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(Vatican Radio) Four Central and Eastern European nations are discussing a controversial plan to close off Macedonia's and Bulgaria's borders with Greece to migrants fleeing war and poverty. The plan promoted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor  Orbán is being discussed at a summit of leaders of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia known as the Visegrad Group.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report

The 25th anniversary meeting of the Visegrad Group in Prague is overshadowed by the mini-bloc's concern about the influx of refugees into Europe. That's why the Visegrad countries are set to call for the closure of the Balkan route to refugees traveling to Western Europe.

If it's up to Hungarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán more razor wire fences will be build on Macedonia's and Bulgaria's borders with Greece. "Greece is unable to protect Europe from the south. This is why we Hungarians suggest to draw a new line of defense," he said. "At the Bulgarian-Greek and Macedonian-Greek border. And from this line of defense we ensure the security of the continent."     

He and other Visegrad leaders are also ready to help boost border security, an issue that was expected to be raised during their separate talks with officials from Macedonia and Bulgaria.

EU CONCERNED

European Union officials have expressed frustration that the Visegrad countries who benefited greatly from EU subsidies and freedom of movement for their own citizens now balk at requests to accept even small numbers of refugees.

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn mad clear he hopes the regional grouping would "not become becoming a dissenting bloc within the EU." He warned "a debate could be launched that everyone who experiences solidarity from Brussels should also express solidarity with others."   

The Visegrad nations maintain it is impossible to integrate Muslims into their societies, often describing them as security threats. So far Poles, Czechs and Slovaks have only accepted small numbers of refugees, primarily Christians from Syria.

Yet, several Western leaders accuse them of xenophobia and hypocrisy, saying huge numbers of Poles, Hungarians and other Eastern Europeans have received refuge and economic opportunity in the West for decades.

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(Vatican Radio) One of the highlights of Pope Francis’ six day visit to Mexico was the Mass that he  celebrated at the sports centre of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southern state of Chiapas on the morning of Monday February 15th .

As our correspondent in Mexico, Veronica Scarisbrick reports, it was a colourful celebration for the thousands of indigenous people who turned out to welcome the man they call “amigo Francisco, Papa de la libertad” or "our friend Francis, Pope of freedom".

Listen: 

He had chosen to be with the indigenous people of Chiapas. And they turned up in their gaudy traditional costumes providing a splash of colour in this beautiful mountainous region where nature reigns. And the sound of rather elaborate wooden xylophones filled the air.

It was a highly symbolic celebration, firstly because in this remote area, home to the Mayan people, the altar stood against backdrop of a giant cut out the colorful ocre, rust and white façade of the city’s Cathedral, placed there to indicate the connection with the centuries old evangelization initially by the Spanish Dominicans.

Secondly because the altar in this region of  Mayan temples in misty jungles, waterfalls and a wealth of wildlife rested on a Mayan Pyramid symbolic of steps reaching up to heaven. Meaning how Christian faith does not clash with the cultural roots of a people. And the altar itself evoked the waterfalls of ‘Agua Azul’, so an expression of the harmonious contact with nature, of the abundance of the rainforest.

And the Mayan people reached here in great numbers, 150.000 of them, from right across Chiapas. For the record there are 12 federally recognized ethnicities. The largest group being the ‘Chamulans’, a subset of the ‘Tzotzil Mayas’ who make up a third of Chiapas' nearly one million indigenous people

And the Pope’s presence here took on meaning. He had chosen to  be with a people who have long been used and misused by the local ‘ladinos’, those of Spanish origin and the ‘mestizos’, those of mixed race. To put you in the picture not so long ago the indigenous people were only allowed into town for the market but had to return to their homes in the pine forests at night. That’s when they weren’t misused as easy labour.

And in his homily Pope Francis had words of comfort relating to this exclusion of the indigenous people from society. Highlighting how on many an occasion some have considered the values and culture of this people’s traditions to be inferior. How others intoxicated by power, money and market trends had stolen their lands or contaminated them. How sad, the Pope said to this people from whom he insisted we have a lot to learn. Your peoples know how to interact harmoniously with nature which they respect as a source of food, a common home and an altar of human sharing.

And finally, symbolic of the acceptance of these people, Pope Francis made sure these long ostracized Mayans got a chance during this Holy Mass to speak in their own languages:  tseltal, ch’ol and tsotil.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Feb 15, 2016 / 11:24 am (CNA).- A virtual pilgrimage for Pope Francis’ trip now offers a new street-view perspective of key sites and churches. The project is thanks to a partnership between the Archdiocese of Mexico and tech giant Google.

Miguel Alva, the director of marketing for Google in Mexico, explained the project.

