Pope Francis sends cardinals to Ukraine, where ‘rivers of blood and tears flow’

Vatican City, Mar 16, 2020 / 01:06 pm (CNA).- Few were surprised when the Chinese Communist Party banned church services in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei province. But the Italian government decree suspending all public religious ceremonies — leading to the suspension of Masses in the pope’s own diocese — provided more of a jolt.

All four of the vastly different countries with the most documented cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus — China, Italy, Iran, and South Korea — have suspended religious services.

As more government leaders will soon face tough decisions in the face of a spreading pandemic, the president of the Religious Freedom Institute told CNA about important criteria to ensure the protection of a foundational freedom.

“There must be a presumption in favor of full religious freedom for all religious communities in every country, especially in democratic countries. Italy’s decision in this case does not change that presumption, but it does show that in very limited circumstances, temporary limits on the freedom to gather may licitly be applied,” the RFI’s Tom Farr told CNA.

“No right with public effects is absolute, including the precious right of religious freedom,” he added.

Farr was the first director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, and subsequently taught religion and foreign affairs at Georgetown University and the U.S. Foreign Service Institute.

He said that these “limited circumstances” include instances when the extent of deadly infection is exceptionally high.

“Given Italy’s current designation as Level 3 by the U.S. CDC, which indicates the presence of ‘Widespread Community Transmission,’ Italy’s decision seems reasonable, especially in light of the fact that, to use the CDC’s description, ‘There is limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas’ of Italy and this reality understandably contributes to this extraordinary move,” Farr said.

“Absent this level of community transmission, the justification for such extraordinary measures to restrict religious gatherings quickly becomes much more tenuous,” he added.

When Italian government decreed the suspension of all civil and religious ceremonies, including funerals, on March 8, there had been 7,375 documented cases of the coronavirus leading to the deaths of 366 people.

In the days since that decree and a national quarantine, the number of cases in Italy has soared to 27,980 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,470 deaths on March 16.

Along with religious ceremonies, the Italian government also decreed the closure of all schools, universities, museums, movie theaters, concerts, gyms, archaeological sites throughout the country. The following day, the Prime Minister announced a national quarantine.

The religious freedom advocate explained that any government exercising its authority in such an extraordinary fashion should abide by the following criteria to ensure religious freedom:

“Such decrees may not be employed arbitrarily, for example, to target a particular religion or religion in general. They must be public, clear, and transparent. They should be preceded by consultation with the religious communities involved.”

Decrees banning religious freedom also “must be grounded in overwhelming evidence, available to all, that public health would be severely endangered without such a decree. They must be time-limited, with a clear and public expression of when the ban will end,” Farr told CNA.

The Diocese of Rome announced the cancellation of all public Masses shortly after the Italian government decree went into effect. Since then, Church leaders in Rome have debated whether churches in Rome could remain open for private prayer during a national quarantine.

“It is of course the right and the duty of any religious community to challenge in lawful ways any act by government that it considers an illicit restriction of its religious freedom. In some cases a community might find itself in the position of needing to engage in principled, civil disobedience. As I understand it the Catholic Bishops of Italy and the Holy Father have agreed to this decree, from which I infer they believe it prudent and just,” Farr said.

“It would be difficult to imagine such a sweeping decree in the United States, where the Constitution provides to all Americans and all their religious communities the right of free exercise of religion. However, should there be clear and overwhelming evidence that, in particular locations, the public health required a ban on all gatherings, it is not inconceivable,” Farr said.

Numerous state governments have announced prohibitions on gatherings of more than 250 people in recent days.

The Archdiocese of Seattle was the first in the U.S. to cancel public Masses in response to a government directive, and dozens of dioceses have followed suit. Others have granted general dispensations from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass, and some bishops, like Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, have encouraged parishes with high Sunday Mass attendance to consider adding more Masses.

Farr said that such banning large gatherings, if not specifically targeting religion, is understood to be within the government’s prerogative at a time of crisis.

“An American bishop bringing suit against a ban, whatever its size, would very likely prevail if the ban were only on religious gatherings. However, he would have trouble prevailing if the ban is on all gatherings, religious or not, and the act is easily justified by a dire threat to public health and welfare,” Farr said.

“Speaking as a Catholic for whom the sacraments are not optional, and are necessary to health and welfare, however, I would hope that the Italian Church, or the Church in any jurisdiction would do everything it could reasonably do to make the sacraments available in ways that would be consistent with just authority,” he added.

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Vatican City, Dec 24, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis said that the poverty of Christ’s birth in a stable contains an important lesson for today.

“That manger, poor in everything yet rich in love, teaches that true n… […]

Vatican City, Sep 27, 2019 / 01:03 am (CNA).- The leader of the largest independent Muslim organization in the world met Pope Francis this week to present his vision for a more peaceful future and greater human fraternity.

