CNA Staff, May 23, 2020 / 02:00 am (CNA).- Catholics are calling for a public investigation into why so many elderly people have died in U.K. nursing homes during the coronavirus crisis.
More than 20,000 people have died in U.K. care facilities as a r… […]
Editor’s note: This is an installment in our series on the evangelizing power of beauty. In this series, we are looking at how beauty can bring us to God, convey a sense of the sacred, […]
Rome Newsroom, May 22, 2020 / 05:34 pm (CNA).- The Vatican revealed this week that Catholics in China were able to use the most popular Chinese state-monitored social media platform, WeChat, to livestream Pope Francis’ daily Mass during the coronavirus pandemic.
An expert on Chinese media has cautioned that the Chinese regime may have had something to gain in granting Chinese Catholics this limited access to the pope.
WeChat is known for its censorship of its more than 1 billion monthly active users. The Chinese government is able to monitor all discussion, content, and user data on the app.
Vatican News released a video on May 20 showing Catholics in China gathered around smartphones and computer monitors placed on home altars or inside of churches praying with Pope Francis’ livestreamed liturgies, which could be accessed via WhatsApp via simultaneous translation into Chinese.
By the time that the video was published, the limited 52-day period in which the livestream was available to Chinese viewers, March 27 to May 18, had already come to an end.
A Chinese Catholic living in Jilin Province confirmed to CNA that the Vatican News website is now available in China both on WeChat and Weibo, often called the Chinese Twitter.
“I have found that social media like Weibo has been very friendly to the Church since the beginning of this year,” she said.
The Holy See and the Chinese government signed a provisional agreement in 2018 on the appointment of bishops in the state-sponsored Church, the terms of which have still not been publicly released. In the wake of the deal, previously excommunicated bishops of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), which is overseen by the Communist Party, were received into full communion with the Vatican.
Sarah Cook, a senior research analyst who monitors media censorship and religious freedom in China for Freedom House, explained to CNA that the livestream of the pope’s Mass in China could have been the fruit of the ongoing dialogue between the Holy See and the Chinese government.
“This type of engagement for the pope with Chinese believers directly is exactly what the Vatican was hoping to achieve through its rapprochement with the Chinese government,” she said.
“By allowing it, it may be giving Beijing more leverage to obtain what it wants in the future, such as approval of certain bishops or reduced Vatican criticism of ongoing persecution of Catholics in China. So there are good reasons why allowing this kind of relatively innocuous and temporary gesture would be in Beijing’s interests,” Cook told CNA.
Vatican News reported that the number of viewers of Pope Francis’ Mass in China increased daily, reaching more than 10,000 viewers on WeChat before the Vatican stopped livestreaming the Mass.
“If this was something temporary then that might have made it easier for the Chinese government to accept,” Cook said. “Scale may also have been a factor.”
“Ten thousand is still fairly low by Chinese standards,” she added.
China is home to more than 10 million Catholics, with six million registered as members of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, according to official statistics.
“Often the sensitivities surrounding officially recognized religions and even other groups in China are triggered by growing popularity,” Cook said. “My sense is that if the broadcasts had continued and began reaching an even bigger audience, say hundreds of thousands or a million people, then it would have been shut down at some point.”
“Crackdowns on other religious groups and even information sharing or online preaching have continued amid the pandemic,” she added, particularly for Protestants and other persecuted religious groups in China, such as the Falun Gong.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the human rights group Voice of the Martyrs reported that government officials in Shandong Province banned online preaching amid the outbreak, and the Christian non-profit ChinaAid shared a video March 15 of a Protestant church in Jiangsu Province that had been demolished by Chinese authorities.
The Chinese government has also used social media platforms to help monitor and detain Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Data showing which WhatsApp users followed the pope’s livestream Mass could be accessed by the Chinese government in the future, Cook acknowledged, while noting that “Catholicism is an approved religion in China and most people don’t run into trouble for attending Mass at a state-sanctioned church.”
“With improving relations between the Chinese government and Vatican, I imagine that the pope is not as sensitive a figure as he previously was. So I don’t imagine people would get in trouble just for watching this,” she said.
Among the government regulations of the state-sanctioned Catholic churches in China is a prohibition on minors under the age of 18 from entering church property.
