Catholic News 2

A Pakistani Catholic bishop led a pilgrimage of peace and reconciliation to neighbouring India, to bring closer to each other the two south-Asian rivals that have fought several wars and conflicts since their independence in 1947.  “For us, this is very significant and fruitful,” said Archbishop Sebastian Francis Shaw of Lahore on reaching the Indian Archdiocese of Delhi.  “It was a great joy to be greeted so warmly by Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi. A strong sense of brotherhood and communion binds our two peoples,” he said after arriving in the Indian capital with 16 priests from his diocese. 

The pilgrims left Lahore on April 19 for a 13-hour bus ride to Delhi, where they were welcomed by a delegation led by Archbishop Couto.  "In this Jubilee of Mercy, our pilgrimage to India acquires even greater significance,” Archbishop Shaw said.  “The Father, who ‎is merciful to us, invites us to be with others. This is a call for a new culture of mercy," he added.‎

Indian Jesuit Fr Joe Kalathil, coordinator of the India-Pakistan peace initiative, garlanded the two archbishops.  For years, the priest has been working with children from various schools, in India and Pakistan, to promote a culture of peace. Hundreds of students from both countries have exchanged letters of friendship.

Archbishops Couto and Shaw discussed the history of their dioceses, noting that their mother Church is the Archdiocese of Agra in India, but after the partition and independence in 1947 things changed.  The two bishops we shared the joys of their faith and the challenges of the mission.  Archbishop Shaw was touched by the generosity of his Indian host, stressing a common culture binds them and mutual respect will lead to social harmony and peace.  (Source: AsiaNews)

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(Vatican Radio)  Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the newly-appointed Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, says the message of Pope Francis for the American people is the message of the Gospel.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre was appointed to the post by the Holy Father on 12 April, having previously served as the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Uganda, and most recently Mexico for nine years.

In an interview with Christopher Wells, the Apostolic Nuncio noted the continuance of his ministry through the influence of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.

Listen to the full interview:

Archbishop Pierre said the apparition of Our Lady to St. Juan Diego was not an apparition to one person, but to an entire people. "Pope Francis told us at the beginning of his last trip that this is the foundation of Mexico. He wanted to spend some time with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not just to look at her, but to be looked at by her, and to look at the people with the eyes of Mary."

Role of Apostolic Nuncio

Turning to his role as Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Pierre said "I've been serving the Pope for nearly 40 years in many Nunciatures. We are essentially representatives of the Pope... The difficulty or challenge of the Nuncio is to listen, to be careful about what is going on, to understand, to exercise dialogue, to discover the beauty, the richness of the culture, and to help the inculturation of the Gospel in a particular culture. And to help the Pope understand and those who work with him to understand what is going on, and maybe also to help the local Church to relate to the Pope, not as something that is contrary to the life of the Church but [as something] enriching."

Pope's message is Gospel

When asked if the Pope has a particular message for the American people, Archbishop Pierre said, "We know the message of the Pope. The message of the Pope is contained in his main documents, in his many interventions. I would say the message [of the Pope] is the Gospel. Also, the way the Pope wants us to be close to the people, especially those who suffer."

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(Vatican Radio) On Sunday Pope Francis will preside at a special Jubilee Mass for young people, with thousands of teenagers from all over the world expected to attend the celebration in St Peter’s Square. The Mass marks the culmination of a three day event designed especially for youngsters from 13 to 16 years old with the theme “Merciful like the Father”

In a message, signed on the feast of the Epiphany this year, Pope Francis told young people that “to be merciful means to grow in a love which is courageous, generous and real”. Speaking to those travelling to Rome for the Jubilee, he said “Don’t just prepare your rucksacks and your banners, but your hearts and your minds as well”.

One group of young people who’ve been preparing for this event in a special way is the choir from Worth School in the south of England, who’ll be singing in St Peter’s Square during the papal Mass. While the youngsters at the Catholic school sing regularly for liturgies at the adjacent Benedictine abbey, they’re very aware of the significance of being the first British school choir to perform alongside the prestigious Sistine Chapel singers for this event.

Two of the choir members, Eli Barrott and Hannah Teasdale, came to talk to Philippa Hitchen about their experience, accompanied by their music director, Michael Oakley, and by an old boy from their school, Mark Spyropolous, who is now the first Englishman to perform full time with the Sistine Chapel choir.

Listen: 

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As representatives of more than 170 countries gathered at the United Nations in New York on April 22 to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the world body marked International Mother Earth Day on the theme “Trees for the Earth”, launching a project to plant 7.8 billion trees over the next five years for a healthy planet for future generations. 

