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Mamfe, Cameroon, May 25, 2016 / 04:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father William Cañón is a Colombian missionary in Cameroon who transforms into a soccer coach every Sunday, helping to bring joy to some 60 local children through sport and camaraderie.

“After going to the Eucharist, we gather and provide a time of Christian formation; then, with my limited knowledge of sports, we play soccer,” Father Cañón told Pablo Romero of El Tiempo, a Colombian daily.

The missionary is a fan of Independiente Santa Fe, the Bogota football team which won the Copa Sudamericana last year. He has been a missionary to Mamfe, in southwestern Cameroon, since 2014.

Por intermedio del Padre William Cañón los niños de Fontem, Camerún aprenden a jugar al fútbol con la piel del León pic.twitter.com/KSA7uX94XI

— Ind. Santa Fe (@SantaFe) April 4, 2016 When he arrived in Cameroon he was assigned to a parish where the first evangelization has yet to be done: he found a people who still have customs such as polygamy, and a culture of machismo. They face disease, a shortage of food, and a lack of electricity and safe water.

But Father Cañón noticed the boys in Mamfe had a special love for soccer, and so he decided to take advantage of this opportunity to bring them closer to God. Every Sunday, he says Mass before roughtly 60 boys play soccer. Many of the children walk for up to three hours to get there, and the matches are held on a dirt  field with makeshift goals, and they always begin with a prayer.

“Seeing them arrive is an unimaginable sight. Some come barefoot, but with great joy on their faces. Most of them are spontaneous and sincere boys. And, above all, they're grateful, because it's the only time they have to have fun and dream. Despite the circumstances and difficulties, they're always there,” the priest told El Tiempo.

“Here the children are happy with little, and with the lives they have,” he added.

During the week, the priest says Mass every day at 6 am. Then he heads off to the local hospital where he spends almost the entire day as the chaplain.

Independiente Santa Fe was moved hearing about  the missionary's work. During a trip to Colombia, he asked for donations for his Cameroon team and they gave him soccer balls and Santa Fe uniforms for the boys.

“I'm very grateful to God for this beautiful opportunity that he's given me. And to Santa Fe, for the uniforms. From here, I continue to support my team,” he told El Tiempo.

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St. Paul, Minn., May 25, 2016 / 04:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis says his archdiocese has followed the law in its bankruptcy process, responding to claims by abuse victims that some assets were not made public.

“The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has been fully cooperating with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court since filing in January of 2015,” Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis stated on Tuesday.

“Let me be clear: The Archdiocese has disclosed all of its assets and has followed all the rules set forth by the Court and all directives from the judge,” he continued.

An “unsecured creditors committee” and attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents hundreds of alleged Minnesota abuse victims, filed a motion on Monday claiming the archdiocese actually should have reported $1.7 billion in assets rather than the $49 million it reported in bankruptcy filings, according to the Associated Press.

They accused the archdiocese of hiding assets to protect them from payouts to abuse victims. The assets that should have been consolidated and included in the process included parishes, schools, cemeteries, and charitable organizations that consolidated together would have been worth $1.4 billion, they said. In addition, two other entities “controlled by the Archbishop” would be worth over $300 million.

All those entities should have been included in the reported assets of the archdiocese under “substantive consolidation,” the committee claimed.

In January of 2015, the archdiocese had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as more accusations of past sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the archdiocese had surfaced.

Then-Archbishop John C. Nienstedt had announced that “reorganization will allow the finite resources of the Archdiocese to be distributed equitably among all victims/ survivors.”

The archdiocese has worked to help ensure this distribution, Archbishop Hebda continued in his Monday statement. “I know that for at least the last 11 months we have been working extremely hard to marshal and maximize our assets with the hope of providing the most for the most,” he stated.

He added that the archdiocese will move forward with the bankruptcy proceedings. “Please continue to pray for all of those who have been sexually abused and for their families and for a quick resolution to these proceedings,” he insisted.

Archbishop Hebda was appointed to his position by Pope Francis in March after serving as apostolic administrator for the archdiocese since July of 2015. Then-Archbishop Nienstadt had resigned after the archdiocese was charged on six counts of failure to protect minors.

