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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said a good shepherd is one who follows Jesus rather than power, money or cliques and even if deserted by everybody is sad but never embittered. He was speaking at his morning Mass on Tuesday celebrated in the chapel of the Santa Marta Residence.

Taking his inspiration from the Second Letter to Timothy, the Pope’s homily was a reflection on the difficulties faced by the apostles like Paul in the final stage of their lives when they are left without means, deserted by all and having to ask for things like beggars.

“Alone, begging, abandoned by all and the victim of fury. But this is the great Paul, the man who heard the voice of the Lord, the call of the Lord! The man who went from one place to another, who suffered so many things and so many trials for preaching the Gospel, who made the Apostles understand that the Lord wants Gentiles to enter into the Church as well, the great Paul who when praying rose to the Seventh Heaven and heard things that nobody else had heard before: the Great Paul, there, in that small room of a house in Rome, waiting to see how that struggle would end within the Church between the different sides, between the rigidity of the Judaizers and those disciples faithful to him. And this is how the life of the great Paul ends, in desolation: not in resentment or bitterness but with an inner desolation.”

Pope Francis went on to point out that Peter and St John the Baptist suffered similar privations in the final stage of their lives with the latter having his head cut off owing to “the caprice of a dancer and the revenge of an adulterous woman.” In more recent times, he said it was the same for Maximilian Kolbe who created a worldwide apostolic movement and yet died in the prison cell of a death camp. When an apostle is faithful, stressed the Pope, he or she knows that they too can expect the same end that Jesus faced. But the Lord stays close and does not abandon them and they find their strength in Him. Pope Francis said “This is the Law of the Gospel: if the grain of wheat doesn’t die it doesn’t produce new seeds” and reminded that a theologian of the early centuries wrote that the blood of martyrs are the seeds of Christians.

“To die in this way like martyrs, as witnesses of Jesus, is the grain that dies and gives rise to new seeds and fills the earth with new Christians. When a pastor lives like this he is not embittered: maybe he feels desolate but he has that certainty that the Lord is beside him. When a pastor during his life was attached to other things, rather than to the faithful - for example he was attached to power, money, being part of a clique, to many things - then at his death he won’t be alone, maybe his grandchildren (heirs) will be there waiting for him to die so they can see what possessions they can take away with them.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily by describing the attitude of many elderly priests now living in retirement homes who despite their sufferings remain close to the Lord.

“When I go to visit the retirement homes for elderly priests I find so many of these great shepherds who have given their lives for the faithful. There they are, sick, paralyzed, in wheelchairs but you can see them smiling straight away. ‘He’s well, Lord; he’s well, Lord,’ because they feel the Lord very close to them. They have these shining eyes and they are asking: ‘how is the Church? How is the diocese faring? How are vocations going?’ (It’s this way) right to the end because they are fathers, because they gave their lives for others. Turning back to Paul: alone, begging, the victim of fury, deserted by everybody except the Lord Jesus: ‘Only the Lord stayed close to me!’ And the Good Shepherd, the shepherd must have this certainty: if he journeys along the path of Jesus, the Lord will be close to him right to the end. Let us pray for the shepherds who are at the end of their lives and who are waiting for the Lord to take them with Him. And let us pray so that the Lord may give them strength, consolation and the certainty that, although they feel sick and alone, the Lord is with them, close to them. May the Lord give them this strength.”

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Washington D.C., Oct 18, 2016 / 03:25 am (CNA).- C. Matthew Hawkins stood frozen with fear as the update crackled through the police car radio: the suspect in question is white and 5-feet, 7-inches tall. Hawkins, now a Catholic seminarian who happens to be 6-feet tall and black, was grateful for the news.

Why? Because a cop was about to pull a gun on him.

In the just over two years since the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a suburb of St. Louis, the United States has again had to grapple with a topic that has surfaced over and over since the Civil Rights era – police aggression, particularly against minorities.

While new movements, such as Black Lives Matter, have been borne as a response to the subject, Catholics argue that the Church also has a role to play in addressing the problem.

Furthermore, they note, it’s an issue affecting the Church itself, as Catholics can be and are targets of unprovoked police aggression and profiling.

“Fundamentally the issue of aggressive policing does come down to the value we place on human life,” said Hawkins, a seminarian from the Diocese of Pittsburgh currently studying in Baltimore.

An African-American who worked as a university professor before entering seminary, Hawkins explained that the question of police aggression and Catholics' response to it is akin to other questions of dehumanization we face in our society.  

