CNA Staff, Apr 20, 2020 / 10:40 am (CNA).- The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Cape Town, South Africa, was vandalized on Saturday and the tabernacle desecrated. In a statement on the incident, issued on Sunday, an auxiliary bishop of the diocese requested prayers from the faithful and donations to help feed the poor of Cape Town.
“It is with great sadness and alarm that we confirm the news that has been doing the rounds on Social Media that the Cathedral has been vandalized,” said a message from Bishop Sylvester David, OMI, published Sunday, April 19. David is an auxiliary bishop of the Cape Town archdiocese.
Bishop David said that various sacred objects had been stolen in the course of the break-in including “a ciborium, a pyx, four silver candelabra, a gold plated chalice, and two gold plated patens.” Money was also taken from the votive offering box, he said.
In addition to the robbery and damage, and more concerning to the Church, the vandalism included Eucharistic desecration.
“The consecrated hosts from the ciborium have been left inside the tabernacle but the host from the pyx has been removed,” said David. “There has been desecration.”
The vandalism of St. Mary’s Cathedral occurred sometime of the early hours of Saturday, April 18. The damage was reported to the Cape Town Central Police when it was discovered the following day by the cathedral caretaker.
South African media reported that in addition to the thefts, vandals ripped the tabernacle door off the hinges, and tore up carpets. Media reports estimated that the damage to the cathedral was more than R100,000, approximately $5,400 USD.
This was the second time the cathedral has been targeted for a break-in.
Bishop David acknowledged that while the archdiocese was itself the victim of a crime, the acts of vandalism and desecration meant that “reparation has to be done,” and that each parish church of the archdiocese would be sent special prayers to offer.
“We request that all the faithful in the Archdiocese to join with the Cathedral parishioners and to engaged in the prayer which will be sent out to the Parish priests for distribution. It is important that the entire local Church engage in this as the Cathedral is the Mother church,” he said. “This prayer does not replace other daily prayers but supplements them.”
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the Archdiocese of Cape Town suspended the public celebration of Mass on March 17.
Additionally, David requested that those who are able make a donation to the Archdiocese of Cape Town’s account in order to provide food for the poor.
“We wish to thank you for the many expressions of the faith especially during this difficult time of the shutdown and wish you a meaningful Easter season,” he said.
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Rome Newsroom, Feb 9, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch called on Tuesday for the United Nations to help resolve the country’s crisis by convening an international conference.
Monica Biboso and her employer, Ester Rot, while celebrating Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) in the dining room of Kibbutz Be’eri in 2022. “I don’t feel like a hero because I saved Ester” during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Biboso told CNA. “I would do anything to save her. I just treated her like my mother. Every child would do the same.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
Jerusalem, Oct 7, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).
One year has passed since Monica Biboso, a 36-year-old Filipino woman who has worked as a caregiver in Israel for over 10 years, was suddenly awakened by the noise of bombs and gunfire in Kibbutz Be’eri, close to the Gaza border.
In a conversation with CNA, Biboso’s eyes moistened as she recalled that day. Hamas fighters surrounded the house, shattered the windows, and set the home ablaze. She still has nightmares and jumps whenever someone knocks on the door of her room at the David Dead Sea Resort by the Dead Sea, where she has been displaced for the past year.
An outing in Sderot of the caregivers who worked at Kibbutz Be’eri on Sept. 5, 2023. Biboso and her employer were transferred to a hotel on the Dead Sea, along with the surviving residents of Kibbutz Be’eri, after the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. About 10 of Biboso’s colleagues joined them, while two died in the attack and five returned to the Philippines. Credit: Monica Biboso
During the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that took the lives of almost 1,200 people, 101 civilians were killed in Be’eri and 30 hostages were taken to Gaza, 11 of whom are still being held in captivity.
Biboso not only survived, but she also managed to protect the elderly lady she was caring for — Ester Rot, who is 81 and has dementia. They were the only two survivors from their neighborhood.