Those charges stemmed from the cases of one former priest Curtis Wehmeyer who was sentenced to five years in prison after he pled guilty to sexually abusing two boys and possessing child pornography. The archdiocese “turned a blind eye” to the situation, the prosecutor stated at the time.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who has made millions off of suing the Catholic Church in the United States, has also represented abuse victims in several other states like Wisconsin, California, Iowa, and Delaware. His 2013 settlement with the archdiocese resulted in them making public additional names of priests “with substantiated claims of child sexual abuse”; ultimately they released 68 names of priests “with substantiated claims of sexual abuse of minors,” his website claimed.  

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters

By Doreen Abi Raad

BEIRUT (CNS) -- Lebanese leaders in Muslim-Christian dialogue said they hoped Pope Francis' meeting with Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar University, would lead to new relationships.

Maronite Father Fadi Daou, chairman of Adyan, a foundation for interfaith studies and spiritual solidarity based in Lebanon, told Catholic News Service that he hopes the meeting will be the forerunner to a "new dimension of interreligious relations."

Mohammad Sammak, secretary-general of Lebanon's Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue, said the meeting likely would "open a new page of cooperation on the basis of building real citizenship -- equal citizenship -- between Christians and Muslims all over the Middle East."

"For sure this is a very important meeting, not only because it is the first of its kind in history that the grand imam of al-Azhar visits the Vatican and is received by the Holy Father, but the timing in itself is very important," Sammak said.

"First, because it came after a misunderstanding between al-Azhar and the Vatican and secondly, because Muslims are in urgent need to show the whole world that Islam is open and to clarify the bad image of Islam that has erupted because of the incidents in the Middle East," Sammak said.

Sammak emphasized that the Vatican took the "initiative to make this meeting happen" May 23.

Father Daou said although no common declaration was issued, the meeting "in itself is a symbol, after 10 years of distance and in a current context of a rise of extremism, as it joins the grand imam of al-Azhar, known for his openness to Christianity, and a pope that has taken positions toward overcoming Islamophobia and welcoming Muslims."

"The meeting's agenda indicates that the concern for peace and security prevailed in the discussion, more than the interfaith and Christian-Muslim dialogue and relations," Father Daou said from Istanbul, where he was attending the World Humanitarian Summit.

Al-Azhar is considered the most authoritative theological-academic institution of Sunni Islam.

Father Daou said he hoped the meeting would reactivate the relationship between al-Azhar and the Vatican, to consider "the most pressing questions today, namely the preservation of living together and the promotion of the values of citizenship inclusive of religious and cultural diversity. This should help in transforming the common principles and concerns declared at the meeting to a common agenda for collaboration."

The priest noted that "al-Azhar has been working for ... years in the direction of new Islamic positions concerning state, religion and politics and diversity."

"Collaboration with the Vatican on this level can only add to the weight of the positions promulgated by this most important Islamic Sunni authority worldwide," he said.

Both men pointed to a December 2014 al-Azhar conference on confronting extremism and terrorism. Father Daou said the conference "clearly opted for citizenship and democracy and not for a Muslim state, stating that 'any political system that fulfills ... primordial human values ... is a system that receives legitimacy from the sources of Islam.'"

Sammak said the conference discussed "how we can build our societies again and how we can fight together -- Christians and Muslims -- extremism and terror in the Middle East, which is targeting Christians as well as Muslims."

"That's why I hope this meeting (at the Vatican) will open a new page between the two institutions -- the Vatican and al-Azhar," he said.

Sammak said he expected that now, al-Azhar "will speak to other Muslim organizations and ... include more Muslim organizations -- Sunni and Shiite, Arabs and non-Arabs -- within the framework of Christian-Muslim cooperation with the Vatican and through the Holy Father."

Sammak referred to the May 23 meeting as "the fourth opportunity."

"There have been three previous opportunities that Muslims did not deal very well with," he said, calling the first opportunity the Second Vatican Council.

"Vatican II opened new bridges with Islam. But the Muslim world did not realize the importance of this initiative then," Sammak explained.

The second opportunity, Sammak said, was when St. John Paul II convened the 1995 Synod of Bishops for Lebanon.

"The document that came out of the synod about Lebanon is not (only) about Lebanon itself, but about Lebanon as a message of coexistence for the Arab world. This wasn't really well understood and well-received," Sammak said. He said the third opportunity was the 2010 Synod of Bishops on the Middle East.

Sammak said he hopes Vatican II documents "will be reread and implemented, and Muslims should really understand their relations with the Vatican .... The two synods -- about Lebanon and the Middle East -- are very essential and very important in the sense that there are many key positions that we should know and understand and build our own future accordingly."

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