“If you think their lives are expendable and disposable, then you can subscribe to this culture of death, then you don’t become concerned about the high number of unarmed civilians who are dying under contested circumstances.”

How big is the problem?

In recent months, Catholic leaders have acknowledged the issue, calling for prayer, peace and healing in communities.

Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville, Illinois has written several pastoral letters on race relations in the United States.

In a July essay, Bishop Braxton, who is African American, decried violence against both the black community and police officers. He pointed to several incidents of police violence against African Americans and to the murder of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

“We all know that the work of police officers is very difficult and very dangerous. They leave their homes each day not knowing if they will return unharmed. They deserve our respect and gratitude,” the bishop commented.

He also said that the problem is by no means pervasive throughout the entirety of law enforcement.

“We know the vast majority of police are fair-minded and respect the human dignity and worth of all citizens,” he said. “Some, however, are not. There is documented evidence that bias and racial prejudice influence the attitudes and actions of some police officers.”

Exactly how widespread is the problem? It’s hard to say.

While the issue of police violence has gained recent attention in the media and on social media, due in large part to the prevalence of camera phones and other recording devices, there is no source of official reports collected on a national level.

FBI Director James B. Comey addressed the issue in a 2015 speech at Georgetown, recalling that when he wanted to investigate the matter, he found that “reporting by police departments is voluntary and not all departments participate. That means we cannot fully track the number of incidents in which force is used by police, or against police, including non-fatal encounters, which are not reported at all.”

This lack of reporting creates data on police violence that is at best “unreliable,” Comey said, a reality that hampers the nation’s ability to address the issue.

However, some independent organizations have tried to piece together national data on police aggression using available resources. The British newspaper The Guardian set up an investigation called “The Counted” to report the people killed by police in the United States, revealing more than 1,146 people killed in 2015 and more than 800 killed so far this year.

The Fatal Encounters project has created a database by researching police records and collecting its own data on police violence, which list 1,307 people killed by police aggression in 2015 and nearly 900 by October of 2016. Libertarian think tank The Cato Institute also has scholars assigned to the “National Police Misconduct Reporting Project,” detailing reports of police misconduct, including police shootings, sexual assault, brutality, asset seizure, raids, and false arrests, among other types of police aggression.

‘No interest in de-escalation’

Mike, a 20-something Catholic husband and father, has been a recipient of this kind of non-fatal aggression. He told CNA about an incident he and his wife experienced in their Arizona hometown.

In late 2014, Mike and his wife were driving home in icy conditions up a hill when his wife, who was at the wheel, slid off the road. They called for assistance, but when the local sheriff arrived, the official also skidded on the same patch of ice, driving off the road and into the couple’s stalled car.

What happened next shocked and frightened the young couple.

“He got out of the car and immediately started yelling at my wife, cursing her out and calling her an idiot even though he was the one who hit us,” Mike recalled. As the sheriff yelled, the couple’s dogs kept barking in the backseat, at which point the officer pulled out his gun, continued to yell at the couple, brandishing the weapon in their direction, and threatened to shoot the dogs if they did not stop.

“It seemed like there was no interest in de-escalation,” Mike said.

Eventually a tow truck showed up, and the sheriff went off without apologizing, leaving the couple shaken and scared, still stranded. Mike said he and his wife declined to report the incident to the sheriff’s office because they were not confident anything would be done, because of stereotypes surrounding women drivers, and because they were busy preparing for the birth of their child at the time and wanted to put the incident behind them.

Still, Mike told CNA he is thankful that, while scary, the incident did not have a tragic ending.  

“We're very fortunate I think that we happened to be a 'nice young white couple' and not any sort of minority,” he said.

'Just another incident'

While incomplete, the data available, both through individual departments self-reporting and from independent researchers, do show a significant problem.  

Even when unarmed, Hispanic people are twice as likely as white citizens and African-Americans are more than five times as likely as their white counterparts to be killed in a police interaction, according to 2015 data from “Mapping Police Violence.”

Further investigation by the Washington Post has found that this racial disparity exists even when crime rates of a neighborhood or socioeconomic background is taken into account – minorities are more likely to experience aggression, especially fatal police aggression, when unarmed than non-minorities.

C. Matthew Hawkins recalled his own experience while running errands after teaching a class at the University of Pittsburgh in 2008.

While he was walking, a police car pulled up, and the officer got out to question him about a burglary that had occurred nearby.

“It was clear that he had made up his mind that I was the one had committed this burglary,” Hawkins recalled. He said that he tried to comply with the officer’s directions, even though the officer was tense and was clearly angry.  

