Vatican City, May 3, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- On Good Shepherd Sunday, Pope Francis said he was thinking of all the priests and doctors who gave their lives in the service of others during the coronavirus pandemic.
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The great 19th-century British historian of liberty, Lord John Acton, stood tall against the tyrants of yesteryear and his own day. He admonished modern civilization against ceding too much power to unquestioned singular authority. He […]
CNA Staff, May 2, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A man claiming to have killed the murdered Nigerian seminarian Michael Nnadi has given an interview in which he says he executed the aspiring priest because he would not stop announcing the Christian faith in captivity.
Mustapha Mohammed, who is currently in jail, gave a telephone interview to the Nigerian newspaper Daily Sun on Friday. He took responsibility for the murder, according to the Daily Sun, because Nnandi, 18 years old, “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors.
According to the newspaper, Mustapha praised Nnadi’s “outstanding bravery,” and that the seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways or perish.”
Nandi was kidnapped by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna on January 8, along with three other students. The seminary, home to some 270 seminarians, is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”
Mustapha, 26, identified himself as the leader of a 45-member gang that preyed along the highway. He gave the interview from a jail in Abuja, Nigeria, where he is in police custody.
On the evening of the abduction, gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians’ living quarters and opened fire. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.
Ten days after the abduction, one of the four seminarians was found on the side of a road, alive but seriously injured. On Jan. 31, an official at Good Shepherd Seminary announced that another two seminarians had been released, but that Nnadi remained missing and was presumed still in captivity.
On Feb. 1, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, announced that Nandi had been killed.
“With a very heavy heart, I wish to inform you that our dear son, Michael was murdered by the bandits on a date we cannot confirm,” the bishop said, confirming that the rector of the seminary had identified Nnadi’s body.
The newspaper reported that from “the first day Nnadi was kidnapped alongside three of his other colleagues, he did not allow [Mustapha] to have peace,” because he insisted on announcing the gospel to him.
According to the newspaper, Mustapha “did not like the confidence displayed by the young man and decided to send him to an early grave.”
According to the Daily Sun, Mustapha targeted the seminary knowing it was a center for training priests, and that a gang member who lived nearby had helped conduct surveillance ahead of the attack. Mohammed believed that it would be a profitable target for theft and ransom.
Mohammed also said that the gang used Nnadi’s mobile telephone to issue their ransom demands, asking for more than $250,000, later reduced to $25,000, to secure the release of the three surviving students, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; and Stephen Amos, 23.
Nandi’s murder is one of an series of attacks and killings on Christians in the country in recent months.
Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in a homily March 1 at a Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.
“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said.
In an Ash Wednesday letter to Nigerian Catholics, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City called for Catholics to wear black in solidarity with victims and pray, in response to “repeated” executions of Christians by Boko Haram and “incessant” kidnappings “linked to the same groups.”
Other Christian villages have been attacked, farms set ablaze, vehicles carrying Christians attacked, men and women have been killed and kidnapped, and women have been taken as sex slaves and tortured—a “pattern,” he said, of targeting Christians.
On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.
“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”
“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”
Denver Newsroom, May 1, 2020 / 03:50 pm (CNA).- A segment of Americans say their faith has grown stronger since the coronavirus epidemic began, including 27% of Catholics, though the rise seems most pronounced among […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure that vaccines developed to combat coronavirus are not “morally compromised” by any connection to cell lines created from the remains of aborted babies.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said in an interview Thursday that “there’s been a history in creating vaccines of—in some cases anyway—of using cell lines from aborted fetuses,” and that it remains important to highlight the complicated ethical concerns in vaccine research.
“So some of the vaccines that are used today have this ethical problem,” he said in an appearance on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly. “We as a Church, obviously, we see this as a moral issue, that we don’t want to do anything that—in some way gives support for the idea of abortion.”
“On the other hand,” the bishops said, “I think in some cases where there are no other ethical choices, or for public health reasons, Catholics may be forced to use these vaccines even though we object to the way they were developed, but the Church says we have an obligation to object to that, and to advocate for ethical vaccines to be developed.”
Naumann said that at a time when so many resources and so much public attention is being devoted to developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, “this is the moment for us to advocate.”
“There’s no need to really use cell lines from aborted fetuses, there are other cell lines that can be used to develop these vaccines, so that’s why we think it’s very important at this moment to let the voice not only of the Church but other concerned citizens to voice that we want to—we all want a vaccine, we realize that’s important for our public health, but we also want a vaccine that has no ethical problems in the way it’s developed,” he said.
