Middle East – Africa

Washington D.C., Apr 10, 2017 / 11:38 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Following the murder of Christians in Egypt through two bombings during Palm Sunday liturgies, bishops around the world joined Pope Francis in prayer.

“We also pray for our Coptic Orthodox sisters and brothers who continue to be resilient in the face of ongoing and escalating attacks, and who resist the urge to react vengefully or reciprocally,” said Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom.

Two Egyptian Coptic Orthodox churches in Alexandria and Tanta, in the north of the country, were bombed during their Palm Sunday services. The attacks killed at least 44 and injured more than 100, Reuters reported. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the bombings.

In Tanta, an explosion rocked Mar Gerges Coptic Orthodox church during the Palm Sunday liturgy. A state investigation said it was a suicide bombing. A bomb had been found and disabled at the church a week before, a police official told Reuters.

Shortly afterward, a suicide bomber rushed the outside of the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria where Tawadros II, Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, was celebrating the liturgy, and detonated his explosives. Security details had reportedly been placed outside of both churches.

The attacks came only weeks before Pope Francis plans to visit Egypt to promote peace and dialogue between Christians and Muslims in the country. Pope Francis, after celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Square, decried the violence and asked God to “convert the hearts of those who sow fear, violence and death, and those who make and traffic arms.” He also expressed solidarity with Tawardos II.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared a state of emergency in Egypt following the attacks. Sunday’s atrocities follow a months-long spike in anti-Christian violence in Egypt, particularly in the country’s Sinai region.

In December, 29 died in a bombing of a chapel next to St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo, where ISIS took credit for the attack.

Then several Christians were attacked and killed in their homes and villages by ISIS affiliates in the Sinai region in the following months. Hundreds fled their homes as a result of the violence. In total, 40 were reported killed in the bombing and in the ensuing three months.

The advocacy group In Defense of Christians voiced their “solidarity with Egypt, particularly Egypt’s Christian community,” and senior advisor Andrew Doran stated that “we call on Egypt’s government to use all necessary means to make places of worship in Egypt safe, especially those systematically targeted by terrorists.”

Bishops in the U.S. also condemned the bombings and declared their solidarity with Christians in Egypt.

“They were at Church. They were praying. And in the midst of what should be peace, horrible violence yet again,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Sunday.

“Our Holy Father has pointed out – and it’s something that the statisticians have pointed out in recent years – that there are more Christians dying for the faith today than ever happened under the Roman authorities at the time of the pagan empire,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. said at the end of Palm Sunday Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington.

Ultimately, the greatest thing Christians can do for their brothers and sisters in Egypt is pray, especially during Holy Week, the bishops said.

“May Our Lady, Queen of Peace, intercede for us as we pray for an end to all violence,” Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington reflected on Sunday.

“So I would ask you today, and during this Holy Week when you are lifting up your hearts in prayer, to remember them [the Coptic Christians],” Cardinal Wuerl emphasized.

“They have no voice. They have no one to speak for them. They have no one to stand up for them. But we can at least remember them as part of the Body of Christ being crucified in our day today. We pray for them.”

Cardinal DiNardo joined in Pope Francis’s prayers for the victims, the perpetrators, and those trafficking in weapons.

“I also pray for the nation of Egypt, that it may seek justice, find healing, and strengthen protection for Coptic Christians and other religious minorities who wish only to live in peace,” he said.

Bishop Angaelos viewed the suffering of Egypt’s Christians through the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter Sunday

“As we celebrate Palm Sunday today and Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, we now also mark the entry of those who have passed today into the heavenly Jerusalem,” he said of the bombings. “As we continue into the Holy Week of our Savior, we share in the pain and heartbreak of their families and of all those affected by today’s incidents.”

“As we celebrate the Feast of the glorious Resurrection at the end of this week, we are reminded that our life here on earth is a journey often filled with pain, at the end of which is a promised glorious and eternal life void of such suffering and evil.”