“I have never stopped praying because I have always believed that God was there,” Biboso, a Catholic, told CNA. “All the time, I prayed to God and asked him that if my time had come, he would at least protect my children. But God did not want to call me yet, and I survived.”
Biboso is married to a fellow countryman she met in Israel who had returned to the Philippines just a few days before Oct. 7. The couple has two children, ages 7 and 5, who are growing up in the Philippines under the care of Biboso’s sister.
Monica Biboso with her family in the Philippines in April 2024: her husband, Roberto; her daughter, Sofya; and her son, Clarence. In the first few hours of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas, she managed to stay in touch with them, then her cellphone ran out of power. “When I was able to turn my phone back on, I found video messages from my children, crying, kissing and telling me to take care of myself.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
In the first few hours of being locked in the house’s safe room, Biboso stayed in touch with her family, her Filipino colleagues in the kibbutz, and Rot’s children, but then her cellphone battery died.
“When I was able to turn my phone back on, I found video messages from my children, crying, kissing, and telling me to take care of myself,” she recalled.
Biboso, who was locked in the shelter with Rot for 16 hours, has been trying to forget the experience, but from the start it was clear it would never be possible.
“All the time, I carry my bag with my documents and important things. I am afraid of losing them again. Every night before going to sleep, I need to check outside and lock the door.”
For the past year, Biboso has been undergoing psychological therapy, which is helping her cope with the memories, fear, anguish, and nightmares — and to talk about what she went through.
“When I heard the sirens, I woke Mrs. Ester up, changed her, and dressed her quickly. I gave her her medicine and something to help her sleep, and we took refuge in the safe room of the house. I understood that the situation was serious, as I could hear the gunshots getting closer and closer,” Biboso recounted to CNA.
The closed caption television cameras that Rot’s children had previously installed in the house showed Hamas militants coming and going until they managed to break into the house.
Screenshot of camera footage from Ester Rot’s home at 10:51 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Be’eri, where Monica Biboso lived and worked as a caregiver for the elderly woman. Two armed men can be seen in the lower left of the screen near the home. Around 11 a.m., Hamas fighters managed to break into the house by blasting a hole with explosives. Shortly afterward they set fire to the house. Credit: Courtesy of Monica Biboso
“For the entire time I was locked in the shelter, I kept praying and saying to God, ‘Help us, I know it’s impossible to save us, but I know you can save us.’”
Around 11 a.m., the Hamas fighters broke into the house by blasting a hole with explosives.
“Maybe God heard me because they couldn’t open the shelter door. I was holding the handle from the inside. He gave me incredible strength.”
The door to the shelter where Monica Biboso and her employer, Ester Rot, were barricaded for 16 hours during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, Oct. 7, 2023. The photo was taken by Biboso when she had the chance to return and check the situation in January 2024. “For the entire time I was locked in the shelter, I kept praying and saying to God, ‘Help us, I know it’s impossible to save us, but I know you can save us,’” Biboso told CNA. “Maybe God heard me because they couldn’t open the shelter door. I was holding the handle from the inside. He gave me incredible strength.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
Then they set fire to the house.
“We could barely breathe, it was so hot. We had no water, no food, nothing. I thought we were going to die, but I kept praying.”
When asked how she was able to survive, Biboso said: “God saved me. No one was able to help us. I was weak, I couldn’t breathe, my body was shaking, and I was lying on the floor, but I kept praying. Because of him, I survived. I truly believe that. He was with me the entire time I was in the shelter. I could feel it. Without God, I wouldn’t be here.”
The living room of Ester Rot’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri, where Monica Biboso lived and worked as a caregiver for the elderly woman. The house was completely burned down during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The photo was taken by Biboso when she had the chance to return in January 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
Biboso and Rot spent a day in the hospital, then they were transferred to a hotel on the Dead Sea along with the surviving residents of Kibbutz Be’eri. About 10 of Biboso’s colleagues were among them. (Two others died in the attack and five returned to the Philippines.)
