Summer school at Vatican Observatory offers unique opportunity for young scientists

Vatican City, May 2, 2018 / 09:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre was elected Wednesday the 80th Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, a position usually held for life. Dalla Torre’s predecessor, Matthew Festing, resig… […]

Vatican City, Oct 22, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican and China have renewed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops for two more years, the Holy See announced Thursday.

An Oct. 22 Vatican communique said that the Chinese government and Vatican authorities agreed to extend “to extend the experimental implementation phase” of the two-year provisional agreement first signed on Sept. 22, 2018, concerning the nomination of bishops. It added that the two parties intended to pursue “an open and constructive dialogue.”

“The Holy See considers the initial application of the agreement — which is of great ecclesial  and pastoral value — to have been positive, thanks to good communication and cooperation between the parties on the matters agreed upon, and intends to pursue an open and constructive dialogue for  the benefit of the life of the Catholic Church and the good of Chinese people,” the communique said.

An article in L’Osservatore Romano Oct. 22 lauded the results of the agreement, saying that “processes for new episcopal appointments are underway, some at an early stage, others at an advanced stage.”

It reported that two bishops have already been appointed under the “regulatory framework established by the agreement”: Bishop Antonio Yao Shun, of Jining Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, and Bishop Stefano Xu Hongwei, of Hanzhong in Shaanxi Province.

“It must be acknowledged that there are many situations of great suffering. The Holy See is deeply aware of this, takes it into account and does not fail to attract the attention of the Chinese government to encourage a more fruitful exercise of religious freedom. The path is still long and not without difficulties,” the Vatican newspaper stated.

Following the Vatican-China agreement in 2018, state officials in different regions of China removed crosses and demolished church buildings, and underground Catholics and clergy have reported harassment and detention. A 2020 report of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China found that Chinese Catholics suffered “increasing persecution” after the deal.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin told journalists Oct. 21 that he was “happy” with the agreement. But he acknowledged “there are also many other problems that the agreement was not intended to solve.” 

The cardinal said that the goal of the agreement is “unity of the Church” and that through this unity “it will become an instrument of evangelization,” according to a transcript provided by Italian newspaper Avvenire.

When asked about the persecution of Christians in China, Parolin responded: “But, what persecutions … You have to use the words correctly. There are regulations that are imposed and which concern all religions, and certainly also concern the Catholic Church.”

In China, religious education of any person under the age of 18 is illegal. This means that catechism classes have been closed and minors are not allowed to enter church buildings. Catholic churches registered with the Chinese authorities are closely monitored via CCTV cameras connected to the public security network. Priests have been forced to attend government training courses.

The Chinese government continues to imprison Catholic clergy who refuse to support the Communist Party, according to a September report out of the province of Jiangxi.

But other religious groups have fared far worse under the Chinese Communist Party’s policies of “sincization” and technological control, particularly the Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, who have suffered forced labor, indoctrination, sterilization, forced abortion, and torture in dentention camps.

While introducing more restrictive rules on religious practice, President Xi Jinping’s repeatedly stated goal has been the “sinicization” of religions. The authorities have sought to diffuse “religious theories with Chinese character” into the five official religions supervised by the government, including the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. This has included instructing Chistian churches to remove images of the Ten Commandments and replace them with sayings of Chairman Mao and Xi.

In March 2018, the Chinese government instituted a major change in its religious regulation by placing the management of religions, including Catholicism, under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The United Front has the task of ensuring that groups outside of the CCP, such as Xinjiang Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists,  Hong Kong democracy activists, and the Catholic Patriotic Association, are following the party line.

Xi Jinping has called the United Front Work Department one of his “magic weapons,” used to co-opt and control.

Despite mounting international condemnation of China’s internment of more than a million Uyghurs in detention camps, neither Pope Francis nor the Holy See has commented publicly on the situation.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, the emeritus Bishop of Hong Kong, attributes this silence to the Vatican’s ongoing diplomatic talks with the Chinese government.

