Catholic News 2

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(Vatican Radio) Residents of the most isolated and war-ravaged parts of Syria are desperately awaiting the arrival of promised food aid and other emergency supplies. The Syrian government agreed yesterday to allow humanitarian deliveries to some of the most isolated areas. Tens of thousands of people are said to be facing the imminent threat of death by starvation.

Caritas Internationalis has launched an international campaign with its regional partners in the Middle East to pressure the international community to act decisively to bring the nearly five-year-old civil war in Syria to an end.

The General Secretary of Caritas Internationalis, Michel Roy, told us there is real danger of losing sight of the terrible human toll of the conflict.

Listen to Susy Hodges’ interview with Michel Roy:

Caritas Internationalis, together with its colleagues, all agree that Syria is at the heart of a geo-political struggle in which the Syrian people "count for nothing."

"When we met last September we agreed to ask the international community to seek peace," Roy said. "The problem is that the international community will talk about peace but will not include Assad in its talks. This means, according to Roy, that "we go on with the war."

Caritas Internationalis therefore decided to launch a campaign for peace in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East so as to exert pressure on the governments there and around to the world to make sincere, inclusive efforts at a workable peace process. The objective is to overcome international indifference toward the Syrian people. "After five years," says Roy, "war in Syria has become normal."

Roy also reminds listeners that what we cannot forget is that "Daesh" (the so-called Islamic State) was born in Syria and is the same movement that killed so many innocent civilians in the Paris massacre. 

Citing Fr Timothy Radcliffe, Roy states that to end the war we need to allow all Syrians to sit down together. Peace is not going to come from those who have strong financial or geo-political interests in the process, like the US, Russia, arms manufacturers and oil executives.

“Daesh [Islamic State] is comprised of educated people,” Roy says. Such people, he notes, were educated in Europe, worked with Saddam Hussein, and were educated in America. Even if it makes the international community uncomfortable, they need to be included in talks in order to bring an end to the Syrian war.

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(Vatican Radio)  The annual Holy Land Coordination pilgrimage of bishops from Europe, North America, and South Africa is already underway in Bethlehem and the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The Church leaders are visiting local parishes, schools and development organizations to show the support of the worldwide Christian community and gain insights into the complex political and religious problems underlying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ahead of their main meetings from January 9th to 14th, the bishops spent two days in Gaza to see how people there are recovering from the 2014 conflict in which over 2.000 people were killed.

Fr. Mario da Silva, a Brazilian priest from the Institute of the Incarnate Word, is the parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza.

Vatican Radio’s Christopher Wells is travelling with the bishops and spoke to Fr. Mario da Silva about the life of his parish community.

Listen to the full interview:

Fr. Mario da Silva said the major problem in Gaza is not the 2014 war but, rather, the wall. People living in Gaza cannot leave the area for vacation or work so poverty is a major problem there.

Speaking about the Holy Family Parish, Fr. da Silva said it bears its name proudly, since the Holy Family surely passed through the area from Jerusalem on their way to exile in Egypt, as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. It is also traditionally known as the deathplace of the Old Testament figure Samson, from the book of Judges.

Fr. da Silva said the Christian population is a minority and faces pressures from the Muslim community and the government so keeping true to their faith is 'not easy'.

He said that the parish tries to offer two types of help, both spiritual and material. "These people are suffering so much. We can help them to keep their faith ... with our advice, our preaching, the Mass, the Sacraments. But also we must help them with material things because they are very poor."

After mentioning to the Patriarch that his parishioners could not enter Jerusalem to receive the graces of the Holy Year, Fr. Mario received permission to open a Holy Door for the Jubilee Year in his little parish. "It is a very big grace for us, for all the people in the Gaza Strip."

To conclude the interview, Fr. da Silva said he would like to share with the world how much he had learned from the people of Gaza, from their witness of faith. "They are so strong in their faith. They prefer to lose all things but to keep their faith. They are a small number, just 130 Catholic Christians, but they are keeping their faith, and it is very, very beautiful to see this."

