Pope Francis donates ventilators and ultrasounds to coronavirus-hit Brazil

August 17, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vatican City, Aug 17, 2020 / 10:10 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has donated ventilators and ultrasound scanners to hospitals in coronavirus-ravaged Brazil.

In a Aug. 17 press statement, papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski said that 18 Dräger intensive care ventilators and six Fuji portable ultrasound scanners would be shipped to Brazil on the pope’s behalf.

Brazil has reported 3.3 million cases of COVID-19 and 107,852 deaths as of Aug. 17, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The country has the second-highest officially recorded death toll in the world after that of the United States.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro announced July 7 that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and was forced to spend weeks in isolation as he recovered from the virus.

Krajewski said that the donation was made possible by an Italian non-profit organization called Hope, which has been sending “the best possible high-tech, life-saving medical equipment through various donors” to hospitals on the coronavirus front line.

The Polish cardinal explained that when the devices arrived in Brazil, they would be delivered to hospitals selected by the local apostolic nunciature, in order that “this gesture of Christian solidarity and charity can really help the poorest and neediest people.”

In June, the International Monetary Fund predicted that Brazil’s economy would contract by 9.1% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, plunging more of Brazil’s 209.5 million population into poverty.

The Office of Papal Charities, which Krajewski oversees, has made several previous donations to hopitals struggling amid the pandemic. In March, Francis entrusted the Office with 30 ventilators to distribute to 30 hospitals. Ventilators were delivered to hospitals in Romania, Spain, and Italy on April 23, the feast of St. George, the patron saint of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In June, the Office sent 35 ventilators to needy countries.

Vatican News reported July 14 that Pope Francis donated four ventilators to Brazil to treat those who have contracted the virus.

In addition, the Vatican Congregation for the Oriental Churches announced in April that it was donating 10 ventilators to Syria and three to St Joseph’s Hospital in Jerusalem, as well as diagnostic kits to Gaza and funds to the Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem.

Krajewski said: “The Holy Father, Pope Francis, incessantly addresses his heartfelt appeal to generosity and to solidarity with those populations and countries that suffer most from the epidemiological emergency of COVID-19.”

“In this sense also the Office of Papal Charities, to make the closeness and affection of the Holy Father tangible in this moment of hard trial and difficulty, has mobilized in different ways and on multiple fronts to look for medical supplies and electro-medical equipment to donate to health systems which find themselves in situations of crisis and poverty, helping them to find the means necessary to save and heal many human lives.”

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Questions emerge regarding Pope Francis’ statement on same-sex civil unions

October 22, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2020 / 09:28 am (CNA).- Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, director of the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, said on Wednesday evening that an expression of support for same-sex civil unions from Pope Francis is “nothing new” and does not signify a change of Catholic doctrine. But the priest’s remarks have raised some question about the origin of comments from Pope Francis on civil unions, which were featured in the newly-released documentary “Francesco.”

In a video released by Tv2000, a media apostolate of the  Italian bishops’ conference, Spadaro said that “the director of the film ‘Francesco’ compiles a series of interviews that have been conducted with Pope Francis over time, giving a great summary of his pontificate and the value of his travels.”

“Among other things, there are various passages taken from an interview with Valentina Alazraki, a Mexican journalist, and within that interview Pope Francis speaks of a right to the legal protection of homosexual couples but without in any way affecting doctrine,” Spadaro said.

Tv2000 is not affiliated with the Vatican, and Spadaro is not a Vatican spokesman.

On Wednesday, the documentary’s director, Evgeny Afineevsky, told CNA and other journalists that the pope’s statement in support of legalizing same sex civil unions was made during an interview the director himself conducted with Pope Francis.

But the interview Pope Francis gave to Televisa’s Alazraki is shot in the same place, with the same lighting and the same appearance as the pope’s comments on civil unions that were aired in “Francesco,” suggesting that the remarks came from the Alazraki interview, and not an interview with Afineevsky.

Spadaro said Oct. 21 that “there is nothing new” in the pope’s remarks on civil unions.

“This is an interview given a long time ago that has already been received by the press,” Spadaro added.

And on Wednesday, the priest told the Associated Press that “there’s nothing new because it’s a part of that interview,” adding that “it seems strange that you don’t remember.”

While Alazraki’s interview was released by Televisa June 1, 2019, the pope’s comments on civil union legislation were not included in the published version, and had not previously been seen by the public in any context.

In fact, Alazraki told CNA she has no recollection of the pope making remarks about civil unions, although comparative footage suggests the remark almost certainly came from her interview.

It is not clear how unpublished footage from Alazraki’s interview, of which Spadaro seemed aware in his remarks on Wednesday, became available to Afineevsky during the production of his documentary.

On May 28, 2019, Vatican News, the official news outlet of the Vatican, published a preview of Alazraki’s interview, which also did not contain reference to the pope’s remarks on civil unions.

In a 2014 interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Pope Francis spoke briefly about civil unions after he was asked about them. The pope distinguished between marriage, which is between a man and a woman, and other kinds of government-recognized relationships. Pope Francis did not weigh in on during the interview on a debate in Italy over same-sex civil unions, and a spokesman later clarified that he had no intention of doing so.

Pope Francis is also on record speaking about civil unions in the little known 2017 book “Pape François. Politique et société,” by French sociologist Dominique Wolton, who wrote the text after several interviews with Pope Francis.

In the English translation of the book, titled “A Future of Faith: The Path of Change in Politics and Society,” Wolton tells Pope Francis that “homosexuals aren’t necessarily favorable toward ‘marriage.’ Some prefer civil union (sic) It’s all complicated. Beyond the ideology of equality, there is also, in the word ‘marriage’, a search for acknowledgment.”

In the text, Pope Francis briefly responds: “But it isn’t a marriage, it is a civil union.”

Based on that reference, some reviews, including one published in America magazine, claimed that in the book, the Pope “repeats his opposition to gay marriage but accepts the civil union of people of the same sex.”

Journalists from CNA and other media outlets have asked the Vatican press office for clarification on the source of the pope’s interview, but have not yet received a response.

 


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