However, he also was confused and concerned that, being so close to the university and to his parish, someone would walk by and think that he committed a crime. While all these thoughts were going through his mind, he hesitated in response to one of the officer’s demands.  

“I froze – it wasn’t a decision not to cooperate, it was being caught in the moment and not being able to respond.” Hawkins hesitation made the cop more anxious, and the officer reached for his gun.

As this was unfolding, the radio crackled, updating the officer that the suspect in the case was actually a 5-foot-7-inch white male – not a 6-foot tall African American.

“He just turned to me and said, ‘I’m just doing my job,’ and drove off,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins is grateful that on that day he did not become another statistic – another young African-American man shot or arrested for non-compliance. He said this was not the first time he or his African-American friends have been threatened by police officers. For instance, he was confronted by swearing officers wielding billy clubs while reading in a park during a public festival as a teen.

“It still has an emotional jolt every time something like that happens,” he said. “This is just another incident of that.”

But there are things that can be done to combat these kinds of interactions, Hawkins stressed, pointing to other memories of being treated in a dignified and respectful way by police officers.

He advocated that parishes in particular work to “build bridges” in their communities, especially in communities that are experiencing changing demographics. “I think it’s important for people to work together,” he said, pushing for parishes to engage in projects together, and that such processes help “to break down stereotypes that all the training sessions in the world wouldn’t have accomplished.”

Encountering the issue

“My father was a policeman, so I have a certain degree of sympathy for the police, but his view always was: Show me these incidents and what I’ll show you back is either ‘poor or lack of training’,” said Robert Destro, law professor at The Catholic University of America and the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion.

Destro suggested that most examples of police aggression can be traced back to poor training or poor oversight and management of police departments. He pointed to the issue of racial profiling, noting that a profile is a valuable tool for police officers trying to solve a crime, but when a profile is based on race alone, it is inadequate and problematic.

These issues, he said, are often “the fault of upper echelons,” who don’t successfully manage police training and community relations, allowing tensions between the community and the department to grow and fester.

“When you’re looking at this from a Catholic Social Teaching perspective it’s a question of solidarity and subsidiarity,” he added, noting that churches have a role to play in getting communities together. “It’s only in the local community that you can break down the ‘us and them’ into an ‘us’.”

He also commented that while there may be nationwide trends involved, the departments and communities involved each have a distinct, unique character, and thus solution, to the problems they are facing. “The police are not an amorphous entity – there is a local police force where you live,” he said.

Destro urged Catholics as well to take action on this issue in their communities. “We shouldn’t be waiting until there’s a crisis,” he stated. “These problems have been around for a long time”

A national examination of conscience

“This has been a long-term, ongoing relationship of African-Americans with the police,” said Gloria Purvis, a radio host for EWTN and a representative of the National Black Catholic Congress.

Purvis said that this breakdown in relations impacts “the average African-American person,” those who have not broken any laws.

“Your encounters with police shouldn’t end in death if you’re not doing something that’s actively putting the lives of others at risk or is in the active commission of a crime,” she said, adding that it should concern Catholics that “the value of a human life can become so diminished, even on a whim.”

“There are a lot of things that go into a police encounter that we don’t know,” she acknowledged, noting that she has family members who are part of the law enforcement community.  

“But, what we do know as Catholics is that each person is made in the image and likeness of God and their lives are worthy of dignity and respect, and we shouldn’t cheer or defend their lives being taken because they weren’t sufficiently compliant.”

“That's not Catholic,” she stressed. “Whenever there are non-lethal means to subdue someone and keep society safe, we use it.”

In discussing the complex and often tense issues surrounding police violence and race relations, Purvis stressed that Catholics should take an honest, faith-first approach. She encouraged Catholics reading secular news sources on these issues to use “the lens of faith” rather than one’s political views as a framework.

“We can’t fix a problem if we don’t even state that there’s one that exists and then examine it,” Purvis held. “It’s sort of like we’re going through a national examination of conscience regarding this particular issue.”

 

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(Vatican Radio) The Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, on Monday addressed the United Nations General Assembly during a meeting discussing the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

He said the ongoing struggle of indigenous peoples to preserve their heritage, language, religious traditions, and livelihoods through the realization of their right to self-determination is not only their concern, but a concern for the entire world.

“Their cultural experiences and means of livelihood are under grave threat within the current international social and economic paradigm,” – Archbishop Auza said – “An economy driven largely by motives of profit and individual gain rather than responsibility for the neighbor, the environment and the common good has left the indigenous peoples further and further behind.”

