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(Vatican Radio) Its name, in Gaelic, means ‘friend of the missions’. Its work provides life-saving support for vulnerable communities in over 50 countries worldwide. And its members are hoping that Pope Francis may be able to see this vital outreach to the margins firsthand during his expected visit to Dublin for the World Meeting of Families in August 2018.

This week the Irish faith-based missionary movement Misean Cara is launching its new five year plan, focused on key areas of education, healthcare, sustainable development and human rights. The new strategy is based on a global consultation with over a thousand beneficiaries in more than ten countries and highlights a particular concern for women and children, refugees or displaced people, and the disabled.

The CEO of Misean Cara, Heydi Foster, embodies many of the goals and values that the organisation seeks seeks to promote. Born in Guatemala to parents educated by missionaries, her family suffered under the military dictatorship and she was forced to flee, first to Mexico, then to the United States. She puts her own “faith, resilience and hope” down to that experience which profoundly affects her work with the Dublin-based Misean Cara today…

Listen to Heydi Foster talking to Philippa Hitchen:

Heydi explains that the organisation is a thriving missionary movement, which works closely with its 90 members to deliver emergency and development aid to the most needy communities, largely in developing countries.

Schools in South Sudan

She gives an example of an education project, supported by Misean Cara and run by the Loreto sisters for girls in South Sudan, where “the economy has collapsed and war and famine are stifling development”. She cites shocking statistics, showing that a teenage girl in South Sudan is “seven times more likely to die in childbirth, than to complete secondary school”.

Advocating for girls' rights

Alongside running primary and secondary schools for girls in Rumbek, the Loreto sisters are also training teachers and advocating for girls’ rights to education – at “great personal risk” in such an unstable situation. Missionaries are best placed to respond to emergencies and conflicts, she says, because they stay in countries for decades and are there before, during and after, as communities begin to rebuild.

Transparency and sustainability

Among the main challenges that Misean Cara faces today, the CEO highlights the need to ensure that the organisation continues to fund projects that support  those most in need, as well as responding to new emergencies. She stresses Misean Cara’s commitment to transparency, guaranteeing that all money donated to emergency projects, goes “100%  to our members”.

Heydi Foster also notes that all the members of her organisation take child safeguarding very seriously and are “seen as leaders across Europe in this area”

Invitation to Pope Francis

Finally she issues a special invitation to Pope Francis, saying “I would love it if, next year when he comes to Ireland, he would visit Misean Cara!”

Find out more about how to become a change-maker with Misean Cara at www.miseancara.ie

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From Libya to Syria, grinding conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East have damaged health infrastructure and compromised water and sanitation services, threatening the health of 24 million children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday. “Violence is crippling health systems in conflict-affected countries and threatens children’s very survival,” Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa said on 24 May.  “Beyond the bombs, bullets and explosions, countless children are dying in silence from diseases that could easily be prevented and treated.”

Millions of children in Yemen, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Libya and Sudan are lacking nutritious food and being deprived of essential health care. Moreover, water and sanitation services have been compromised, causing waterborne diseases to spread. “When children can’t access healthcare or improved nutrition, when they drink contaminated water, when they live surrounded by waste with no sanitation, they become ill and some die as a result,” Cappelaere said. “There is very little standing between them and life-threatening illness, especially when humanitarian access is denied.”

Yemen - ‎9.6 million children in need‎

The two-year conflict in Yemen between forces loyal to the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour ‎Hadi and those allied to the Houthi rebel movement, has plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises with widespread acute malnutrition leaving some 9.6 million children in need.   For more than seven months, health care and sanitation workers have not been paid and contaminated water sources, untreated sewage and uncollected garbage have sparked a cholera outbreak, with 323 associated deaths in the last month alone.

Syria - 5.8 million children in need

The conflict in Syria has rendered 5.8 million children in need. Lifesaving supplies are regularly removed from the few entering convoys and many children lack vaccinations. Those who need it, struggle to get treatment as attacks on health facilities have become commonplace – almost 20 per month between January and March this year. The few operational hospitals function with limited staff while the threat of polio – such as the outbreak that hit Syria in 2013 – still looms.