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Pretoria, South Africa, Apr 10, 2017 / 10:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of South Africa have called on the country’s embattled president, Jacob Zuma, to consider stepping down as part of an effort to fight corruption.

Marches protesting Zuma have been held across cities in South Africa after he reshuffled his cabinet, replacing a respected finance minister at the end of March, which resulted in the country’s credit rating being cut to junk status by S&P.

The sacked minister, Pravin Gordhan, is regarded as an opponent of government corruption.

“We respectfully remind President Zuma that he has been elected to serve all South Africans,” read the April 4 letter from the South African bishops’ conference, signed by Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town.

“It appears that he has lost the confidence of many of his own closest colleagues, as well as that of numerous civil society organisations. He should earnestly reconsider his position, and not be afraid to act with courage and humility in the nation’s best interests.”

However, the bishops’ letter also noted that while they “noted and respect” the calls for Zuma to resign, “such as step would not in itself be a complete solution, as corruption at every level must to be rooted out.”

Zuma has been South Africa’s president since 2009, and his term of office is not due to end until 2019. He is also leader of the African National Congress, which has ruled the country since 1994.

Though some elements in the ANC, as well as several of its allied parties, are calling on Zuma to resign, the party’s National Working Committee has reiterated its support for him.

In their April 4 statement, the bishops wrote that “the leadership of the ANC must make serious and strenuous efforts to end corruption and patronage at all levels of governance.”

“In the present state of anxiety and uncertainty it is of utmost importance that Parliament be reconvened urgently. There is an enormous obligation on our public representatives … to exercise their duty of holding the Executive arm of government to account.”

“We hope that Membersof Parliament will be guided by the welfare of our country and its people, and not by narrow loyalties or factional interests,” they added.

The bishops concluded by stating: “We have confidence in the leaders of the two noble institutions, Parliament and the ANC, and we trust that they will rise to the occasion and give decisive, fearless and honest leadership.”

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Bamako, Mali, Apr 7, 2017 / 06:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Four people have been arrested in Mali in connection with the February kidnapping of a nun who remains missing.

According to the Associated Press, a judge in the country charged four individuals t… […]

Aleppo, Syria, Apr 6, 2017 / 02:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The attitude of Christians in Aleppo seems to have improved since Syrian government forces re-took the city, and they believe the prayers of Christians abroad have helped them, one religious sister reports.

Sister Maria Sponsa Iusti Ioseph, a native of Peru, told CNA that the Christians in Aleppo have received with love the words of Pope Francis.

When government forces took the city from rebels in December, the sisters told the faithful “that the Holy Father is praying for us and a lot of people in the world are too.”

“They really appreciate that and they feel protected by the prayers of Christians,” Sister Maria Sponsa said. “At the same time they feel very happy because they know that their suffering is not in vain, but it helps the people in the West. If they know that there are conversions because of that offering, that gives them a lot of strength to go on.”

The sister is a religious of the Institute of the Incarnate Word who lives in the city of Aleppo, which was taken from rebels in December 2016. She recounted how Christians have lived in the last four months.

The Christians in Aleppo attend Mass frequently. Before Mass, they pray a Rosary for peace.

“Once a month a Eucharist is celebrated for the deceased in the Cathedral of the Child Jesus,” Sister Maria Sponsa said. “Now thanks be to God, the Christian cemetery has been recovered—it was controlled by the rebels. Christians can visit their dead again and bring over bodies interred elsewhere for burial there.”

Sister María Sponsa said that the people’s attitude has improved since the government’s capture of the city. This change was noticeable during Christmas.

“We saw that people were walking happily down the street. Their faces were completely changed,” she said. “Even though they are usually very cheerful, you could notice another kind of joy. It was like a respite.”

“Some of the window lights were lit up and the churches had also decorated their domes with lights. They even set up a Christmas tree in the street.”

During previous Christmases since the civil war began, “there were no lights in the windows, nor were there churches decorated with lights, nor was there any Christmas atmosphere.”