Sheikh Yahya Cholil Staquf leads the 50 million member Nahdlatul Ulama movement, which calls for a reformed “humanitarian Islam” and has developed a theological framework for Islam that rejects the concepts of caliphate, Sharia law, and “kafir” (infidels).

The Indonesian Sunni leader told CNA that he was “thrilled and excited” when Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb signed in February the Abu Dhabi declaration on “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” because it expresses the vision of  “compassionate Islam” his organization has advocated for for decades.

The sheikh has specific recommendations for concrete steps to achieve the pope’s aspirations of peace and human fraternity. He came to Rome to share them with the pope.

Staquf said that Abu Dhabi declaration requires “decisive follow-up” with actions, not just words.

Just weeks after the Abu Dhabi declaration, Nahdlatul Ulama hosted a conference in Indonesia with over 20,000 Muslim scholars in attendance. At this conference, Muslim clerics and scholars issued an “ijtihad” stating their theological reasoning for prohibting the term “kafir” meaning “infidel” to describe one’s fellow citizens.

“We cannot just pretend that there are no problems in Islamic views. There are problems there. You need to acknowledge that so that we can work for the solution. If you do not acknowledge the problem, you cannot resolve it,” Staquf told CNA.

“In Muslim-majority societies, you can see more attitudes of discrimination and persecution toward minorities … so the Islamic world needs to develop the whole religious system that will integrate the Islamic world harmoniously with the rest of the world,” he said.

Central to these proposed changes to Islamic theology is how Muslims are called to interact with non-Muslims, Staquf explained.

“We need for Muslims to view others as a fellow human being, fellow brothers in humanity. We should not attack on the basis of different identities,” he said.

Staquf met Pope Francis after the general audience on Sept. 25. He presented the pope with a letter and several documents from Nahdlatul Ulama, containing recommendations as to how Muslims scholars have sought to address “problematic elements within Islamic orthodoxy” to create a more harmonious world order with “respect for equal rights and dignity of every human being.”

“When you think about global harmony, global security, global stability, we see four centers of concern related to Islamic orthodoxy,” Staquf said.

Within the documents presented to the pope, NU lays out “a practical road map” to achieve the aspirations expressed in pope’s Document on Human Fraternity: “prohibiting use of the term kafir (infidel) to describe one’s fellow citizens; affirming the legitimacy of the nation state and laws created through modern political processes; committing Muslims to strive for peace as a religious obligation; and providing a detailed framework for bringing Islamic orthodoxy into alignment with 21st century norms.”

“My hope is that these documents will be examined seriously by the Vatican so that the Vatican can make decisions to engage with us and work together with this,” Staquf said.

The Muslim leader also brought a delegation of Indonesian Catholics and young Muslims practicing “humanitarian Islam” with him to Rome to attend the general audience with the pope. Together they asked Pope Francis to visit Indonesia to continue his interreligious dialogue.

Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country historically known for its ethnic diversity and peaceful religious pluralism, which has seen an increase in religious-based violence and radical groups in recent years.

“They explained to the pope that we stand for the harmony of Indonesia, so that when we [Nahdlatul Ulama Muslims] see threats toward our fellow Indonesian Christians, we protect them,” Staquf said.

“I mentioned to His Holiness that we believe Humanitarian Islam is in alignment with noble values of Christian humanism … It was received very well,” he said.

Archbishop Agustinus Agus of Pontianak, who accompanied Staquf on the trip, facilitated the Sunni sheikh’s meetings with the pope and members of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Archbishop Agus told CNA that when Sheikh Staquf expressed that he wanted to come to the Vatican to give the pope Nahdlatul Ulama’s response to the Abu Dhabi declaration, he knew it was “the right time … for one of the great leaders of the Muslims to meet the pope.”

“I feel that I have a responsibility for the future of Indonesia,” Agus said.

Staquf stressed that the persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries around the world must end. He said that when looking at the rise of the Islamic State and other radical groups, one cannot ignore the theological underpinnings that allow their radicalism and violence to spread.

“Let’s look at why these problematic views can spread effectively everywhere in the Islamic world in these Muslims communities because it is supported by … what is considered to be authoritative elements of the orthodoxy. So we need to change that so that people cannot use that elements to make troubles, to make problems,” he said.

“We have a network of hundreds of thousands of clerics and Muslim scholars in Indonesia. So we all know what is in the teachings of Islam,” he said. “We know that there are some elements that do not encourage harmony and even can be potential obstacles to harmony.”

One of the areas Nahdlatul Ulama is working to reform is religious education for Muslim youth. They are constructing a curriculum for teaching Islamic history that places less of an emphasis on the violence of the past, and more on spirituality.

“We want to create materials for education which contains more about the character of the prophet, the compassionate character of the prophet, rather than these records of conflicts and wars,” Staquf said.

“We use a creed for this movement, the global movement of humanitarian Islam. Our creed is: ‘We choose rahma’ … ‘We choose compassion,” he said.

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