Catholic News 2

Kenyan Bishops are appealing to the government to declare the current drought a national disaster in order to beckon the International Community to step forward and support the many Kenyans suffering and dying of hunger in many parts of the Country.

Addressing the media at Waumini House Nairobi, on 7 February 2015, Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) Chairman, Bishop Philip Anyolo said that, reports from the dioceses and parishes indicate tales of suffering, desperation, hopelessness and in some cases, imminent loss of life.

The Bishops are also appealing to Christians and people of good will to join hands in solidarity with the Church by contributing funds, food and essential items to save lives of those affected. 

According to a government agency report, the number of Kenyans in need of relief food has risen to 2.7 million from 1.3 million last year. The most affected area are nine arid counties namely: Turkana, Marsabit, Samburu, Tana River, Isiolo, Mandera, Garissa, Wajir and Baringo.

(Rose Achiego in Nairobi)

Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

Below is the full statement
 
STATEMENT FROM THE KENYA CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS (KCCB) ON THE CURRENT DROUGHT SITUATION IN KENYA

Behold I am with you always (Matthew 28:20)

“A generous person will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor.” (Proverbs 22:9)

We, the Catholic Bishops of Kenya, your Shepherds, are cognizant to the fact that our country Kenya is facing severe food, water and pasture shortage in many parts of the country. Despite this challenging moment, we come to you with a word of hope and encouragement, God is with us, as Christ promised, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). Therefore, none of us should despair! The total number of people needing help is about 2.4 million.

We have been closely monitoring the current drought situation in the Country and reports from our Dioceses and Parishes indicate tales of suffering, desperation, hopelessness and in some cases, imminent loss of life.

Even though the Kenyan Government, Kenya Red Cross and other philanthropic groups have made varied interventions, these remain inadequate because the number of families affected is huge.

We are in a state of hunger, a looming disaster

We hasten to appeal to the Government to declare the current drought a national disaster in order to beckon the International Community to step forward and support the many Kenyans who are suffering from this predicament.

Furthermore, we, the Catholic Bishops, encourage all partners to continue their good work in responding to the crisis and urge the private sector to get more involved in these efforts. 

Finally, we call upon our Christians, all people of good will, the Caritas family and other Church partners to respond to our Local Emergency Appeal and support us to reach out to the communities that are drastically affected by this drought.

Our Appeal

We are appealing to all Christians and people of good will to join hands in solidarity with the Church by contributing funds, food and non-food items to save lives of those affected. 

Food and non-food donations can be channelled through our parishes, diocesan and national offices and other Church Institutions. Caritas Kenya -the development and humanitarian arm of the Catholic Church, will coordinate this initiative.

The funds collected will help the Church respond to an emergency situation through relief to assist the affected communities through provision of urgent basic needs.

We thank you for your steadfast support and urge you to stand by us as we rise to this challenge.

Rt. Rev. Philip Anyolo 
Signed: 7 February, 2017

Bishop of Homa Bay and Chairman of KCCB 

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The CBCI representatives on Tuesday met the Indian Prime Minister at his office in the Parliament in New Delhi to discuss  issues related to the Christian Community in the country. 

Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the President of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, Cardinal George Alancherry, the Major Archbishop of the Syro Malabar Church and Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the President of CCBI, submitted requests for taking immediate steps for the release of Fr. Tom Uzhunallil who is in captivity since March 2016. 

The Prime Minister has assured the team of the necessary and immediate actions to be taken for the same. He has also informed the cardinals that the government holds a favourable attitude towards the visit of Pope Francis in India. The team has assured the Prime Minister that the Christian Churches will continue their support towards the integral growth of the nation.  

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged the faithful to strive to be living signs of hope for the entire human family.

Speaking during the weekly General Audience in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope continued his catechesis on Christian hope, conceding that especially in times of darkness and difficulty, hope is no easy virtue.

Quoting from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians he pointed out that Paul encourages the members of the early Church to sustain one another in hope through mutual prayer and practical concern for those in need.