“Together with my husband, we decided it was best for me to stay, at least for the time being. I could never have left Mrs. Ester or allowed her to end up in a nursing home after surviving all this. She is like a mother to me,” said Biboso, who lost her own mother at the age of 16.
“I don’t feel like a hero because I saved Mrs. Ester,” Biboso added. “I would do anything to save her. I just treated her like my mother. Every child would do the same.”
“I knew that if I wanted to have any chance of healing and overcoming this trauma, I could only do it here,” she said. “In Israel, psychologists could help me because they understand the context.”
Ultimately, economic reasons also motivated Biboso to stay. Currently, her salary is the only stable income for her family, whom she was able to reunite with for some weeks in April.
Life at the hotel follows a fairly regular routine. “When we get up, I help Mrs. Ester with breakfast, give her a bath, take her for a walk, and do exercises. After lunch, we rest. When I can’t sleep, I crochet. It helps me relax.” Sometimes the two walk along the sea, take a swim, and spend time with friends.
Four months after Oct. 7, Biboso visited Kibbutz Be’eri together with Rot’s children. “It was very hard. I couldn’t stay there for long.” The house was completely destroyed by the flames.
“All my things were burned, everything was reduced to ashes,” Biboso recounted, “But my rosary didn’t burn. I found it beside my bed. It was a little burnt, but the beads were intact, and the cross was still a cross. My husband gave it to me and I used to pray with it every day before sleeping. I know I’m safe because of it.”
Monica Biboso’s rosary, the only one of her belongings left intact after the home of Ester Rot, the elderly woman she cared for and where she also lived in Kibbutz Be’eri, was set on fire by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. “All my things were reduced to ashes,” Biboso recounted, “but my rosary didn’t burn. My husband gave it to me and I used to pray with it every day before sleeping. I know I’m safe because of it.” Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
To this day, every night, Bibosa prays the rosary before bedtime. “In the Philippines, when my mother was alive, every day at 6 o’clock we prayed the rosary together before having dinner. I kept doing it.”
After Oct. 7, a nun living in Tel Aviv called Biboso every day, and they prayed together. “She’s helped me a lot. If I can’t sleep, I call her, and we pray together over the phone.”
“Prayer is a big help to me in healing, lightening the burden on my heart, and freeing my mind from negative thoughts,” Biboso said.
Ester Rot, the elderly woman with whom Monica Biboso works as a caregiver, on the shore of the Dead Sea. After surviving the massacre carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, the two were displaced to the David Dead Sea Resort along with the other surviving residents of Kibbutz Be’eri. Credit: Photo courtesy of Monica Biboso
In mid-October, Biboso and Rot are expected to move to Kibbutz Hatzerim, where new housing units have been built for the Be’eri survivors.
“First, you need to have faith in God and be thankful for everything,” Biboso said. “You just need to trust him, and he will make a way to save you. This war will also end because of him. He will find a way to bring good out of it all.”
Washington D.C., Nov 3, 2018 / 07:01 am (CNA).- Despite recent disparaging Western commentary on high African birth rates, fertility rates on the continent are normal when viewed in the context of development, new data analysis from the Institute for Family Studies shows.
The analysis comes weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron commented at a Gates Foundation event in New York that educated women do not choose to have large families. “I always say: ‘Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight or nine children,’” he said.
While Macron clarified that he was speaking about the lack of educational opportunities in African countries, his comments struck a nerve with women in the United States and throughout the world. One professor at Catholic University of America started the hashtag #PostcardsforMacron on social media, with which educated women from different countries shared photos of their large families.
In a new analysis published this week, Lyman Stone, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, said that the fertility rate of most African countries is normal when other factors such as levels of development and child mortality rates are considered.