Iraq – 5.1 million children at risk

In Iraq, where 5.1 million children are at risk, water supplies in camps for the displaced around Mosul are stretched to the limit as new families arriving daily – many with malnourished children. UNICEF estimates that for the past seven months, 85,000 children have been trapped in western Mosul, with limited medical access and no humanitarian aid.

Libya – 1.3 children will lack vaccination

Immunization programmes in Libya have been challenged since the 2011conflict erupted, with suspected measles cases reported among young children. Without new funding, over 1.3 million children will not be vaccinated against the highly contagious and potentially fatal measles and rubella.

Sudan – 2.3 million children in need

In just eight months, over 8,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea have been recorded in Sudan’s conflict-affected areas, which are set to rise rapidly once the rainy season begins in June. Some 2.3 million children there are in need.

Across these countries, UNICEF is working to provide children with safe water, water treatment, medical and nutrition supplies but as conflicts continue, and amid a shrinking humanitarian space, challenges to reach all vulnerable children with lifesaving assistance are growing.  (Source: UN)

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(Vatican Radio) The Vatican’s Secretary of State has assured participants at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction that the Holy See stands ever ready to make its own specific contribution as the Forum works to meet the urgent challenges before us.

In a letter addressed to the President of Mexico who is overseeing the Global Platform taking place this year in Cancun, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said that “in the name of His Holiness Pope Francis, I express the hope that the work of the Global Platform will prove useful, fruitful and effective for enabling resilience to go hand in hand with the development of a genuine, responsible and fraternal cooperation grounded in the common good”.

The Platform, which sees the participation of over 5,000 experts, including policy makers and disaster risk managers, is the world's foremost gathering of stakeholders committed to reducing disaster risk and building the resilience of communities and nations.

In his letter Cardinal Parolin recalled the adoption in 2015 of three Plans of Action which he said are  profoundly interrelated and significant for the future of humanity: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction;  the Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change.  

The year 2017, he pointed out, represents an important step in the process of determining the most concrete and effective means for their implementation.

The Cardinal emphasized that one of the major challenges is that of integrating activities for disaster risk reduction with initiatives aimed at promoting integral human development, eliminating poverty and social exclusion, mitigating climate change and adapting to it.

He quoted repeatedly from Pope Francis’s encyclicals and addresses and addresses to Seminar’s on issues regarding environmental justice and said it is necessary to take into account the correct order of priorities, such as combating poverty, responding to climate change, advancing the acknowledgment of human dignity and the centrality of the human person.

He said that a correct implementation of the three documents mentioned above demands a change of mentality and of lifestyle pointing out that obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction.

Please find below the full text of Cardinal Parolin’s letter:

To Your Excellency Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto
President of Mexico
President of the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.
(Cancún, 22 – 26 May 2017)

Your Excellency,

    The international community is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of prevention and resilience.  Indeed, the year 2015 saw the adoption of three agreements, three Plans of Action, all profoundly interrelated and significant for the future of humanity: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.  The year 2017 represents an important step in the process of determining the most concrete and effective means for their implementation.

    This process has as one of its major challenges that of integrating activities for disaster risk reduction with initiatives aimed at promoting integral human development, eliminating poverty and social exclusion, mitigating climate change and adapting to it.

    In light of the above, I would like to emphasize three areas of particular concern for the specific theme of this meeting: disaster risk reduction.