Archbishop Brislin is also on the Holy Land Coordination visit to Gaza and spoke about how people in Gaza are determined to rebuild their lives, despite the lack of any political initiatives for a lasting peace in the region.

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(Vatican Radio) In many societies today, the utterance of a simple phrase, “I am a Christian”, is a crime punishable by death. So widespread is this persecution that Pope Francis called it a “third world war, waged piecemeal ... a form of genocide”.

The Holy Father spoke primarily of those many who are dying for the Faith today. Yet many more Christians live in constant danger. According to reliable estimates, more than 200 million Christians in 60 countries around the world face some form of restriction on their faith.

Persecution is happening today on a massive scale, and the perpetrators are from everywhere on the globe. They draw their motivation from a wide range of ideologies, from materialistic, from a wide range of ideologies, from materialistic communism to radical Islam. They charge Christians with crimes such as sedition and blasphemy. Persecution is taking place in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, India, China, Nigeria, Sudan, North Korea, and many other lands. It is happening in plain sight. Sometimes the persecutors brazenly post video footage of the execution of Christians on social media.

Yet it is hardly remarked upon in major media outlets. It is barely noticed by diplomats and heads of state. It is, in fact, treated as a political liability. Christian martyrs, it has been said, are too religious to excite the interest of the American left and too foreign to rouse the interest of the right. And so martyrs are abandoned to their fight, left to suffer alone. We see the truth in the observation of the poet W.H. Auden: “even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course / Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot.”

The above text is from the preface of Cardinal Wuerl’s recent book, To the Martyrs: A Christian Reflection on the Supreme Witness (Steubenville, Ohio, Emmaus Road, 2015, 135 pages, US $22.95) with introduction by Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl is Archbishop of Washington, DC in the United States. The Archdiocese of Washington is home to over 620,000 Catholics living in Washington and five Maryland counties: Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.

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(Vatican Radio)  Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel says she wants to make it easier to deport migrants who commit crimes following the sexual assaults on women in Cologne. Yet, Eastern European leaders suggest it is to little to late with Hungary's prime minister urging the closure of European Union borders to migrants fleeing war and poverty.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his anti-migrant rhetoric, told Hungarian radio that ending what the flow of migrants fleeing war and poverty would be in his words "the decisive issue of 2016". 

Orbán, whose right-wing government already built fences along the Croatian and Serbian borders, also called for the construction of what he described as a "European defense line" on Greece's northern borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria.

He said the flow of migrants entering the European Union must be fully stopped, not just slowed.

Critics say that Hungary's government forgot that hundreds of thousands fled following the crushed 1956 Revolution against Soviet domination and that nowadays hundreds of thousands of Hungarians works as migrants in Western Europe. 

Arguments rejected

However Orbán has rejected those arguments saying Hungarians working in countries such as Britain should not be seen as 'migrants'. He made clear to state radio that he rejects British plans to cut benefits for Eastern Europeans. "All the Hungarian workers who are in Britain contribute more to the economy than they receive in social benefits," he said.

He cited British statistics as saying there are some 800,000 Polish workers and 55,000 Hungarian workers in Britain. 

Orbán made clear however that he fears that the influx of mainly Muslim migrants and refugees into Europe means that EU citizens including Hungarians "are increasingly losing the possibility of free movement".

He said no "one except Hungarians" protected the external borders of the EU's passport free Schengen zone, and that therefore "borders, defenses, visa systems, border controls and fences are being created" inside that area. 

Muslim migrants

His comments came after the prime minister of neighboring Slovakia, Robert Fico, said his country does not want to accept more Muslim migrants and that he rejected the EU's mandatory quota system for the distribution of refugees among the 28 EU member states. Slovakia and Hungary have launched court cases against the quota system.     

Fico also said the EU should speed up plans to create a border and coast guard agency aimed at improving the protection of the bloc's external borders following the assaults and robberies during the New Year's Eve festivities in Cologne, Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she wants to make it easier to deport migrants who commit crimes following the sex attacks on women in Cologne, but Eastern European leaders suggest it is to little to late. 