“It seems that in order to save the agreement, the Holy See is closing both eyes on all the injustices that the Communist Party inflicts on the Chinese people,” Zen wrote Oct. 7.

The Vatican-China agreement gave CCP officials a say in the ordination of bishops, but also allowed for the enforcement of “sinicization” in Church matters, Zen said. 

Cardinal Parolin has previously compared “sinicization’” to the Church’s practice of “inculturation,” saying in 2019 that “these two terms … refer to each other without confusion and without opposition.”

In his most recent comments to journalists this week, Parolin said that the contents of the Sino-Vatican agreement will not be made public. But he added that what has been agreed to thus far “does not envisage the establishment of diplomatic relations.”

“On both sides, as long as the agreement is ad experimentum [provisional], it was decided to keep the contents confidential,” Parolin said, 

“For the moment there is no talk of diplomatic relations, we are focused on the Church,” he said. The agreement does not concern diplomatic relations nor does it envisage the establishment of diplomatic relations. The agreement concerns the situation of the Church, a specific point which are the appointments of bishops and the difficulties that exist and that we hope to tackle through dialogue.”

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Vatican City, Nov 8, 2019 / 11:01 am (CNA).- In addition to looking after the physical and spiritual needs of those in prison, Catholics have an obligation to recognize the humanity of those who have left the prison system and to help them get back on their feet, Pope Francis said Friday.

“As Christian communities, we must ask ourselves a question” about those who have been released from prison, the pope said Nov. 8, addressing Catholics involved in prison ministry around the world.

“If these brothers and sisters have already paid the penalty for the wrongdoing, why is a new social punishment placed on their shoulders with rejection and indifference? On many occasions, this social aversion is one more reason they run the risk of repeating their own faults,” he said.

Often when a person leaves prison, he or she finds themselves in a world which is foreign to them and which, at the same time, does not trust them, the pope continued. This can make it very difficult for them to find work and to make a decent living.

“By preventing people from regaining the full exercise of their dignity, they are once again exposed to the dangers that accompany the lack of development opportunity, in the middle of violence and insecurity,” Francis stated.

“True social reintegration,” he argued, begins with access to decent work, education, self-development opportunities, and health care.

But it is often easier and more comfortable to ignore or deny the injustices present in society than to try to create equal opportunities for all citizens, he said, calling it “a way of discarding.”

He said this is the same reason many places choose incarceration as a solution over trying to fix the root societal problems which lead people to crime.

Especially today, he said, societies are called to overcome the stigmatization of people who have served time in prison for their mistakes.

“Because instead of offering the right help and resources to live a dignified life, we have become accustomed to rejecting,” he underlined, and people do this instead of looking for and noticing what effort a person might be making to respond to the love of God in his or her life.

Pope Francis spoke about ministering to the imprisoned during an audience with participants in a two-day conference on Catholic prison ministry, organized by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The pope said he entrusted to the dicastery the task of making evident the Church’s concern for those in situations of suffering, including the imprisoned, but added that “it is not a task indicated only for the dicastery, but it is for the whole Church in fidelity to the mission received from Christ.”

The Church “is called to act permanently the mercy of God in favor of the most vulnerable and helpless in whom Jesus himself is present,” he said. “We will be judged on this.”

The conference took place at the Vatican Nov. 7-8 and was held to learn more about diocesan and local prison ministry in countries around the world, so that they can strengthen and improve through sharing ideas and experiences.

Pope Francis argued that prisons themselves also fail to properly reintegrate people into society, because they lack the resources to address the social, psychological, and relational problems imprisoned people often face.

Prison verpopulation is also a problem, he noted.

Pope Francis thanked those who serve the incarcerated, noting Christ’s words that “what they did to one of the least of my brothers, they did to me.”

“With the inspiration of God, each Church community is taking its own path to present the Father’s mercy to all these brothers, and to make resonate a permanent call, so that every man and society seeks to act firmly and decisively in favor of peace and justice,” he said.

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