“We must help one another, he said, in the many needs of everyday life, but also when we are in need of hope.” And he referred in particular to those who have the responsibility of providing pastoral guidance, whom he said, on the one hand have the force and the strength of a divine ministry, but on the other are in need of the respect, the comprehension and the support of all.

Underlining the fact that Christian hope is intensely personal yet also communitarian, the Pope said that help and support must be given especially to the poor, the weak in faith, the suffering and those tempted to despair.  

He said that no one can learn to hope on their own, because Christian hope  needs to be “embodied” in a community of mutual support and loving concern.

“He who hopes, the Pope said, hopes one day to hear these words: come to me my brother, come to me my sister, for the whole of eternity” he said. 

Concluding that the body is the Church and its soul is the Holy Spirit, and conceding that especially in times of darkness and difficulty, hope is no easy virtue, Pope Francis said when the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, it is He who teaches us to trust in the Lord’s provident care and to strive constantly, in our communities, to be living signs of hope for the entire human family.

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Tokyo, Japan, Feb 8, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A 17th century Catholic Samurai and martyr was beatified during a Mass in ‎Osaka, Japan on Tuesday.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Vatican’s ‎Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the Beatification Mass of Justo Takayama Ukon, who was declared a martyr by Pope Francis in January last year.

Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan during the time when Jesuit missionaries were being introduced within the country. By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as “Justo” by the Jesuit Fr. Gaspare di Lella.

Takayama's position in Japanese society as daimyo (a feudal lord) allowed him many benefits, such as owning grand estates and raising vast armies. As a Catholic, Takayama used his power to support and protect the short-lived missionary expansion within Japan, influencing the conversion of thousands of Japanese.

When a time of persecution set in within the country under the reign of Japan's chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587, many newly-converted Catholics abandoned their beliefs.

By the 1620s, most missionaries were either driven out of the country or into underground ministry. These missionary priests would have been of the same era as those featured in the recent movie “Silence” by director Martin Scorsese. Although the film is based on a fictional novel by the Japanese author Shusaku Endo, many of the events and people depicted in “Silence” are real.

Instead of denying their faith, Takayama and his father left their prestigious position in society and chose a life of poverty and exile. Although many of his friends tried to persuade Takayama to deny Catholicism, he remained strong in his beliefs.

Takayama “did not want to fight against other Christians, and this led him to live a poor life, because when a samurai does not obey his 'chief,' he loses everything he has,” Fr. Anton Witwer, a general postulator of the Society of Jesus, told CNA in 2014.

Ten years passed, and the chancellor became more fierce in his persecution against Christians. He eventually crucified 26 Catholics, and by 1614, Christianity in Japan was completely banned.
The new boycott on Christianity forced Takayama to leave Japan in exile with 300 other Catholics. They fled to the Philippines, but not long after his arrival, Takayama died on February 3, 1615.

In 2013, the Japanese bishops' conference submitted the lengthy 400-page application for the beatification of Takayama to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. On Jan. 22, 2016, Takayama's advancement in the cause for canonization was further promulgated when Pope Francis approved his decree of martyrdom.

“Since Takayama died in exile because of the weaknesses caused by the maltreatments he suffered in his homeland, the process for beatification is that of a martyr,” Fr. Witwer explained.
Takayama's life exemplifies the Christian example of "a great fidelity to the Christian vocation, persevering despite all difficulties," Fr. Witwer continued.

"As a Christian, as a leader, as a cultural person, as a pioneer of adaptation, Ukon is a ‎role model and ‎there ‎are many things we can learn from him,” ‎Father Renzo De Luca, and Argentinian Jesuit and the director of the 26 Martyrs Museum ‎in Nagasaki‎, told Vatican Radio.   

“In this era of political distrust, I think he ‎will be helpful ‎for ‎people other than Christians.”

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Vatican City, Feb 8, 2017 / 05:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis made an urgent appeal for prayer on behalf for all suffering due to slavery and exploitation, pointing specifically to the minority Rohingya population of Myanmar, who have undergone violent persecution for years.