In a message for the annual observance, UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon noted that the Paris Climate Change Agreement, in conjunction with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, holds the power to transform our world, bringing hope of a better future for all.   “The momentum achieved by so many signatures on one day sends a clear signal of solidarity and resolve,” Ban said, urging the world to “unleash the full force of human ingenuity and ensure low-emission growth and improved climate resilience.”   He noted that small actions, such as making energy-efficient choices, stopping food wastage, reducing our carbon footprints and increasing our sustainable investments, multiplied by billions, will bring about dramatic change, bolstering the Paris Agreement and setting us on a trajectory to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Commenting on planting 7.8 billion trees over the next 5 years, the UN chief said each tree will help absorb harmful CO2 from the atmosphere, store water and filter pollutants for the benefit of all humanity.  As each tree plays its part in the biosphere, so should we as individuals who care about our planet and every living creature on it. A new future can be ours if we respect and invest in Mother Earth, Ban added.  (Source: UN)

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(Vatican Radio) Vatican Weekend for April 24, 2016 features our weekly selection of readings and reflections focusing on  the Sunday Gospel and a bird's eye view of the Vatican week with EWTN bureau chief here in Rome,Joan Lewis. 

A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:

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A year after the deadly earthquake in Nepal, thousands of people, especially women, are being deprived of funds to rebuild because they do not own land or cannot prove they owned the land where they lived, an international anti-poverty organization said on Friday.  Nepal's government requires proof of ownership, but many victims have lost documents and others did not formally own the land where they lived, said Oxfam.  The government this month began distributing grants of 200,000 Nepali rupees ($1,900) to families that can prove they owned land before the earthquake, which struck on April 25, 2015.  The quake killed some 9,000 people, injured more than 22,000 others and damaged or destroyed more than 900,000 houses.  "Families who are landless and who were living on unregistered land are very much uncertain about the future and support that the government had promised," said Prabin Man Singh, research and policy coordinator for Oxfam, who co-authored the report.  "Those families are the poorest and the most vulnerable among the victims." 

Some 3 million people are living in temporary shelters with tarpaulin roofs ahead of Nepal's monsoon season, according to Save the Children, CARE International and other agencies.  Land tenure is largely undocumented in Nepal, and data is limited and contradictory, the Oxfam report said.  It cited one pre-quake government report that said as many as 480,000 families, or 9 percent of the population, did not have access to land, and another report that said a third of Nepal's farmers did not own the land they cultivated.  The United Nations has said a quarter of Nepalese households - about 1.3 million - did not have any land or enough land to support families.  But Oxfam said that in post-earthquake surveys, more than 90 percent of people claimed to own their own land before the disaster.  (Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation‎)

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London, England, Apr 22, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the British government considers measures to name the Islamic State’s persecution of Christians and other religious minorities as genocide, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury has urged the British Parliament to “stand with other governments and international bodies.”

“We are witnessing nothing short of genocide being committed with horrifying cruelty against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East,” Bishop Davies said in an April 21 statement. “Whole communities face annihilation and look to the international community for support.”

His comments follow a unanimous vote in the British House of Commons April 20 in favor of referring to the violence committed by Islamic State – also known as Daesh, or ISIS – against Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria as “genocide.”

The House of Lords had failed only days earlier to recognize the violence as a genocide.

Conservative MP Fiona Bruce received unanimous support in the House of Commons for her motion to label these atrocities “genocide” but the government remains hesitant, citing the rarity of a referring to ongoing acts of war as genocide, rather than waiting for international courts to do so.

“This is ultimately a matter for the courts to decide. It is not for governments to be prosecutor, the judge or indeed jury,” Foreign Officer minister Tobias Ellwood said, the BBC reported.

For her part, Bruce said that recognizing the Islamic State's actions as genocide would “help inject momentum into the international efforts to stop the killings.”

"It would hopefully lead to more active safeguarding of those members of religious minorities on the ground whose lives and very communities currently hang in the balance,” she said, according to the BBC.

Bishop Davies said that “ We must welcome and applaud the decision of the House of Commons to
support the motion moved by Fiona Bruce MP to call upon our own Government to refer these genocidal acts of Daesh to the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court.”

“I hope the British government will reconsider its position and be ready to stand with other governments and international bodies in recognising this crime of genocide,” he added.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared that Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities are victims of genocide at the hands of Islamic State.

Secretary Kerry announced at a news conference March 17 that “in my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.”

During his July 2015 trip to Bolivia, Pope Francis called the plight of persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria “genocide.”

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a continuing effort to protect children, the Catholic Church's focus is now turning to religious orders of men and women.

Much of the attention had been on how dioceses and national bishops' conferences have been responding to victims and protecting children.