Cook noted that while children could be seen praying in the Vatican News video, this is “one part of religious regulations that has often slipped through the cracks in the past in terms of enforcement, so that may be the case now.”
A report by the U.S. China Commission in January found that Chinese Catholics suffered “increasing persecution” after the Vatican-China deal. It said the government was “demolishing churches, removing crosses, and continuing to detain underground clergy.” Priests and bishops have reportedly been detained or have gone into hiding.
In February, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, met with the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The Holy See press office reported that the meeting was an occasion for “renewing the willingness to continue the institutional dialogue” between the Holy See and the Chinese Communist Party.
The Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica announced in April that it was launching a version in simplified Chinese.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, praised the decision to launch the Chinese edition in a letter to La Civiltà Cattolica.
“I can only express from the depths of my heart my warmest best wishes and the fervent hope that your Chinese language edition might become a solid instrument of mutual cultural and scientific enrichment, among all people in search of beauty and truth,” Parolin said.
The first papal liturgy to be viewed over WeChat in China was Pope Francis’ extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing on March 27 for the world suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.
Vatican News reported that in China the news that the live broadcast of the pope’s Mass would end on May 18 was “greeted with some suffering and also with some tears.”
While some Catholics in China are sad to lose access to the livestream Mass, the greater problem for most Chinese Catholics is that Catholic churches, seminaries, and all pilgrimage activities in China remain suspended.
China closed churches beginning in January, as the coronavirus outbreak spread throughout the country. But after the nationwide quarantine was eased in March and epicenter Wuhan’s lockdown was lifted on April 8, Asia News reports that Catholic churches were told to remain closed through the end of May by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Denver Newsroom, May 22, 2020 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- Susan Varlamoff, a retired biologist and parishioner at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, was in 2015 serving as director of the Office of Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia, when she heard that Pope Francis was working on an encyclical on the environment.
Varlamoff told CNA that working for a cleaner environment has been a personal mission for her for many years, in part because her family suffered the negative effects of living near a toxic landfill when she was a child.
“I’ve been on the forefront of this, doing so much in my own home, but to actually see the Catholic Church embrace this and the pope, who’s a trained chemist, come out with an environmental encyclical was absolutely thrilling,” she told CNA.
Varlamoff approached her archbishop at the time— Wilton Gregory, now Archbishop of Washington— to see if she could somehow offer her scientific expertise to the pope.
Gregory laughed and said the pope likely had all the scientific help he needed— but, he said, the archdiocese would need its own action plan.
Valamoff began collaborating with climate scientists and other professionals at the University of Georgia, along with several interreligious groups who also were working on addressing environmental issues, to begin the process of creating the action plan. Before they could do much, Laudato si’ was promulgated.
Valamoff said when she read the encyclical, it exceeded her expectations. It was clear to her that Pope Francis had received good input from his scientific advisors, she said.
“What I was surprised about the document was that it addressed many different environmental issues from biodiversity, energy, water, and then he talked about the unfair way that the environmental issues are affecting the poor. They’re taking a disproportionate share of the burden, of these environmental issues,” Varlamoff said.
Laudato si’ was released in May 2015. By November, Susan and her team presented a 48-page, peer-reviewed action plan to the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
The plan suggests ten areas where Catholics in Atlanta can make changes to make their homes— or their parishes— more eco-friendly, from energy efficiency and recycling to sustainable landscaping and water conservation.
Each section includes a few concrete suggestions that vary in time commitment, cost, and resources. For example, if you want to conserve water, you can check your toilet for slow leaks. Or, if you want to do something bigger, you can install a drip irrigation system in your yard.
The archdiocese presented the plan in 2016, and sent a copy to every parish.
Now, four years on, there are at least 60 or 70 parishes throughout the archdiocese that have a sustainability ministry, Varlamoff said.
One of the first things Varlamoff did at her parish was to replace styrofoam and disposable dishes at events with actual dishes, which reduced waste after large events.
In addition, after an energy audit, the parish replaced all its light bulbs, and is transforming its campus by planting native plants and trees.
She said for the ministries to work well, each parish needs a point person.
“They need somebody to lead the effort, to inspire the people to do this work, and to bring together experts and interested people to move the parishioners and to move the pastor and facilities manager and parish council to do this work,” she said.