“I would like pray with you today in a special way for our brother and sister Rohingya. They were driven out of Myanmar, they go from one place to another and no one wants them,” the Pope said Feb. 8.

“They are good people, peaceful people, they aren’t Christians, but they are good. They are our brothers and sisters. And they have suffered for years,” he said, noting that often times members of the ethnic minority have been “tortured and killed” simply for carrying forward their traditions and Muslim faith.

He spoke to pilgrims gathered for his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, leading them in praying an “Our Father” for the Rohingya people, and asking St. Josephine Bakhita, herself a former salve, to intercede.

Rohingya people are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since clashes began in 2012 between the state's Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, some 125,000 Rohingya have been displaced, while more than 100,000 have fled Myanmar by sea.

In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens of Myanmar – have made the perilous journey at sea in hopes of evading persecution.

In 2015 a number of Rohingya people – estimated to be in the thousands – were stranded at sea in boats with dwindling supplies while Southeastern nations such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to take them in.

However, in recent months tens of thousands have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. The horrifying stories recounted by the Rohingya include harrowing tales of rapes, killings and the burning of their houses.

According to BBC News, despite claims of a genocide, a special government-appointed committee in Myanmar formed in January has investigated the situation, but found no evidence to support the allegations.

In Bangladesh, however, the Rohingya have had little relief, since they are not recognized as refugees in the country. Since October, many who fled to Bangladesh have been detained and forced to return to the neighboring Rakhine state.

In his audience appeal, Pope Francis also pointed out that Feb. 8 marks both the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, as well as the third International day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking. This year the day focuses on the plight of children, with the theme: “We are children! Not slaves!”

Kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of 7, St. Josephine is the event’s patron. After being bought and sold several times during her adolescence, often undergoing immense suffering, she eventually discovered the faith in her early 20s. She was then baptized, and after being freed entered the Canossian Sisters in Italy.

Pope Francis noted that like modern trafficking victims, St. Josephine was “enslaved in Africa, exploited, humiliated,” but she never lost hope.

“She carried hope forward, and ended up as a migrant in Europe,” he said, noting that it was there that she felt God’s call and became a religious sister.

“Let us pray to St. Josephine Bakhita for all, for all migrants, refugees and exploited, who suffer so much,” he said, and led pilgrims in a round of applause in honor of the Saint.

In his audience speech, Francis continued his ongoing catechesis on the virtue of hope, focusing particularly on its communitarian and ecclesial dimension.

He noted how in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle’s gaze was “widened” to all the different realities that formed part of the Christian community at the time. In seeing them, Paul asked them “to pray for one another and to support one another.”

This doesn’t just mean helping people in the practical things of everyday life, he said, but also means “helping each other in hope, sustaining each other in hope.”

“It’s not a coincidence that he begins by referencing those who have been entrusted with pastoral responsibility and guidance,” because they are “the first to be called to nourish hope,” the Pope said, noting that this isn’t because they better than others, but because of the divine ministry entrusted to them which “goes well beyond their own strength.”

Francis then pointed to those risk losing hope and falling into desperation, noting that the news always seems to be full of the bad things people do when they become desperate.

“Desperation leads to many bad things,” he said, explaining that when it comes to those who are discouraged, weak and feel downcast due to life’s heaviness, the Church in these cases must make her “closeness and warmth” even closer and more loving, showing even greater compassion.

Compassion, he cautioned, doesn’t mean “to have pity” on someone, but rather to “to suffer with the other, to draw near to the one who suffers. A word, a caress, but which comes from the heart. This is compassion.”

This witness, the Pope said, doesn’t stay closed in the confines of the Christian community, but rather “resounds in all its vigor” even to social and civil context outside as an appeal “not to create walls, but bridges, to not exchange evil with evil, (but) to overcome evil with good, offense with forgiveness.”

A Christian, Francis said, can never tell someone “’you will pay!’ Never. This is not a Christian act.”