“What’s really going on here is quite simple: United Nations demographers have repeatedly messed up their forecasts of African fertility in more-or-less the same direction, and, rather than give a good explanation about why that is, the development community is responding by faulting Africans for having kids,” Stone wrote.
Each time the U.N. has forecasted Africa’s population for 2050, the numbers of their prediction have increased, causing some demographers to publish papers “bemoaning Africa’s curiously slow ‘demographic transition’ to near-replacement fertility,” Stone said.
For example, in 2008, the U.N. predicted that by 2050, the fertility rate in Africa would fall to about 2.5 children per woman, close to near-replacement rates, which range from about 2.1 to 2.3 children per woman.
But in 2017, the U.N. predicted that instead, the fertility rate in Africa by 2050 would be about 3.25 children per woman.
“This upward trend in forecast population stems from the fact that U.N. demographers have repeatedly overestimated how quickly Africa’s fertility would decline.”
But that doesn’t mean that Africa’s fertility rates are not declining overall, Stone noted. “You might think, then, that Africa’s fertility is rising! But actually, it isn’t! African fertility is falling!” he wrote.
Between 1965 and 2015, the fertility rate in Sub-Saharan African countries fell from almost 7 children per woman to slightly less than 5 children per woman. The decline has been slight, and slow, but steady – just not as dramatic as some Western groups had hoped, Stone noted.
“The entire scary story about African fertility really boils down to fractional differences in the rate of future fertility decline. In other words, Macron’s comments about ‘6 or 7 or 8’ kids are totally irrelevant,” he wrote.
“Africa’s ‘problem,’ as far as U.N. demographers are concerned, isn’t women having seven kids today; it’s women having three kids, 40 years from now when they ‘should’ have had just two.”
The complaint that the African population and fertility rates are high is not new, Stone noted – “it’s part and parcel of old-school racist colonialism. Colonial regimes often tried various inhuman measures to reduce population growth. It’s no surprise the successors to colonial regimes, do-gooder ‘family planning’ NGOs, are pushing the same concerns.”
One factor being ignored in the “fear-mongering” of those who say African fertility rates are too high is child mortality rates, which are typically good predictors of fertility rates, Stone said.
Typically, the more developed a country, the lower the child mortality rates and fertility rates are, he said. This is because as countries develop and people live longer, healthier lives, parents can reasonably expect that their children will live well into adulthood, driving down the need for many children in hopes that some will live into adulthood.
Furthermore, as people become more educated, they learn to manage their own fertility better, and have jobs “where brains are often more useful than brawn,” reducing the economic need for having more children.
When rates of child mortality are considered, the fertility rates in most African countries are normal, Stone wrote.
“Adding in control variables for urbanization or dependence on agriculture or natural resources doesn’t change the story: African fertility looks fairly normal for its level of development,” he said, when compared with similar countries in Asia, which have slightly lower fertility rates, and countries in Latin America which have higher fertility rates.
Africa is also a large and varied continent, and fertility rates vary significantly between its countries, Stone noted.
Furthermore, comparing fertility rates among developing countries also must take into account what kinds of family planning policies are being implemented in those countries, Stone said.
While Western groups like the Gates Foundation say that they want family planning policies in African countries to respect women’s freedom, at the same time they want the fertility rates in Africa to decline as dramatically as in countries such as China or India, which have implemented inhumane practices such as the “One Child” policy or forced sterilizations.
“In other words, Western donors need to get their story straight: do they want Africa to experience East-Asian style fertility declines, or do they want African countries to pursue democratically-compatible, rights-respecting population policies? You can’t have it both ways,” Stone noted.
In fact, Stone added, it is unclear why Western groups think they should get a say in African fertility rates at all.
“Western countries should have learned their lesson: it’s time to stop acting like African policy can be made from London or Paris or Seattle. Truth be told, Western organizations have no right, and no moral credibility, to step in and tell African women what they should or shouldn’t do with their bodies. We would be much better off looking for ways to solve our own fertility problems.”
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