The full statement can be found below

Statement by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza

Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See

Seventy-first Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Third Committee Agenda Item 65: Rights of Indigenous Peoples

(New York, 17 October 2016)

Madam Chair,

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates that there are more than 370 million indigenous people spread across roughly 90 countries worldwide.1 Though they make up only 5 percent of the world’s population, they represent countless years of invaluable human and cultural experience. The International Community relies on their knowledge and unique approach to development as an essential reference point in the care of our common home and of humanity. For that reason, their ongoing struggle to preserve their heritage, language, religious traditions, and livelihoods through the realization of their right to self-determination is not only their concern, but a concern for the entire world.

Their cultural experiences and means of livelihood are under grave threat within the current international social and economic paradigm. An economy driven largely by motives of profit and individual gain rather than responsibility for the neighbor, the environment and the common good has left the indigenous peoples further and further behind. Their traditional homelands, with which they are both physically and spiritually in communion, are taken without consultation. Extractive companies, public works, and even well-intentioned land conservationists often displace them. Uprooted from their homes and traditional lands, they experience higher rates of poverty, unemployment, social and food insecurity than non-indigenous populations, constituting nearly 15% of the world’s poor in spite of their being only 5 percent of the world’s population.2

In his meeting with a large number of indigenous groups in Bolivia, Pope Francis observed: “it is essential that, along with the defence of their legitimate rights, [indigenous] peoples and their social organizations be able to construct a humane alternative to a globalization which excludes.” The indigenous are not only beneficiaries of such an alternative approach;

they also become protagonists of their own development. 3 Their voices are crucial to any such conversation

Madam Chair,

The implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement are at the heart of the International Community’s renewed effort to change the current global narrative of exclusion and lay out concrete solutions to the scourges of poverty, climate change, environmental waste and degradation. The indigenous peoples must be at the heart of the implementation of both the Agenda and the Agreement. They must be players and not spectators of the process of implementation. They must be active agents and not passive beneficiaries of the achievements that will come from an effective, participative implementation of both. The indigenous peoples justly demand not only respect for their rights in the implementation process, but also the need to adapt and integrate indigenous knowledge into relevant socioeconomic and environmental policies and actions.

To make this happen, the participation of the indigenous peoples’ representatives and institutions in meetings of relevant United Nations bodies must be further strengthened, especially on those issues that directly affect them. In this regard, my Delegation recommends that the timely, inclusive, representative and transparent consultations that were held with Member States and the representatives of the indigenous peoples during the 70th Session of the General Assembly be pursued with greater vigor in the intergovernmental negotiations during the current session.

Madam Chair,

As Pope Francis has said, “no actual or established power has the right to deprive peoples of the full exercise of their sovereignty. Whenever they do so, we see the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice.”

We must ensure that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement and other international commitments actively involve and effectively benefit the indigenous peoples throughout the world. Only then could we truly say that we have fulfilled our collective promise of leaving no one behind.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

 1 “Indigenous Peoples to Seek Measures for Preventing Conflict, Securing Peace, at Annual Forum, 9-20 May”, Economic and Social Council, www.un.org/press/en/2016/hr5296.doc.htm (2015).

2 "Free Prior and Informed Consent: An indigenous peoples’ right and a good practice for local communities - Manual for Practitioners", Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2016).

3 Pope Francis, Address during the "Second World Meeting of Popular Movements", Santa Cruz de la Sierra

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(Vatican Radio) A statement by Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, was delivered on Monday about Nuclear Disarmament.

The full statement is below

Statement by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza

Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See

Seventy-first Session of the United Nations General Assembly

First (Disarmament) Committee Agenda Item 98 (c): Nuclear disarmament

New York, 17 October 2016

Mr. Chair,

The Holy See has called for a total ban on nuclear weapons since the dawn of the nuclear age.

In  February  1943,  two  years  and  a  half  before  the  Trinity  test,  Pope  Pius  XII  had  already

voiced  deep  concern  regarding  the  violent  use  of  atomic  energy.  After  Hiroshima  and

Nagasaki,  observing  the  totally  uncontrollable  and  indiscriminate  consequences  of  nuclear

weapons, Pope Pius XII demanded the effective proscription of atomic warfare, calling the

arms race a costly relationship of mutual terror.  My delegation would like to reiterate Pope

Francis’ conviction that “the desire for peace and fraternity planted deep in the human heart

will bear fruit in concrete ways to ensure that nuclear weapons are banned once and for all,

to the benefit of our common home.”

