Nicaraguan cardinal commemorates attack on Managua cathedral

null / Credit: Unsplash

CNA Newsroom, Dec 13, 2022 / 11:16 am (CNA).
The organization Pasos por la Vida (Steps for Life) demanded that the federal government, headed by Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as state government… […]

Santiago, Chile, Jan 19, 2018 / 09:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At the end of his three-day visit to Chile, Pope Francis came to the defense of a controversial bishop, saying accusations that he helped cover up abuse are unproven and amount to “calumny.”

Responding to a Chilean journalist who asked about the issue, Pope Francis said “the day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak. There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

The 2015 appointment of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid to lead the Diocese Osorno, continues to draw harsh criticism from activists and abuse victims who accuse the bishop of covering up the crimes of his longtime friend, Father Fernando Karadima.

Karadima, who once led a lay movement from his parish in El Bosque, was convicted of sexually abusing minors in a 2011 Vatican trial, and at the age of 84, he was sentenced to a life of prayer and solitude.

Barros has repeatedly insisted that he knew nothing of the abuse, at one point telling the Associated Press that “I never knew anything about, nor ever imagined the serious abuses which that priest committed against the victims.”

“I have never approved of nor participated in such serious dishonest acts and I have never been convicted by any tribunal of such things.”
 
In January 2015 Francis named Barros to head the Diocese of Osorno in southern Chile, setting off a wave of objections and calls for his resignation from several priests. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral.

Days later, Archbishop Fernando Chomali Garib of Concepcion said that Pope Francis had told him that there was “no objective reason at all” that the bishop should not be installed. The pontiff had been kept up-to-date on the situation.

On March 31, 2015, the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops also released a statement, saying that the office had “carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”
 
The then-apostolic nuncio to Chile, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, said that all information about Barros was passed on to Pope Francis. Most of the people in the church, he said, were not protesters, but “people who love their bishop.”

On May 6, 2015, five months after Barros was appointed to lead the Diocese of Osorno, Deacon Jaime Coiro, general secretary of the Chilean episcopal conference, told Pope Francis that the Church in Osorno “is praying and suffering for you.”

“Osorno suffers, yes,” Pope Francis said, “for silliness.” According to a video of the conversation released by Chile’s Ahora Noticias, the Pope had told Coiro that “the only accusation against that bishop was discredited by the judicial court.”

“Think with your head, and do not be carried away by the noses of the leftists, who are the ones who put this thing together,” the Pope added.

In his first speech after landing in Chile Jan. 15 Pope Francis acknowledged the pain and distress the scandal has caused to the local Church and to the wider Chilean society, telling the country’s civil authorities he feels “pain and shame at the irreparable damage caused to children by some ministers of the Church.”

Asking for pardon, he said “I am one with my brother bishops, for it is right to ask for forgiveness and make every effort to support the victims, even as we commit ourselves to ensuring that such things do not happen again.”

However, in response to the Pope’s comment Jan. 18, Juan Carlos Cruz – one of Barros’ most outspoken accusers and one of Karadima’s victims – tweeted: “As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all…These people are truly crazy, and the pontiff talks about atonement to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”

[…]

Caracas, Venezuela, Jul 29, 2019 / 02:51 pm (CNA).- After visiting clerics and seminarians in Venezuela, the secretary for seminaries of the Congregation for the Clergy issued a hopeful message for the country, which is facing shortages of basic goods.

“There is no desert that doesn’t end,” Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong said, adding that “experiences in the history of Venezuela, and also personal and familial experiences, show that you can move forward.”

Under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval, with severe shortages of food and medicine, high unemployment, blackouts, and hyperinflation. More than 4 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.

Archbishop Patrón spoke to Venezuelans through the “Voices of Hope” program of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference.

“I’m going to repeat the words of Pope Francis: let no one rob you of hope. Be free to live in hope, free to love, free to make decisions in favor of Venezuela, and very free to believe,”  Patrón encouraged.

“You have also gone through not so easy other personal, familial and national experiences in the past, but Venezuela is great, very great,” exclaimed Patrón, who explained that he was referring to Venezuela as great “because it has the seed of the Kingdom, because it has the presence of God, and you have the love of Our Lady of Coromoto.”

Patrón also emphasized that “the Kingdom of God is growing” and added that during his time in Venezuela he met “young seminarians, priests of all ages and bishops who are very determined to be the presence of God in the current circumstances.”

“Any young man, priest, even the bishops themselves had other possibilities, which perhaps were much more comfortable, humanly understandable and justifiable, but it’s beautiful to realize that we have seminarians, priests and bishops that from within, from the heart, know that it’s worth giving their lives and going through a series of sacrifices, a series of inconveniences, but they are joyful because they are giving their lives so that the Kingdom of God, the values of the Gospel, are lived in Venezuela today,”  Patrón said.

The prelate added that the clerics and seminarians “are very Venezuelan because from Venezuela, in Venezuela, from their vocation, they are the best citizens, the best Christians because they are giving their lives, their potentialities, their gifts, their lives, for the people of Venezuela.”

“That’s why, when you come to Venezuela you realize there’s life, there’s youth, there’s priesthood, there’s consecrated life, there are lay faithful who have freely decided to live, develop and give themselves totally to God, for the people of Venezuela and we can say there is a living present and it’s going to see a better future,” the archbishop said.

Finally, reflecting on the formation of seminarians and the ongoing formation of deacons and priests,  Patrón stressed that it is necessary to be a pastor for the current situation and for future generations.

“The people of God and we need priests who are integrally formed. The people are praying to have holy, healthy priests, generous priests and this means that in formation we have ‘very human’ human beings, very close to the people of God, and at the same time very close to Jesus Christ, very spiritual. Men of God and men of their people, who give themselves to the people of Venezuela,” he concluded.

Earlier this month the Venezuelan bishops asked that Maduro resign from office, saying his exercise of the presidency is illegimate. They called for the election of a new president as soon as possible.

The bishops cited a July 4 report from the UN human rights commissioner which said the government has committed a variety of human rights abuses, including a high number of extrajudicial killings.

Maduro was sworn in for a second term as president Jan. 10, after winning a contested election in which oppositon candidates were barred from running or imprisoned. Venezuela’s bishops have called his new term illegitimate, and Juan Guaidó, head of the opposition-controlled legislature the National Assembly, declared himself interim president Jan. 23.

Guaidó has been recognized by a number of Western governments, but has been largely unable to secure the support of Venezuela’s military. He has pledged a transitional government and free elections.

Last week the US Treasury Department claimed that Maduro and his government have profited off a food subsidy program through a “vast corruption network,” in which a fraction of the food meant to enter the country was actually imported.

[…]