At the beginning of this year, the Atlanta archdiocese started the Laudato Si Initiative, meant to expand on what the parish teams were already doing under the action plan.
The archdiocese also hired two Laudato si’ coordinators, including a sustainability strategist, in February.
Leonard Robinson, the sustainability strategist, has some 45 years experience in the field and previously worked with several California governors at the California Environmental Protection Agency.
He said not every parish in Atlanta has embraced the call for greater sustainability, partly because it simply was something new for many of them.
“It’s a slight change, but it’s not the change people expect. A lot of the parishes said, ‘Okay, we’re overburdened. We’ve got all these ministries we’ve got doing this, this and this. We don’t have time for one more thing’,” Robinson told CNA.
“Well, I explained that this one more thing it’s not really a thing, we want to weave sustainability in all walks of Catholic life, education, ministry, and everything else. So if you’re open to it, you won’t even notice that it’s extra work. You might find in some cases there’s less, and you’ll have more resources to do other things.”
In some cases, the best way to approach parishes or individuals is not to even mention the phrases “climate change” or “sustainability.”
“Let’s say energy efficiency. Let’s say water conservation. Let’s say sustainable landscapes. Let’s say extra resources for other ministries, because you’re saving energy, and these things when you save them, it does save you money, but it’s not about money, it’s maximizing the things that you do to enforce other ministries.”
Robinson said the Laudato Si Action Plan was a great starting point, a “roadmap” for his work at the archdiocese.
“That was one of the attractions for my job. I don’t have to start from zero, I’ve got this roadmap. All I have to do is institute that and weave that into every part of Catholic life,” he said.
Varmaloff commented: “The Pope is so well respected as a moral leader in the world…why shouldn’t Catholic churches be demonstration sites for energy efficiency, water efficiency, growing food sustainably? Why not recycling? There’s no reason why the Catholic church can’t lead the way.”
In preparation for my participation in a USCCB sponsored symposium for the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si, I reread the famous and controversial document with some care. Many of the themes […]
CNA Staff, May 22, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Authorities are investigating the burning of a Mississippi church as a potential arson. The fire comes less than a month after the church filed suit arguing the city’s stay-at-home order was unconstituti… […]
By Matt Hadro / Catholic News Agency President Donald Trump on Friday called on state governors to reopen churches “right now.” At a Friday press briefing, Trump said that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control […]
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CNA Staff, May 22, 2020 / 11:29 am (CNA).- Catholic Relief Services is among the agencies providing aid to those impacted by Cyclone Amphan in Bangladesh and eastern India. The storm killed at least 96, millions were evacuated, and Kolkata was devastated.
The cyclone made landfall in India May 20, and it dissipated the following day. It brought winds of as much at 160 mph, and waves up to 15 feet.
Kolkata, a city of 4.5 million, was without power for at least 14 hours, and its roads were flooded.
“Initially they were not willing to evacuate, because they were weighing between the risk of the cyclone and the invisible risk of Covid-19,” Snigdha Chakroborty, CRS’ Bangladesh country director, told PBS NewsHour May 20 of local residents.
“They do not have income, they do not have homes, they also lost their crops in the field. So basically it a devastating and painful situation that they will have to live with now.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>We just received photos of damage caused by <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/CycloneAmphan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#CycloneAmphan</a> in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bangladesh?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Bangladesh</a>. Please keep everyone impacted in your prayers. We're assessing damage will provide updates on our response asap. <a href=”https://t.co/gr3fhSpXs0″>pic.twitter.com/gr3fhSpXs0</a></p>— CatholicRelief (@CatholicRelief) <a href=”https://twitter.com/CatholicRelief/status/1263513689530888193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
CRS and Caritas have indicated there are immediate needs for shelter, potable water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Ahead of the storm, the groups indicated they had “pre-positioned emergency supplies” and were “supporting efforts to clean evacuation centers and procure critically needed supplies in local markets.”
Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta has asked Church officials to open their facilities to those rendered homeless by the cyclone, according to UCA News. The “top priority is to arrange food for so many people who have lost everything,” he told the independent Catholic news source.
CNA Staff, May 22, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- An English bishop has criticized the government for promoting at-home medical abortions during the coronavirus lockdown.
Speaking at a Mass for workers on the pandemic’s front line May 21, Bishop Mark D… […]
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