of critical reports and rumors before it was rocked by Vatican acknowledgment that its charismatic founder, Father Marcial Maciel, lived a double life, sexually abused seminarians, and fathered children. Maciel abused at least 60 minors.
In 2006 the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Benedict XVI, removed Maciel from public ministry and ordered him to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance. The congregation decided not to subject him to a canonical process because of his advanced age, and he died in 2008.
Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Valasio De Paolis, a highly respected canon lawyer, to lead the religious order in 2010.
De Paolis, who died in 2017, has faced criticism for leaving much of the leadership of the congregation from Maciel’s time in place and failing to investigate claims of cover-up.
The present case chiefly concerns Mexico native Vladimir Reséndiz Gutiérrez, who was ordained a priest in 2006 and immediately was sent to oversee young boys at the Gozzano youth seminary near Italy’s border with Switzerland, the AP reports.
The Legion has said it first recieved allegations of sexual abuse against Reséndiz during March 2011. An Austrain boy reported the allegation to a church ombudsman’s office in Austria that receives abuse complaints, according to the AP.
In addition, the son of Yolanda Martinez, a church employee in Milan, revealed in 2013 during sessions with his psychologist that Reséndiz had abused him at the Gozzano youth seminary in 2008.
In October 2013, the Legion offered a settlement of 15,000 euros to Martinez, but in return, her son would have to recant the testimony he gave to prosecutors that Reséndiz had repeatedly assaulted him, the AP reports.
Martinez called De Paolis to complain about the proposal. According to their wiretapped Jan. 7, 2014 conversation, De Paolis told Martinez not to sign the deal and to negotiate a different deal, without lawyers.
Authorities obtained the tape of the conversation, as well as numerous documents to be presented at the trial, during a 2014 raid of the Legion’s headquarters in Rome.
Documents obtained during the 2014 raid suggest that Reséndiz was known to the Legion as a risk to children even when he was a teenage seminarian in 1994, with his novice director writing that he believed Reséndiz to be “a boy with strong sexual impulses and low capacity to control them.”
A lawyer for the Legion is accused of recommending various schemes to Legion leaders aimed at covering up Reséndiz abuses.
The lawyer recommended in a March 2011 email that Father Gabriel Sotres, a Legion priest who was tasked with revising the congregation’s constitution a decade ago, go to Austria to convince the alleged victim not to tell their parents or the authorities.
Documents also suggest that Legion knew about another possible victim in Venezuela, where Reséndiz had been moved in 2008. The lawyer proposed a plan to report only Reséndiz’s name to Venezuelan police to comply with local reporting laws, leaving out that he was a priest, that he was accused of a sex crime against a child, and the name of the Legion, as well as noting that he no longer lived in Venezuela, the AP reported.
All of this would be done in order to mitigate the possible damage to the order.
That same month, Reséndiz was removed from priestly ministry after his religious superior questioned him, but documents suggest he hearing confessions in schools and celebrating Mass in Colombia while he was supposedly suspended, and later assigned to an administrative position.
Evidence to be presented at the trial suggests that although De Paolis opened a canonical investigation of Reséndiz within the congregation, he did not alert the police.
Authorities in Milan did not learn of the abuse allegations against Reséndiz until March 2013, when Martinez’s son’s psychologist reported them.
Reséndiz eventually confessed to his crimes in a letter to Cardinal Gerhard Mueller in 2012. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dismissed Reséndiz from the clerical state during April 2013, the Legion says.
An Italian court convicted Reséndiz in absentia during March 2019, and during Jan. 2020 an appeals court confirmed the conviction. Reséndiz faces a sentence of six and a half years in jail. He is believed to be living in Mexico.
The Legion reported in December 2019 that since its founding in 1941, 33 priests of the Legionaries of Christ have been found to have committed sexual abuse of minors, victimizing 175 children, according to the 2019 report.
The preliminary hearing for the present criminal trial in Milan is scheduled for March 12.
Geneva, Switzerland, Feb 17, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The first Catholic Mass in nearly five hundred years will be celebrated at a cathedral in Geneva later this month. Mass will be said in the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre de Genève on Feb. 29, in a… […]
Yaoundé, Cameroon, Feb 17, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Bishops from around the world have signed an open letter to the Cameroonian president asking that he participate in proposed peace talks meant to bring an end to conflict between the government and Anglophone separatists.
“We are motivated by our concern about the suffering of unarmed civilians, and the stability and prosperity of Cameroon,” 16 bishops from outside Cameroon wrote in a Feb. 17 letter coordinated by the Global Campaign for Peace and Justice in Cameroon. Bishop Thomas Zinkula of Davenport was among the signatories.
“We believe the proposed Swiss-led talks offer the best path to an appropriate political solution through inclusive negotiations,” the bishops continued. “The success of these talks will be critical in Cameroon’s journey towards ensuring peace and your legacy as an effective leader in a troubled region. It is our sincere hope that all interested stakeholders will join these talks and show a spirit of cooperation, pragmatism, and realism to ensure these negotiations succeed.”
They added that “only true peace will allow Catholic dioceses, clinics, and schools to once again minister safely to the blessed congregants and citizens of Anglophone Cameroon.”
The Cameroon crisis is rooted in conflict between the English- and French-speaking areas of Cameroon. Unrest has been ongoing since 2016, when the country’s Anglophone community began protests to demand the return of federalism after the government increased the use of French in schools and courts.
Some 3,000 people have died since the fighting began. According to the UN, there are an estimated 679,000 internally displaced people in Cameroon, and 60,000 Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria.
At least 600,000 children have been unable to attend school in the Anglophone Southwest and Northwest Regions, with most schools having been shut down.
The bishops told president Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 37 years, that “there will be no military victory for any side. A lasting solution to Cameroon’s problems must come from a mediated process that includes Anglophone armed-separatist groups and non-violent civil-society leaders. If all parties treat each other as they wish to be treated, a solution is possible.”
They noted that a Major National Dialogue held in October 2019 was laudable, but had not stopped the violence.
The dialogue had proposed that the Anglophone regions be given greater self-government, and the elction of local governors. In addition, Biya had ordered that charges against some 300 people held in connection with the Anglophone conflict be dropped, and opposition leader Maurice Kamto was released after nine months of imprisonment.
At least 22 people were killed in an attack on Ntumbo, a village in the Northwest Region, Feb. 14. Separatists blamed the government for the attack, but the government has denied involvement.
The area that is now Cameroon was a German colony in the late 19th century, but the territory was divided into British and French mandates after the German Empire’s defeat in World War I. The mandates were united in an independent Cameroon in 1961.
There is now a separatist movement in the Southwest and Northwest Regions, which were formerly the British Southern Cameroons.
Cameroon held parliamentary elections Feb. 9, which the local bishops noted took place in a calm atmosphere, but with low turnout.
The Cameroonian bishops noted that “four months after the holding of the Major National Dialogue, which proposed solutions for ending the crisis” in the Anglophone reigions, “we are still not satisfied with the situation in these regions.”
They added that “insecurity persists in spite of everything and has prevented many citizens living in these areas from exercising their civil rights.”
© Catholic World Report