“When we visited the people we would ask them if they had set up a manger scene, but they didn’t want to have one because it brought back memories for them,” Sister Maria Sponsa reported. “Before the war they lived so happily, they shared the holidays with their families. And so it was depressing for them to put out those things that represented those memories in the midst of a difficult situation.”

However, for the 2016 holidays some people put out their decorations again.

The religious sister also stressed that the suffering caused by shortages in the city, such as water, food and shelter, has resulted in Christian and Muslim neighbors working together to survive.

“Today we all share the same lot. Everyone is suffering because of this situation. They help each other out. The people of Aleppo are very respectful and very open, thanks be to God,” she said. “That makes it easier for good relationships among everyone.”

Sister María Sponsa said that the home of the Incarnate Word sisters in Aleppo is open to anyone who wants to visit them.

“People like to come to the house. And so we have little get-togethers, have a little coffee,” she said. “We even have coffee with the people after Sunday Mass. They enjoy it. They talk with us and get a little relief from the situation they’re going through.”

For Sister Maria Sponsa, Syrians “express affection very differently from Latinos.”

“It seems to me they’re much warmer,” she said. “For example after five minutes they say ‘I miss you.’ When they know you well they call you and ask how you’re doing.”

“There, you hardly come into a house and they don’t ask you if you’re going to have coffee. They say, ‘with or without sugar?’  They talk with you for five minutes and then they give you the coffee,” she commented.

The Franciscans and the Salesians usually prepare the Christian children, youths and adults to receive the sacraments for the first time.

The religious  sister said that every Thursday the sisters get together with the young college students they welcome into their home.

“We talk, we give them a little doctrine, sometimes we watch movies and play board games,” she said. “For them it’s a time of fun and distraction. They’re always waiting for it to be Thursday so we can get together.”

They also organize a co-ed gathering once a month, since the men live with the priests of the same institute.

“When we can take a little walk, we go to the park, although it’s not that safe. We watch movies with them or we invite them.”

The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 with demonstrations against the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The war has claimed the lives of more than 320,000 people, and forced 4.8 million to become refugees. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.

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Bamako, Mali, Apr 2, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic bishops of Mali are asking the general public to help secure the release of a nun who was kidnapped in the country February 7th.

Sister Cecilia Argoti Narvaez was originally from Colo… […]

Jerusalem, Mar 31, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Having just undergone an extensive restoration, the site of Jesus’ tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is at risk for significant structural failure if nothing is done to reinforce its foundations, scientists have said.

“When it fails, the failure will not be a slow process, but catastrophic,” Antonia Moropoulou, chief scientific supervisor with the National Technical University of Athens, told National Geographic in an exclusive interview.

A team of scientists with NTUA just recently completed a year-long restoration of the site believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. National Geographic has been extensively covering the restoration process.  

During the restoration process, the team of scientists determined that The Edicule (Latin for “little house”), a small shrine within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that encloses Jesus’ tomb, was resting on an unstable foundation of tunnels, channels, rubble and crumbling foundation mortar.  

According to the Gospels, the body of Christ was laid in a new tomb hewn out of rock, in which no one had ever been buried. The Gospel of Mark details that the women who went to the tomb to anoint Christ’s body instead found that he had risen.

Veneration of Christ’s burial place dates back to St. Helena in the fourth century, who discovered and identified the tomb. St. Helena’s son, Emperor Constantine, built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 326 and enshrined the tomb.

The shelf on which Christ’s body was laid is the central point of veneration, which has been encapsulated by a 3-by-5 foot marble structure – the Edicule – since at least 1555.

Part of the reason for the unstable foundation is because the site was built on the remains of a limestone quarry that was once used to house tombs of upper class Jews.

Throughout the early history of the Christian church, various shrines surrounding the tomb of Jesus were built and subsequently destroyed, depending on who was in power.

The Edicule and the surrounding rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, complete with massive 22-ton pillars, rests on this unstable foundation of rubble and tunnels today. The site sees nearly 4 million visitors a year.  

