Aleppo, Syria, Jun 1, 2018 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The key to ending Syria’s ongoing conflict lies not with the local people, but with the leaders of the international community, said a Syrian-born Franciscan priest this week.
“We kno… […]
Harare, Zimbabwe, May 30, 2018 / 10:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group devoted to John Bradburne, a lay missionary to what is now Zimbabwe in the 1970s, is raising money to fund an investigation into his life and virtues, in view of opening his cause for beatification.
The group, led by Bradburne’s neice, Celia Brigstocke, hopes to raise GBP 20,000 ($26,600) for the investigation.
Bradburne was born in 1921 in England, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He served in the British army in World War II, and he converted to Catholicism in 1947 after staying with the Benedictines of Buckfast Abbey.
He wished to become a monk at Buckfast, but had not been long enough in the Church, and he became a wanderer throughout Europe and the Middle East. He was a prolific poet. He stayed at other Benedictine abbeys, with Carthusians, the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, tried living as a hermit on Dartmoor in England, and became a Third Order Franciscan in 1956.
Through a Jesuit friend in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), Bradburne came to serve at the Mutemwa Leper Settlement, spending the last 10 years of his life there.
Southern Rhodesia declared independence in 1965, and the Rhodesian Bush War was fought from 1964 to 1979 among the white minority government; the Marxist Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army; and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
As ZANU forces approached Mutemwa, Bradburne was urged to leave, but he insisted on remaining. He was kidnapped, and murdered Sept. 5, 1979.
He had confided in a Franciscan priest that his wishes were to serve leprosy patients, to die a martyr, and to be buried in the habit of St. Francis.
Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 25, 2018 / 01:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic priest has contracted the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo amid a continuing outbreak that began in the nation earlier this month.
The prie… […]
Abuja, Nigeria, May 24, 2018 / 12:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics from across Nigeria participated in peaceful protests on Tuesday, calling for greater government protection following a recent attack at a Catholic Church that left 19 dead.
Thousand… […]
Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 22, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After 26 confirmed deaths have been attributed to the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Catholic Relief Services has been working to combat the deadly … […]
Abuja, Nigeria, May 16, 2018 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nigeria’s Catholic bishops have called on each of the nation’s dioceses to organize peaceful processions May 22 in solidarity with the funeral for two priests and 17 others killed in an attack by Fulani herdsmen on a parish church.
The herdsmen stormed a daily Mass at Saint Ignatius Church on the morning of April 24, killing Fathers Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha, along with others in the congregation.
Last Sunday’s Mass announcements throughout Nigeria encouraged Catholics and all “men and women of goodwill” to join in these upcoming rosary processions and prayer rallies around the country.
The state governor of Benue, where the attack took place, has also declared May 22 as a work holiday to honor those who died, according to Nigeria’s PM News.
Last year, nomadic Fulani herdsmen killed more than 140 Christians in central Nigeria’s Benue state, a World Watch report by Open Doors found.
Nigeria’s bishops have been vocal critics of President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to the violent attacks by nomadic herdsmen.
In a statement issued in response to the April 24 attack, the Nigerian bishops’ conference called on Buhari to step down because “he has failed in his primary duty of protecting the lives of the Nigerian citizens.”
“How can the Federal Government stand back while its security agencies deliberately turn a blind eye to the cries and wails of helpless and armless citizens who remain sitting ducks in their homes, highway and now, even in their sacred places of worship?” the bishops continued.
The northern Fulani herdsmen have been moving south due to the desertification of the soil in northern Nigeria, and have violently clashed with the farmers in the region, as the cattle have overtaken some farmed fields.
Some, including the bishops, have asserted that terrorist groups are embedded among the nomadic herdsmen.
The bishops met with Buhari Feb. 8, urging him to address the deadly violence, as well as the kidnappings in Nigeria.
“Herdsmen may be under pressure to save their livestock and economy, but this is never to be done at the expense of other people’s lives and means of livelihood,” the bishops told Buhari.
The bishops concluded, “As the voice of the voiceless, we shall therefore continue to highlight the plight of our people.”
Washington D.C., May 14, 2018 / 02:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A report calling for access to contraception and abortion in the developing world is an example of ideological colonization and cultural arrogance, warned a family author and scholar.
“By what moral right do Westerners send the message that the world would be a better place with fewer Africans in it?” said Mary Eberstadt, senior research fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute.
“Such campaigns are going to look as ugly in history’s rearview mirror as the twentieth-century eugenics movement does today,” she told CNA.
Eberstadt was responding to the newly-released Guttmacher-Lancet Commission report, which declared a need for universal access to contraception and birth control within the next 12 years, particularly in the developing world.
The Commission believes that these goals are “consistent with,” yet broader than, the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The findings were published last week in the medical journal The Lancet.