“When we started looking at key messages from Pope Francis throughout the entire term that he’s been serving, we saw a lot about opening the doors of the Church,” he told CNA Feb. 13.

“So we started doing a project with street view, using street view technology to capture about 80 different churches, emblematic churches in Mexico. That includes, for the first time, the cathedral in Mexico City and also the Basilica for Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

Alva has worked closely alongside the Archdiocese of Mexico to prepare for Pope Francis’ Feb. 12-17 visit.

Once the Pope made the official announcement of his visit during Mass on the Dec. 12 feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Google immediately received a letter from Cardinal Norberto Rivera, archbishop of Mexico. The cardinal asked for help to make the visit go viral.

The archdiocese asked the tech company “for any advice that we could provide to take this entire visit to digital,” Alva said. The local Church made it a priority reach a new audience, specifically the youth, “who are basically online and not necessarily on traditional media.”

“So we went back and started giving some advice on their website, making it fully mobile and also including some of our platforms to make this visit better for any user,” he continued.

Working on the project “has been just amazing,” Alva said. The Google team was given special access to places that are normally closed to the public.

Now these places are available online to people all over the world.

This, Alva said, is “a symbol (and) a gift we want to give the Pope and people all over the world.”

“If you are in bed because you are sick and you want to do a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe, now you can do it,” he said. All that’s needed is to go into Google’s street view of the basilica and start navigating.

Viewers can take a virtual walk through the entire complex of Tepeyac, and go straight “to the feet of the Virgin, having that moment to reflect and to pray with the Virgin.”

Francis himself visited the Guadalupe shrine on Saturday. He has said many times that the primary reason he is traveling to Mexico is to visit the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the tilma of St. Juan Diego 470 years ago.

Google Calendar users can schedule the Pope’s entire agenda in Mexico into their own calendar. They can set reminders on their phone or computer to alert them of the activities they don’t want to miss.

Additionally, Google Maps has laid out all the routes Pope Francis is set to take while on the ground. This will allow those who want to see the Pope the ability to find him. For those who want to avoid the crowds, the maps offer detour routes.
 
The Pope’s public events are being transmitted live on YouTube, as well as on the official Spanish website of the Pope’s visit.

One of the perks of the new street view tour is that pilgrims can also follow the path of participants in the Jubilee of Mercy. They can virtually pass through the Holy Doors at the entrance of the cathedral of Mexico City and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Alva said that so far, Google’s traffic in Spanish has jumped during the Pope’s visit. Traffic increases are seen primarily in Mexico, Latin America, Spain and among Hispanics in the U.S.

“We’ve been monitoring the different tools and we see a high traffic. Its people who not only go in, but they also spend a lot of time,” Alva said.

Normally, the average person doesn’t spend long on the sites they visit. However, for the Pope’s trip, the numbers have consistently been above five minutes.

While the official website for the Pope’s visit is only available in Spanish, people from 123 countries have accessed it.

The main traffic comes from primarily Spanish speaking countries, or countries with a Spanish speaking population, with Mexico in the lead. This is followed by the U.S., Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Guatemala, Canada, Brazil and Italy.

Alva said that the website has also been accessed from countries such as Andorra, Azerbaijan, Japan and even the city of Macau in China.

This isn’t the first time the Catholic Church – or the Vatican – have partnered with Google for a project. In fact, last year Pope Francis participated in a Feb. 5, 2015, Google Hangout session with seven special needs youth from around the world.

It marked the pontiff’s second hangout session since becoming pope. His first was held with high school students in September 2014. That event helped promote the “Scholas Social” website, dedicated to raising funds for educational projects that promote interaction between schools with various social challenges.

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Carlos Barria, Reuters

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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died of apparent natural causes Feb. 13 while in Texas on a hunting trip, once said in an interview that while he took his Catholic faith seriously, he never allowed it to influence his work on the high court.

"I don't think there's any such thing as a Catholic judge," Scalia told The Catholic Review, Baltimore's archdiocesan newspaper, in 2010. "There are good judges and bad judges. The only article in faith that plays any part in my judging is the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Lie.'"

Scalia said it wasn't his job to make policy or law, but to "say only what the law provides."

On the issue of abortion, for example, he told the Review that "if I genuinely thought the Constitution guaranteed a woman's right to abortion, I would be on the other (side)," said Scalia, who long held that abortion is not guaranteed in the Constitution. "It would (have) nothing with my religion," he said. "It has to do with my being a lawyer."

He was widely regarded as an "originalist," who said the best method for judging cases was examining what the Founding Fathers meant when writing the Constitution.

"My burden is not to show that originalism is perfect, but that it beats the other alternatives," he said in a 2010 lecture.

Nominated to the high court in June 1986 by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the Senate that September, Scalia was the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court. He was 79.