The Holy See echoes the cry of humanity to be freed from the specter of nuclear warfare. It is

important  for  every  schoolchild  to  know  that  a  nuclear  war  would  have  horrendous

consequences for people and the whole planet. Thus the Holy  See actively participates in the

conferences  on  the  humanitarian  impact  of  nuclear  weapons,  and  regularly  supports  the

resolutions this Committee adopts and the steps individual States take that will contribute to

nuclear disarmament and to the general and complete  disarmament called for by Article VII

of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Nuclear  arms  offer  a  false  sense  of  security  and  the  uneasy  peace  promised  by  nuclear

deterrence is a tragic illusion. The indefinite possession of nuclear weapons is morally wrong,

“an  affront  to  the  entire  framework  of  the  United  Nations”and  contradicts  the  United

Nation’s  vocation  of  service  to  humanity  and  the  global  common  good.   The  so-called

“doctrine  of  nuclear  deterrence”  has  made  nuclear  non-proliferation  and  nuclear

disarmament more difficult, and raises the possibility of the actual intentional or accidental

deployment of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons cannot create a stable and secure world. Peace and international stability

cannot be established on mutually assured destruction or on the threat of total  annihilation.

Lasting  peace  cannot  be  guaranteed  by  the  maintenance  of  a  balance  of  terror.  On  the

contrary, “Peace must be built on justice, socio-economic development, freedom, respect for

human rights, and the participation of all in public affairs and the building of trust between

peoples.”

The  NPT  enjoins  us  to  make  "good  faith"  efforts  to  negotiate  the  elimination  of  nuclear

weapons and put in place confidence-building measures. The modernization programs of the

nuclear  weapons  States,  however,  persist.  Boycotts,  threats  and  other  forms  of  dissuasion

against countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons will continue to lack credibility as

long as nuclear weapons States not only hold onto but upgrade their nuclear weapons. For

the  NPT  to  be  successful  and  general  and  complete  disarmament  to  be  achieved,  nuclear

weapons  States  must  divest  themselves  of  their  nuclear  arsenal,  under  strict  international

verification. This is part of the “grand bargain” that was and is the NPT.

Eight years ago, the Secretary-General launched a Five-Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament,

the centerpiece of which is the negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention or a framework

of instruments leading directly to a  global ban on nuclear weapons. This Committee should

therefore seriously pursue the recommendation made by the  Open-Ended Working Group,

with the majority support of the participating States, that the General Assembly convene a

conference in 2017 “to negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons,

leading towards their total elimination.” It is incumbent upon this Committee to redouble its

efforts to advance the recommendations of the Open-Ended Working Group, especially at a

time when the disarmament machinery is at a standstill.

Mr. Chair,

The Holy See continues to urge for the rapid entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear

Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which has just marked the twentieth anniversary of its opening for

signature. It welcomes the adoption on September 23 of UN Security Resolution 2310, urging

the eight States whose ratification remains necessary for the entry into force of the CTBT to

sign and/or ratify it. There is no reason for procrastination.

The Holy See reaffirms its support of the NPT as vital to international peace and security and

laments our collective failure to move forward with a positive disarmament agenda. As Pope

Francis said in his Address to the General Assembly in September 2015,  “There is an urgent

need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the Non-Proliferation

Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.”

Finally,  the  Holy  See  believes  that  negotiations  on  nuclear  non-proliferation  and  nuclear

disarmament  must  be  accompanied  by  negotiations  on  the  balances  and  dispositions  of

conventional forces and their reductions, in the spirit of Article VII of the NPT.

The task we face is arduous and the challenges are multifaceted, but we must face them with

hope, resolve and confidence.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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Religious and civil society leaders in Kenya, under the auspices of the Multi-Sectoral Forum (MSF), have told a selection panel that will choose members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that the future of elections, in Kenya, hinges on the critical decisions that they will make during the vetting process.

“We congratulate you on your selection and appreciate the mammoth task before you. We trust in your ability and dedication for the service to our nation through this crucial exercise. We are fully behind you and we shall continue to accord you the necessary support to ensure that the selection process is carried out seamlessly to the honour of God and all Kenyans” said Sheikh Adan Wachu, Chairperson of the Inter-Religious Council of Kenya.

Speaking at the same event, held at Nairobi’s Ufungamano House, this week, Catholic Bishop Alfred Rotich underlined the high expectations riding on the panel.

“Kenyans expect that this team will be truthful, honest and courageous to the cause. We know that integrity comes from God and if they rely on the help of God, certainly they should be able to discharge the mandate bestowed on them,” said Bishop Rotich.

Nominees to the IEBC selection committee include members from various faith denominations and some of Kenya’s prominent citizens.

(By Franc Mwangi in Kenya)

Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

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