While the structural integrity of the site has been a concern for almost 100 years, National Geographic reports, disputes between the three main Christian groups that control the site – the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Patriarchates of Jerusalem and the Roman Catholic Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land – and a lack of funds prevented much restoration progress from being made.

Now, scientists are working with Church authorities to determine the best plan for restoration work on the foundation, which is estimated to cost 6 million euro and would take about 10 months.
 
Archeologists are also hoping to take advantage of the process, which would expose important archeological sites for the first time in centuries.

Scientists on the restoration team with NTUA are compiling the latest data into a report, which will be given to Church authorities of the three main Christian groups, who must reach an agreement before the process moves forward.

“This work is a collective work,” Moropoulou said. “It doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to all humanity.”

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Mosul, Iraq, Mar 31, 2017 / 12:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The desolation of a burned Iraqi church left Argentine-born missionary Father Luis Montes with the firm conviction that Satan is at the root of the attacks, and Christians must pray for the conversion of ISIS.

“The one who is behind everything is the devil, behind ISIS and the rest of the jihadist groups, and behind the people who support them, some by a similar fanaticism and others for various interests,” the priest said upon visiting the heavily damaged Church of Saint George in Bartella, recently freed from the Islamic State group.

Fr. Montes said that these forces are in reality attacking Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race. “But since they cannot harm him, they attack his churches, his faithful, in memory of him,” he said.

“It really shakes you up to see a sacred place burned, vandalized, desecrated,” he said on his Facebook page March 24. “You’re left speechless seeing what you already knew from photos and testimonies. It makes your blood run cold.”

“To see the floors, the walls, the ceilings full of soot, the pews thrown any which way, statues broken, scattered, trampled, the sacred books reduced to ashes, you perceive in a very powerful way the hatred that caused this, the hatred that can be summed up in a sentence: the rejection of Christ and his Cross.”

He stressed that “the same hatred that attacks the temples of Christ, attacks the living temples which are the Christians.”

Fr. Montes acknowledged that the Islamic State group “attacks everyone who does not think like they do,” but he said Christians are persecuted because Christ was the first one persecuted.

Seeing a destroyed church brings sadness, pain, and anger, but also “a holy pride, because they are persecuting us for belonging to Christ,” the priest reflected. “Jesus told us that when this happens, let us rejoice, because our reward will be great in Heaven.”

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The priest’s March 23 visit to Bartella and Qaraqosh came at the invitation of Archbishop Alberto Ortega, apostolic nuncio to Iraq and Jordan. The traditionally Christian towns were seized by the Islamic State group two years ago and only recently freed by Iraqi military troops.

Father Montes is a missionary of the Institute of the Incarnate Word. He has been on mission in Iraq for more than five years. Those who doubt that Christians are persecuted should visit these towns, he said.

Despite the great pain left in the wake of ISIS, the priest said he also found grace.

“It was a deep joy which led me to pick up some keepsakes of that place: a stone, a cover of a burned missal, a piece of some destroyed statue, all symbols of the grace that God grants us for being persecuted for his Son.”

“So much destruction must move us to pray for the persecutors,” Fr. Montes said, calling them “the foolish followers of the greatest loser in history.”

“The devil makes noise and instills fear but he is the great failure,” he explained. “When he succeeded in killing the Son of God, he lost the power he had, and now, when evil seems to be more victorious, in reality it is when it most defeats itself, because God ordains everything for the good of his chosen ones.”

The priest urged the faithful “to pray for those who follow the devil, so they may convert and live, because God is capable of calling them to Himself and awaits our prayers to give us the glory of being partakers in his victory.”

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mar 29, 2017 / 08:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Political unrest and uncertainty about the future have grown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the Catholic bishops’ withdrawal from mediation talk… […]

Cape Coast, Ghana, Mar 23, 2017 / 08:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Priestly formation isn’t a just a job for the rector – it’s a responsibility shared between the entire Christian community and seminarians themselves, said a Ghanaian bishop.