Instead, offenses must be overcome with forgiveness so as to live in peace with everyone, he said, adding that “this is the Church! And this is operates Christian hope, when it takes the strong features but at the same time the tenderness of love.”

In learning to have this kind of hope, “it’s not possible” to do it alone, he said, adding that in ourder to be nourished, hope “needs a body in when the various members sustain and revitalize each other.

“This means that, if we hope, it’s because many of our brothers and sisters have taught us to hope and have kept our hope alive,” he said, noting that among these people are “the small, the poor, the simple and the marginalized.”

This is the case, he said, because “those who close in their own wellbeing, in their own contentment, who always feel in place, don’t know hope.

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Glasgow, Scotland, Feb 8, 2017 / 05:53 am (CNA).- A Glasgow priest says he firmly believes he survived a recent near-fatal health scare thanks to the miraculous intercession of Venerable Margaret Sinclair, the poor Edinburgh girl turned nun who died in 1925.

“For 32 years of priesthood, I’ve been preaching the resurrection of Christ and this is a sign for me that I am doing something which is true and not wasted,” said Monsignor Peter Smith, parish priest of St Paul’s in Whiteinch, during an exclusive interview with this month's edition of Flourish, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

“I don’t want to be the center of attention, but if I’ve been granted this favor then I have to let it be known and allow the Church to judge it.”

Since being diagnosed with cancer last May, 58-year-old Monsignor Smith has been urging friends and family to pray to Venerable Margaret to aid him. His request was enthusiastically supported by his neighboring Glasgow priest, Father Joe McAuley, who is in charge of promoting Venerable Margaret’s cause for beatification.

Two months ago, though, Monsignor Smith’s health took a turn for the worse when medics discovered a blood clot on his lung and a deadly infection attacking body tissue from his hips to shoulders. Doctors decided not to operate as it would kill him. They suspected the Glasgow priest wouldn’t survive 48 hours.

Incredibly, he did, with his surgeon assuring him that there is “no medical explanation” for the remarkable recovery. Monsignor Smith, however, believes that it was the work of Venerable Margaret – something he now wants to tell the world about.

“When you ask someone for a favor and they grant it, it is only right to say thank you,” he said.

“We don’t expect miracles – and I’m not sure I expected one either – after all, my cancer hasn’t gone away – but I’ve been around long enough in ministry not to be surprised. I’ve seen it happen.”

“If this helps people, in the light of faith, grow closer to the Gospel, then I am doing my job. In illness I am able to live my priesthood and help other people.”

Venerable Margaret Sinclair was born in the Edinburgh’s Cowgate in 1900, one of six children who grew up in poverty in a two-room basement. Her father was a dustman and she left school at 14, whereupon she worked as a French polisher and became a trade union activist.

In 1923 she entered a Convent of the Order of Poor Clares in London, becoming Sister Mary Francis of the Five Wounds, where she helped the poor before dying of tuberculosis in 1925. She now lies in rest in her home parish of St Patrick’s in the Cowgate.

“Margaret Sinclair is a wonderful example of an ordinary Scottish woman, close to our time, who lived the Gospel in the everyday, in a poor family home in Edinburgh, at school, in St Patrick’s parish, the word of industry and into the convent,” said Monsignor Smith.

In 1978 Pope Paul VI declared Margaret Sinclair to be “Venerable”. If the Catholic Church now authenticates Monsignor Smith’s cure to be truly miraculous it could pave the way for Margaret to become “blessed,” just one step away from sainthood which would, normally, require a further miracle.

“Firstly, I am delighted to learn of Monsignor Smith’s dramatically improved health and assure him of my continued prayers in his ongoing battle with cancer,” said Archbishop Leo Cushley, “potentially, though, this could be a major landmark in the bid to beatify Margaret Sinclair, a great contemporary witness to the desirability and possibility of daily holiness.”

Read more at www.flourishnewspaper.co.uk

For more information on Venerable Margaret, go to:www.margaretsinclair.scot

 

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