With his death, there are now five Catholics among the remaining eight justices.

According to an AP story, Scalia's body was flown on a private plane from Texas to Virginia, arriving late the night of Feb. 14. No funeral arrangements had been announced as of midday Feb. 15.

Scalia was found dead the morning of Feb. 13 in his room at Cibolo Creek Ranch south of Marfa, Texas. The justice was part of a group of 30 or so guests on a hunting trip. Ranch owner John Poindexter told reporters that the justice seemed his usual self at dinner Feb. 12 but also noted Scalia had told his group he was tired and had turned in early. When Scalia didn't appear for breakfast the next morning, Poindexter and another staff member went to check on him and found the justice in "in complete repose" in his room.

By mid-afternoon Feb. 13, Judge Cinderela Guevara of Presidio County, Texas, determined he had died of natural causes. Before making her ruling, she said, she consulted with sheriff's investigators, who were on the scene and who said there were no signs of foul play. Guevara said she also talked with Scalia's physician in Washington; a few days before his hunting trip, the jurist told his doctor he was not feeling well.

The Scalia family felt a private autopsy was unnecessary and requested that his body be returned to Washington as soon as possible, according to Chris Lujan of Sunset Funeral Homes in El Paso, Texas, about 195 miles northwest of Marfa. The facility received Scalia's body and handled the transport of his remains to Virginia.

"We are all deeply saddened by the sudden and unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia," said Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, Virginia, the diocese Scalia and his wife of nearly 56 years, Maureen McCarthy Scalia, called home.

"His presence among us encouraged us to be faithful to our own responsibilities whether familial, religious or vocational. His wisdom brought clarity to issues. His witness to truth enabled us to seek to do the same," the bishop said in a statement.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said of Scalia: "I admired his strong and unwavering faith in the Lord and his dedication to serving our country by upholding the U.S. Constitution." He noted that every year, Scalia attended the Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. The Mass is celebrated to invoke God's blessings on those who work in the administration of justice.

Besides his wife, Scalia is survived by the couple's five sons and four daughters as well as 36 grandchildren. Their son, Father Paul Scalia, is a priest of the Arlington Diocese.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936, and raised on Long Island, Antonin "Nino" Gregory Scalia was an only child. His father, Salvatore, was an Italian immigrant from Sicily, who worked as a clerk and was a graduate student when his son was born. Salvatore eventually became a college professor. Antonin's mother, born in Trenton to Italian immigrant parents, was an elementary school teacher.

In 1953, young Antonin graduated first in his class from Jesuit-run Xavier High School in the New York borough of Manhattan. He graduated from Jesuit-run Georgetown University in 1957, and went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1960.

Scalia moved to Cleveland, practicing law there with the firm of Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis until 1967. He then joined the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. He took a leave in 1971 when President Richard Nixon appointed him general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy.

He left the university in 1974, when he was appointed assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at Department of Justice. In 1977, Scalia returned to teaching. He was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School. He also was a visiting professor at the law schools of Georgetown and Stanford University.

In 1982, Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where he served until being named to the Supreme Court.

In other reaction in Washington to Scalia's death, The Catholic University of America in a Feb. 15 statement called him "a man who loved his family, his faith, his country and the Constitution that established it."

"He insisted that there is no such thing as a Catholic judge, only good and bad ones," the university said. "But in his 30 years on the Supreme Court, he offered a model for American Catholics of how we might serve both God and country."

In 1994, Catholic University honored Scalia with the James Cardinal Gibbons Medal, given for service to the nation, the Catholic Church or the university. In 1999, the university gave Scalia an honorary degree.

In 2010, the St. Thomas More Society of Maryland honored Scalia with its "Man for All Seasons Award," given to members of the legal profession who embody the ideals of St. Thomas More.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese of the Military Services said Feb. 15 that Scalia "was a brilliant jurist who contributed much to the country and I mourn his passing. We are all poorer, because he no longer walks among us, but richer, because of the gifts he shared with us."

In 1992, Scalia told a group of high school students at Washington's Georgetown Visitation High School that, as Catholics, they might feel out of step with the rest of the world, but they should learn to accept it and take pride in it.

He said he was raised a Catholic when the religion was not in the mainstream.

"When I was the age of you young ladies, the church provided obtrusive reminders that we were different,'' he said, referring to meatless Fridays and Sunday morning fasts before receiving Communion. These practices "were not just to toughen us up'' but to "require us to be out of step,'' he said.

Scalia noted the sense of "differentness'' should have enabled Catholics "to be strong enough on bigger issues'' such as abortion, contraception and divorce.

He also spoke of what he called the necessary distinction between church and state.

"The business of the state is not God's business,'' he said.