“It is the duty and the primary responsibility of parents to form or educate seminarians, while the seminarian himself has the onerous responsibility to be involved and committed to his own formation if he wants to become truly what God the Father has willed,” Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra said.

The archbishop delivered the keynote address the week of March 12 at gathering themed “Sixty Years of Priestly Formation for the Church in Ghana and the Universal Church – A Shared Responsibility.” The address was a part of the activities at St. Peter’s Catholic Seminary in the Cape Coast to mark the 60th anniversary of Ghana’s independence as a nation.

Archbishop Palmer-Buckle acknowledges that “the challenges are not to be underrated” but stressed it is the entire Christian community which must contribute. He said the challenges for a complete and concrete formation are to be kept in sight of “parents, guardians and society,” for the good of the “subject, the child or the student…and [the] Church as a whole.”

He said that education of the faith begins in the home with families and children, but then continues onto the state, the church, and religious leadership.

Pope Francis has also expressed similar sentiments in a 2015 homily. He said the family is the “center of pastoral work,” and a “handing on of the faith” begins in the home and church.

The Pope also said that a priest “always remains of the people and the culture that have produced him; our roots help us to remember who we are and to where Christ has called us. We priests do not fall from above but are instead called by God, who takes us ‘from among men,’ to ‘ordain us for men.’”

In his address last week, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle said that the Holy Spirit is bestowed on everyone in the church, and it is therefore the responsibility of the entire church to nature vocations.

“As a shared responsibility, it begins with praying to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his vineyard. Then it follows with calling people and nurturing them to follow Christ in the priesthood and religious life.”

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Juba, South Sudan, Mar 16, 2017 / 03:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid war, displacement and hunger, South Sudan’s day of prayer must lead to true repentance, a leading Catholic bishop has said.

“Our call to prayer must be sincere and honest!” Bishop Barani Eduardo Hiiboro of Tombura-Yambio emphasized. “For this prayer to become historical and meaningful for us today we must repent and sin no more!”

Bishop Hiiboro, president of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, spoke in Yamibo on the March 10 day of prayer.

The country has been embroiled in civil war since December 2013, when South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup. The war has been fought between their supporters, largely along ethnic lines, and peace agreements have been short-lived.

The conflict has created 2.5 million refugees. At present an estimated 4.5 million people face severe food insecurity, a number expected to rise one million by July.

President Kiir had called for the day of prayer. A three-day national dialogue on the country’s future began March 15.

Bishop Hiiboro said the whole country will be watching the president closely to see whether his attitude will trend towards peace.

The country’s people should also watch themselves, the bishop said: “All of us who have prayed today will also be watched whether we renounce our sinfulness of hate, violence, tribal difference, for love of South Sudan and peace.”

Bishop Hiiboro said South Sudan must commit itself to God every year as a way to unite the country.

“Continual prayers help us in stepping forward to embrace the su ffering of our country, through unified, concrete action animated by the love of Christ, to nurture peace and build bridges of communication and mutual aid in our own communities throughout South Sudan,” he said.

He encouraged efforts to explore other ways to nurture open dialogue on issues of ethnic relations, justice, forgiveness, poverty, cultural power, mental health, economic opportunity and a “pervasive culture of violence.”

“The suffering is not somewhere else, or someone else’s. It is our own, in our very homes,” the bishop said.

After the day of prayer, people should walk like penitent sinners. They should stop their hateful and vengeful attitudes and free prisoners. They should reach out to refugees and the South Sudan diaspora in other countries and create a ground for all South Sudanese to dialogue, he said.

The president’s call for a day of prayer had drawn some criticism.

Bishop Santo Loku Pio Doggale, Auxiliary Bishop of the national capital Juba, characterized it as “a political prayer” and “a mockery.”

“It is a joke to hear the president of the country calling prayers while at the moment, the soldiers are hunting people across South Sudan,” he told Voice of America, according to the Sudan Tribune.

He charged that the government army has displaced many people from their ancestral homes. The bishop said that President Kiir, who is Catholic, does not even go to church anymore.

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