They discussed “sexual and reproductive health and rights” (SRHR), a term defined by the report to mean gender-based violence, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, abortion, contraception, infertility, reproductive cancers, and maternal and newborn health.
In addition to the developing world, populations that were identified as having “distinct needs” in this area included adolescents, sex workers, intravenous drug users, immigrants, and refugees.
Failure to embrace the goals outlined by the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission’s agenda have harmed women and put lives at risk, the report claims.
“There is compelling evidence that countries or governments that do not prioritise SRHR have disproportionately poor health indicators. For example, those countries with restrictive abortion laws contributed most to the global burden of 25 million unsafe abortions.”
There is an “urgent need to change the narrative” on these issues, said one of the included commentaries in the report, particularly highlighting the poorer parts of Africa and in southeast Asia.
The Commission found that the cost of promoting abortion and contraception to the developing world would come out to about nine dollars per person, per year, which they claim will “save lives.”
However, Eberstadt objected to the idea that Westerners have the moral standing to promote contraception and abortion in developing nations.
She warned that the rhetoric of the report will not age gracefully and will one day be likened to eugenics campaigns.
“The spectacle of pale elites from increasingly barren societies trying to reduce the fertility of darker people in other societies is intrinsically grotesque,” she said.
Makurdi, Nigeria, May 7, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the wake of an attack that left two priests and 17 worshippers dead, Nigerian clergy are condemning the passivity of government security forces and pleading for more aid in defense against t… […]
Dolisie, Republic of the Congo, May 2, 2018 / 06:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As poverty continues to grow in the Republic of the Congo, a local bishop is concerned that his priests do not have enough to eat.
The Republic of the Congo, also referred to as … […]
Baghdad, Iraq, May 2, 2018 / 01:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Iraqi women rebuilding their lives after ISIS occupation were invited to a three-day gathering aimed, according to organizers, at empowering Christian women and offering them spiritual support.
Held April 27-29 in Qaraqosh ,the event drew inspiration from the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, added recently to the Church’s calendar by Pope Francis.
The event was meant to “rebuild women in the spiritual side, in the biblical side and in the psychological side,” Fr. Roni Momika told CNA April 30.
Momika, who was ordained a priest in a refugee camp after fleeing Qaraqosh when ISIS took over in 2014, leads a weekly women’s group at St. Ephraim church in Qaraqosh, which was burned and vandalized by ISIS but which has slowly started functioning as a normal parish again.
“This meeting is to empower women,” he said.
Catholics at St. Ephraim Church in Qaraqosh, Iraq.
In comments to CNA after a separate women’s event earlier this year, Momika said he has focused on supporting women “because they are the base of the community.”
“The situation here in Qaraqosh is still difficult because the houses are still burned and destroyed,” he said, adding that rebuilding is currently a slow process due to the extensive damage and a lack of funding.
“Everything is difficult here and we want to rebuild the woman before we rebuild the houses,” he said.
“If you rebuild the woman, you can rebuild the children, and when you rebuild the children, you can rebuild the family, and after that we can rebuild the community here in Qaraqosh,” he said.
In his comments April 30, Momika said the Church in Qaraqosh wants “to allow women to trust in themselves.”
Momika’s regular women’s group draws some 800 attendees weekly. He estimates that as many as 4,500 people, including children, attended some part of the larger April meeting.
Qaraqosh, formerly known as the Christian capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, had a population of nearly 50,000 before ISIS attacked in 2014, prompting the majority of inhabitants to flee in a single night. Most ended up living in crowded refugee camps in Erbil.
According to Momika, some 20,000 people have returned since the city was liberated in 2016, most of whom belong to the Syriac Catholic rite.
Many of these families are trying to establish a new normal in their lives, from the practical to the spiritual.
The decision to hold the recent meeting, Momika said, came after Pope Francis announced his decision to establish the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church.
The program featured lectures, videos, Mass and community time.
A special icon of Mary was written for the occasion, which was done by a local artist who dressed the Virgin in the traditional clothes of women from Qaraqosh.
On the final day of the gathering, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Kirkuk and Kurdistan, Youhanna Boutros Moshe, celebrated Mass and led attendees in a procession to the city’s cathedral, Iraq’s largest church and the principal church of the Syriac-Catholic rite.
Looking at pictures of the gathering, “all the women are laughing and they are happy because it is the first time we are doing this [meeting] in Qaraqosh” since the city’s liberation, Momika said.
“We want to send a message that ISIS burned the stone but they cannot burn the soul and they cannot burn Christianity and our faith,” he added. “Our faith is big [in] our Jesus Christ and his Mother, the Virgin Mary. This is the message.”
© Catholic World Report