Pope Francis to meet victims of Japan’s 2011 ‘triple disaster’

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.

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Ambulances are seen outside the church premises with gathered people and security personnel following a blast at the St. Anthony’s Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo on April 21, 2019. / ISHARA S. K

CNA Staff, Apr 21, 2021 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

Numerous religious leaders gathered in Sri Lanka to mark the second anniversary of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings and to pray for an end to religious extremism. 

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, spoke at St. Anthony’s Shrine, along with Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim leaders. The service included prayers and two minutes of silence in remembrance of the dead.

Ranjith challenged the country’s Muslim communities to reject extremism and help Catholics identify those behind the 2019 bombings, which killed 269 people at two Catholic churches, a protestant church, and three hotels. 

“[B]e brave enough to reject extremism. You fully understand that there is no connection with religion and teachings to murder,” he said, according to the Associated Press. 

“We are surprised that even after two years, answers to the questions of who and why and what of these attacks have not been found by the relevant authorities.”

St. Anthony’s Shrine was the location of the first bomb explosion during Easter Sunday Mass two years ago. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by two local radical Islamist groups who had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Muslim cleric Hassan Moulan also spoke at the service, the Associated Press reported. He said the Islamic faith does not justify crime and said Mulsims around the world condemned the attack. He added that to distance the suicide bombers who carried out the attacks from the religion of Islam, the the Sri Lanka Muslim community has not permitted their bodies to be buried in its cemeteries. 

Following the bombings, then-President Maithripala Sirisena created a five-person commission to investigate the attacks. The commission’s final report was presented to current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in February 2021.

Rajapaksa then appointed a new six-member committee to study the report but did not share the report with the Church or with the attorney general.

The refusal to release the contents of the report has led to criticism, with fears that corruption or negligence have prevented the prosecution of collaborators in the attack. The study committee is composed only of government ministers who are members of the ruling coalition.

In October 2020, five of seven suspects arrested in connection with the attacks were released by the government, on the stated grounds of lack of evidence.

At that time, Ranjith said security officials had confirmed to him that there was sufficient evidence against many of the suspects who had been arrested. The cardinal, along with friends and family of the victims, have said they fear the release of the suspects meant corruption, or a lack of a thorough investigation, on the part of the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department.

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Hagatna, Guam, Apr 6, 2019 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The sexual abuse of minors is “a deep and sorrowful shame,” Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes has said after Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron’s conviction in a church court, adding that the Church on Guam must “ensure that the horrible harm inflicted to the innocent is never repeated.”
 
“Our focus shall remain on making penance and reparation in our Church on Guam, attending to justice for the numerous victims of clergy sexual abuse on Guam and continuing our mission to proclaim the love of God to the people of Guam and the Marianas,” Byrnes, the new Archbishop of Agana said April 5, according to the Guam-based news site the Pacific Daily News.
 
Byrnes said the Church doesn’t rejoice when its members “plummet from grace and are found guilty of grave wrong,” such as cases of “the grievous sin of child abuse.”
 
The Apostolic Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in March 2018 found Archbishop Apuron, 73, guilty of several abuse-related charges. He immediately appealed the decision. The Vatican court upheld the original decision Feb. 7, and the final sentencing was announced April 4 by the CDF.
 
As punishment, Apuron was deprived of his office as Archbishop of Agana; forbidden from using its insignia including the bishop’s miter and ring; and banned from living within the jurisdiction of the archdiocese.
 
He was not removed from ministry and remains a priest under church law.
 
Apuron has denied the charges. He said he was “deeply saddened” when the Pope confirmed the church court’s ruling.
 
“I believe that the facts and evidence presented demonstrated my total innocence,” he said.
 
Archbishop Byrnes offered “deepest apologies” to the victims of Apuron, whom he listed by name. The victims were altar boys. They included the former archbishop’s nephew and a former seminarian. They said the crimes happened while Apuron was a parish priest.
 
“I am truly sorry for the betrayal and severe anguish that you suffered and continue to suffer,” Byrnes said.
 
Walter Denton, who accused Apuron of raping him at the age of 13, thanked Byrnes for “all his support.”
 
“He has made the Catholic Church a better place for the people of Guam and especially for our beautiful children who are altar servers,” he said, the Pacific Daily News reports.
 
Roland Paul Sondia, who was also abused in 1977, voiced hope that Byrnes “would do his best to try to make the Church whole again, and that’s what we want.”
 
Byrnes had been serving as coadjutor Archbishop of Agana and became full Archbishop upon Apuron’s removal.
 
Speaking to CNA last year, a source close to the Apuron case noted a contradiction between the penalty and the sentence of sexual abuse against minors – a grave offense which usually carries the penalty of removal from the clerical state.
 
On Thursday Apuron called the sentence, which prevents him from living in Guam, a penalty “analogous to a death sentence,” adding: “I lose my homeland, my family, my church, my people, even my language, and I remain alone in complete humiliation, old and in failing health.”
 
He professed his obedience to the Pope and said he submits to his judgment and thanked him for “allowing me to continue serving as a priest and archbishop without insignia.”
 
The former archbishop said the pontifical secret prevents him from “litigating my good name in public,” but claimed that “many individuals” have come forward privately and publicly in his defense “despite threats and the climate of fear in my beloved home of Guam.”
 
He blamed a climate of fear and publicity in the local media for hampering the court’s work. This climate “testifies to the presence of a pressure group that plotted to destroy me, and which has made itself clearly known even to authorities in Rome,” he said.
 
Apuron claimed that some people have told him they were asked to make false allegations against him in return for money.
 
He offered his suffering for the Pope, for his accusers, and for “those who have plotted for my removal.”
 
The archdiocese is working to settle civil lawsuits for the sex abuse claims. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. At the time, there were lawsuits seeking about $115 million in legal claims pending against the archdiocese.
 
In 2016, the territorial legislature lifted the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors. Since then, nearly two dozen clergy in Guam have been named as defendants in over 200 sex abuse cases, Pacific Daily News reports.
 
Byrnes has implemented new child protection policies in the archdiocese, including a safe environment program that he said will help begin a culture change in the archdiocese.

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