Archbishop Naumann on protecting the vulnerable:
“I think it’s admirable that we as a culture are taking these steps to try to protect those that are most vulnerable to the virus. Hopefully that can translate into a similar concern for the lives of the unborn.” #prolife #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/7ECGXABmUu
— EWTN Pro-Life Weekly (@EWTNProLife) April 30, 2020
Naumann said he hopes the FDA will “create incentives for the pharmaceutical companies that are creating these vaccines to use cell lines that are not implicated with abortion” and to issue “strong guidance” to create a vaccine that is developed ethically.
“I think all we need really is for our pharmaceutical companies to realize that this is offensive to a large number of Americans and give them the encouragement, give our government the encouragement, to make sure these vaccines are not morally compromised in any way,” he said.
Naumann also said that the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has revealed a pro-life ethic in the public mind.
“It’s interesting because even some figures, public officials, that don’t support us on protecting the lives of the unborn, they’ve made statements in the midst of this crisis that every life is precious, every life is sacred,” he said.
“As a culture and society, we’re going to enormous lengths to try to protect the elderly and those that might be susceptible to the virus where it’s much more dangerous for them. So I think it’s admirable that we as a culture are taking these steps to try to protect those that are most vulnerable to the virus, and hopefully that can translate into a similar concern for the lives of the unborn as well.”
Denver Newsroom, May 2, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- A small Catholic school in Napa, California is drawing on community support to run a weekly food pantry for its families and neighbors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Volunteers, led by the school board, have adapted Kolbe Academy & Trinity Prep— a K-12 school with just 105 students— into a food pantry for distribution every Wednesday.
Anna Hickey and Eric Muth— both alumni and school board members— helped to develop what they call the Agape Program, aiming to assist the school community spiritually and materially during the pandemic.
The pantry was able to serve more than 50 families on the first day it was open, April 22, Hickey and Muth told CNA.
After the first week, word spread quickly through the community.
“We contacted several local parishes who are now directing people with needs to our school,” Hickey said.
Teachers and families from the school have volunteered to help with food distribution— including one family who lined up to receive food, realized more help was needed, and put their food aside in order to volunteer for the rest of the day.
“As people hear about Agape, the generosity is now starting to match the need,” Hickey said.
For the first day of distribution, school board members bought a large amount of frozen chicken from a distributor. When they told the distributor it was for a food pantry,he donated nearly 700 additional pounds of steak, turkey, and chicken.
Hickey said the school thought their supply of meat would keep them well-stocked for several weeks, but the number of families seeking help turned out to be “overwhelming.”
The extra meat lasted just two and a half hours.
Muth said by the time the school held its second day of distributing food, the number of patrons in line had doubled to more than 100.
In order to comply with California’s strict social distancing orders, the school asked that only one family member come to pick up the food. This means that each person in line was likely representing a family of, on average, five people, Muth said.
Despite the additional demand, they also had more volunteers, and more food to give away— including a truck of fresh produce that a parishioner donated.
The Napa Valley is often regarded as an affluent area, but beyond the vineyards and tasting rooms are working class and poor families who are hurt by the economic downturn.
Many of the breadwinners for the Catholic school families in Napa work in the service industry— and in many cases, both parents have found themselves out of work, Hickey said.
In addition, some of the Catholic school families are ineligible for unemployment benefits because of their immigration status, she said.
Hickey and Muth hope to provide tuition assistance to needy families through the Agape initiative, so that families in need don’t find themselves forced to pull their children out of the Catholic school.
“Our Catholic schools are in trouble, and we really need to start seeing them as a mission,” Hickey said.
“Catholic education in our world today is a critical necessity. It’s not something that we should consider a luxury…if we want to change society, if we want to make sure that we have future pro-lifers, then we’d better make darn sure that we keep Catholic education going.”
Another phase of the initiate will involve high school students reaching out to the elderly and lonely in the community.
“If we don’t help others first, there’s no way we can ever ask for help again,” she said.
“Our moral obligation is to extend help, even in the fear of us closing down— extend help first, and then ask for help.”
That approach has ultimately paid off— the school has received many donations since starting the food pantry, they said, even from non-Catholic members of the community who recognize the good work the school is doing.
“God will take care of us if we have some trust and faith in Him,” Muth said.
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