But, religious orders and congregations are sometimes left out of that picture, even though they, too, have a duty to make sure every person in their care is safe. Also, the majority of the more than 300,000 Catholic schools and orphanages around the world are run by religious brothers and sisters whose charisms are to promote human dignity and Gospel values.

Pope Francis last year authorized the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to investigate and judge claims of "abuse of office" by bishops who allegedly failed to protect minors and vulnerable adults from sex abuse. But that form of censure "wasn't extended to superior generals, and it should be," said Father John Fogarty, superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Canon Law and the complementary Vatican norms regarding this field "refer only to clergy" -- bishops, priests and deacons -- said Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, president of the Center for Child Protection at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

While the Vatican's doctrinal congregation asked the bishops' conferences to develop guidelines and procedures on how they are adhered to by local bishops, he said religious brothers, religious seminarians before ordination or religious sisters are in a league of their own, and the canonical practice is different.

Each religious order or congregation establishes its own policies, he said. And while some may have a set of guidelines for their whole congregation, in others each province or region is in charge of setting up safeguarding guidelines, Father Zollner told Catholic News Service.

Father Fogarty said his "first priority" after being elected superior of the Spiritans in 2012 was to establish comprehensive guidelines and then ask each of the order's provinces and regions to draw up procedures that would protect children and respect local laws and customs.

"Not everyone is at the same point on the learning curve," he said. But his experience working for the province in Ireland and as provincial superior in the United States "was very helpful for me for formulating policy," said the Dublin-born missionary. He was surrounded by "lots of accumulated wisdom, lots of workshops, all the latest insights and reports," he said.

Since each local superior of his order is responsible for his territory, Father Fogarty said he uses his role "to work with the superiors" and get them all "on the same wavelength."

Not everyone in every part of the world is "at the same point" in recognizing the need to protect and care for children and survivors; "our job is to get them there, put pressure on them to produce adequate policies, procedures, hold workshops" and use every "means at our disposal" to spread awareness and resources. When new superiors meet in Rome each year, one session is dedicated to safeguarding norms, Father Fogarty said.

When leaders don't draw up procedures or get informed, he said, "we can urge them" to, "but we can't do it in their place. We can't replace (the local superior)."

The need to have adequate protection policies and procedures in place for religious orders is urgent since they are present in so many countries around the globe, said Mark Vincent Healy, an advocate in Ireland for services and care for survivors of child sexual abuse.

For example, of the 48 Spiritan priests noted in Ireland's National Board for Safeguarding Children's audit in 2012 as accused of abuse in Ireland, half of them had also served in other countries, including the United States, Canada, Sierra Leone and Kenya, Healy has said.

In Healy's situation, the Spiritan priest who abused him at the school the order ran in Ireland was transferred to a Spiritan-run school in Sierra Leone, where he allegedly abused again before being convicted in Ireland and laicized.

Healy's case was handled in Ireland -- the country where the abuse occurred -- but, he said, victims of Irish missionaries in other countries, particularly Africa, lack clear or any channels at all for reporting and redress.

The church already responds to the psychological, emotional and spiritual fallout of victims of war in many of those countries, Healy said, so why not extend that same care and concern to victims of abuse by its own members.

Healy said he was looking at ways the order and the church as a whole could provide services across jurisdictions, especially "in countries where there are no structures" to help survivors and communities.

One proposal, which he also discussed with Father Fogarty, was the creation of a global network modeled after Doctors Without Borders. Instead of addressing physical harm, the network could specialize in delivering mental health care services to people suffering from trauma caused by war, civil conflicts and abuse in underdeveloped nations.

By offering comprehensive mental health services, perhaps "you can alleviate the suffering and bring some function back to a dysfunctional society. Otherwise, violence will just repeat itself," Healy said.

Father Zollner said that in some places in Asia and parts of Africa, the Catholic Church "is the organization that is doing more to safeguard minors than other groups."

In some areas, he said, "if you didn't have the church, you would have nothing there" to look after and care for the most vulnerable.

One example, he said, is Bishop Emanuel Barbara of Malindi, Kenya. The bishop, who's a Capuchin priest from Malta, "set up the first help desk in the whole country" for victims of the sex-tourism industry there. "All the others, including those who legitimately have the power, just look away from the problem, there is much money involved," Father Zollner said.

With one in five children in Europe expected to be victims of some form of abuse, according to the Council of Europe, and global estimates reporting 40 million children are subjected to abuse each year, many child protection advocates want to see more action and cooperation among all sectors of society.

"If the Catholic Church can address it, then the larger human family can, too," Healy said. The church can't keep being seen as sole perpetrator and healer "because that's not working."

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