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Contributing to this story was George P. Matysek Jr. and Carol Zimmermann.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (CNS) -- Paying homage to the culture and ancient wisdom of Mexico's indigenous peoples, Pope Francis urged them to hold on to hope and condemned those who exploit their people and their land.

"Some have considered your values, culture and traditions to be inferior. Others, intoxicated by power, money and market trends, have stolen your lands or contaminated them," the pope said at a Mass Feb. 15 with representatives of Mexico's indigenous communities.

"You have much to teach us," he told the elders, activists and simple faithful gathered at a sports complex in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a city in Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, and a center of advocacy and struggle for the indigenous rights.

Chiapas, and particularly the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, also has been a center of official Catholic support for indigenous culture, support that was not always shared by all of Mexico's bishops.

During his stay in the city, Pope Francis communicated the Vatican's official approval of the use of the local languages in liturgical prayer. Two of the languages -- Tzotzil and Tzeltal -- were used for some of the readings and prayers during the pope's Mass. And, after the pope read his homily in Spanish, it was translated for the many in the crowd who speak only their Mayan tongue.

It was under Pope Francis that the diocese was allowed to start ordaining permanent deacons again in 2014 after ordering a 12-year suspension. The vast majority of the diocese's more than 300 permanent deacons are married leaders in their indigenous communities; the late Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia began ordaining large numbers of the leaders in a program of pastoral outreach that many saw as exaggerating the place of indigenous culture in the local church, but also as a potential first step toward pushing for married priests for indigenous communities.

As the pope toured the crowd in the popemobile, a priest led the people in chanting: "Welcome, pope of peace. Welcome, pope of mercy. Welcome, pope of justice. Welcome, pope of freedom. Welcome, pope of the struggle."

The cheer also hailed the pope for wanting "a church that is born of the people" and bishops and priests who are "alongside the poor."

To applause, the priest also acclaimed, "The people walk with Tatic Samuel (Bishop Ruiz) and Tatic Francis, who encourages us." Tatic is the Mayan word for father.

In a country rich in natural resources, but scarred by pollution and inequality, Pope Francis compared the indigenous communities to the ancient Israelites enslaved in Egypt, and he assured them that God hears their cry for dignity and respect and their longing to protect their cultures.

In responding to the oppression of the Israelites, the pope said, God showed them his true face, "the face of a father who suffers as he sees the pain, mistreatment and lack of justice for his children."

"They say that Chiapas is a rich state, but we don't know where these riches are," said Manuel Mendez, a vegetable farmer. Wearing a lambs-wool robe at Mass, Mendez comes from the tough indigenous town of San Juan Chamula -- where the local authorities clashed with Bishop Ruiz and refused to allow his priests to serve while he led the diocese.

The federal and state governments have sent enormous sums of money to Chiapas since the 1994 Zapatista uprising of indigenous, but poverty rates have remained unchanged and still top 75 percent of the population.

"It's better, but there are still great needs," said Domingo Lopez, a corn farmer from the municipality of Oxchuc, who camped out overnight in the cold at the Mass site with 11 family members.

Pope Francis quoted "Popol Vuh," a collection of traditional indigenous literature, which says, "The dawn rises on all of the tribes together. The face of the earth was immediately healed by the sun." The story, he said, illustrates how "the sun rose for the people who at various times have walked in the midst of history's darkest moments."

The quotation expresses a yearning for freedom and for reaching "a promised land where oppression, mistreatment and humiliation are not the currency of the day," Pope Francis said.

Mexico's indigenous and many other people around the world still yearn for such a land and "for a time when human corruption will be overcome by fraternity, when injustice will be conquered by solidarity and when violence will be silenced by peace."

Today, too, God suffers when his children do, he said.  In his greatest sign of solidarity with humanity, God sent his son into the world to live like them and to suffer and die to save them.

God's son rose "so that darkness may not have the last word and dawn may not cease to rise on the lives of his sons and daughters," the pope told the people.

The yearning for freedom and a bright future is something to hold on to and keep alive, Pope Francis said. People must resist attempts others make to silence their yearning, "anesthetize our soul" or "lull our children" into thinking that nothing can change and their dreams will never come true.

The main road leading to the sports center was decorated with banners featuring photos of local people and quotations from Pope Francis, many of them from his encyclical, "Laudato Si'," on safeguarding creation.

At the Mass, the pope praised the indigenous people's wisdom in caring for the earth and encouraged their efforts to defend it from further destruction.

"The environmental challenge that we are experiencing and its human causes, affect us all and demands our response," he said. "We can no longer remain silent before one of the greatest environmental crises in world history."

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Contributing to this story was David Agren in San Cristobal de Las Casas.

Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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