Under current German laws, asylum seekers are only forced back if they have been sentenced to at least three years imprisonment and providing their lives are not at risk in their countries of origin.

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Vatican City, Jan 9, 2016 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid the lengthy process of reforming Vatican communications, the Secretariat of State has stated that the Holy See press office's administrative and human resources branches are to be handed over to the new Secretariat for Communications.

The announcement came in a Dec. 21, 2015 letter signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State.

The letter also noted that the press office's Bollettino, used to deliver official information, will remain under the control of the state secretariat, in accordance with Pastor bonus, the 1988 apostolic constitution of St. John Paul II which regulates the functions and tasks of the Roman Curia's dicasteries and departments.

The Holy See press office's other activities, however, will be coordinated with the communications secretariat so as to “secure the unification of all the communications processes, which are within the competence of the Secretariat for Communications.”

Cardinal Parolin’s letter recalls that the Pope entrusted the Secretariat for Communication with a “comprehensive restructuring” of all Holy See communications efforts.

The drafting of the statutes of the Secretariat for Communication is still underway, but the letter clarifies that the Holy See press office will be part of the new secretariat.

The project for the restructuring of Vatican media is proceeding on a four-year plan. According to a source within the Secretariat for Communications, “the secretariat will take over control of the delivery of official information at the end of that term, and the passage of competences from the Secretariat of State to the communications secretariat will be gradually assessed in the course of these four years.”

The same say as Cardinal Parolin's letter was delivered, the Holy See press office announed the appointment of Greg Burke as its deputy director, and of Stefano D’Agostini as director of the Vatican Television Center.

Burke has served as the Secretariat of State’s senior advisor for communication for three years; he will replace the current deputy director, Fr. Ciro Benedettini, who will retire as he will turn 70 in February. Burke is likely to serve as a liaison between the state and communications secretariats.

D’Agostini has spent all of his career within the Vatican Television Center. He replaces Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, who is now prefect of the Secretariat for Communications. D’Agostini was “technical head” at CTV, and will largely manage the organization of filming, while the Secretariat for Communications will manage the content.

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications will likely be absorbed by the Secretariat for Communications, which is expected to move its headquarters to the building which currently hosts the pontifical council.

Archbishop Celli, currently president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, will turn 75 in July, reaching retirement age. He is not expected to be replaced.

Archbishop Celli's deputy, Monsignor Paul Tighe, was transferred Dec. 19, 2015, to the Pontifical Council for Culture. He is to be its adjunct secretary, and will be consecrated a bishop.

At the conclusion of the four-year plan for the reform of Vatican media, it is likely that all offices involved in Vatican communications will be under the control of the Secretariat for Communications. Moreover, a unified newsroom to manage news content is being studied.

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(Vatican Radio)  The most wanted drug trafficker in the world has been recaptured by Mexican Authorities for a second time, but the issue of whether he'll be extradited to the United States, has yet to be resolved.

Listen to James Blears' report:

Mexican Authorities say the raid in Los Mochis City in the North Western State of Sinaloa, followed a tipoff. 

Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman was arrested along with five other people, but not before five of his bodyguards died in a fierce gun battle with Navy Marines who spearheaded a joint miltary, police and intelligences services operation.

Among an array of weapons seized are a rocket launcher primed with a grenade, and two fifty caliber sniper rifles. 

Surrounded by heavily armed special forces, Guzman was bundled on to a light plane. His current where abouts are not being revealed.

Originally arrested in 1993 in Guatemala, Guzman bribed his way out of a maximum security jail in 2001, less than a week before he was due to be extradited to the United States.  

A fugutive for 13 years, he was arrested in February 2014.  But then escaped yet again, this time via a 1.5km tunnel from another so called maximum security prison. That blunder happened last July.

At the National Palace in Mexico City, flanked by his Attorney General, Minister of the Interior, National Security Chief, plus the heads of the Army and Navy.

Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto praised this latest operation as a triumph of law and order.  Yet no announcement about extradition to the US for Guzman, where escape from super-max incarceration might well prove utterly impossible.

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