    There is a need, first of all, to reinforce the work of prevention, education and training, in order to reduce the human, material and economic losses caused by natural disasters.  These, as we know, are often the result of poor management and aggravated by inadequate planning which fail to take into account the correct order of priorities.  Increasing an awareness of the risks posed by natural threats demands careful attention to raising consciousness of those risks and various possibilities for preventing them.  This will also lead to better management in a number of areas.  I think, for example, of the management of water (cf. Pope Francis, Address to a Seminar on the Human Right to Water, 24 February 2017), a precious resource that is also one of the chief causes of natural disasters.  Many educational programs and mechanisms of early warning now exist; used well, these can significantly reduce the loss of human lives due to natural disasters and shape a genuine culture of disaster risk reduction and resilience on the global and local levels.  Such a culture would significantly improve efforts to combat poverty and respond to climate change, to say nothing of advancing the acknowledgment of human dignity and the centrality of the human person.

    Another area of concern is the urgent need for such processes of consciousness-raising to pay special attention to those who are most vulnerable.  Often the poor suffer most from natural disasters, which destabilize less secure economies and societies, and strike already precarious habitats or environments.  It is advisable that such persons be involved directly and on various levels in training programs, knowledge sharing and consciousness-raising in the areas of prevention and disaster risk reduction.   At the same time, together with the work of prevention, closer attention needs to be paid to our way of responding to the impact of natural disasters, which, needless to say, require material aid, but also human and spiritual assistance.  Evaluating the “damage” caused by natural disasters must also take into account “the ‘interior damage’, the suffering of those who have lost their dear ones and have seen the sacrifices of an entire life swept away” (Pope Francis, Address in Mirandola, Italy, 2 April 2017).  Hence the importance of comprehensive efforts to restore dignified living conditions to those affected by such disasters.

    A third area of concern involves the recognition that the victims and those most vulnerable have an essential role to play in these processes of prevention, response and reconstruction.  They are the ones who have the greatest interest in long-term plans to avert the risk of natural disasters.  The capacity of local communities to mobilize themselves ought never to be underestimated in catastrophic situations.  Religious and cultural traditions also play a significant role and represent a source of enrichment for the work of resilience.  All this calls for broad participation, cooperation, integration and dialogue among all actors, especially in the local communities, including the indigenous peoples.  These concerns are central to this Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, whose aim is to identify and share innovative solutions for an integrated approach at every level, from the local to the international.

    A correct implementation of the aforementioned three documents demands a change of mentality and of lifestyle.  When we look to the future of humanity, we cannot restrict ourselves to particular technical or sectorial areas.  We are dealing with shared values, responsibilities and expressions of solidarity involving the good of the entire human family.  As Pope Francis has observed, “when people become self-centered and self-enclosed, their greed increases…  So our concern cannot be limited merely to the threat of extreme weather events or great natural disasters, but must also extend to the catastrophic consequences of social unrest.  Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction” (Encyclical Laudato Si’, 204).

    In the name of His Holiness Pope Francis, I express the hope that the work of the Global Platform will prove useful, fruitful and effective for enabling resilience to go hand in hand with the development of a genuine, responsible and fraternal cooperation grounded in the common good.  In this regard, the Holy See stands ever ready to make its own specific contribution.  

    I have the honor to convey to you, and to all taking part in this important gathering, His Holiness’s prayerful good wishes for the fruitfulness of your deliberations and his confidence that they will lead to more determined efforts to meet the challenges before us with ever greater solidarity and shared concern.

                        
                                         Yours sincerely,
                                         Pietro Parolin
                                         Secretary of State

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(Vatican Radio) An archbishop has celebrated a Mass to mark the 50th anniversary of one of Scotland’s most notable sporting achievements.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia presided at a Mass to mark the 50th anniversary of Celtic FC’s 1967 European Cup triumph in Lisbon. The Mass took place in the famous football (soccer) club’s spiritual home, St Mary’s church in the Calton, Glasgow, where the club was formally constituted in 1887 by an Irish Marist Brother – Brother Walfrid – and other founding members.

Eighty years after the club was constituted, a team of Scots made history when they won the European Cup on 25th May 1967, when they defeated Inter Milan 2-1 at the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon. Quickly, the squad became known as the ‘Lisbon Lions’. The manager, Jock Stein, was lauded as a hero among Celtic fans. He was the first manager of a British team to win the trophy.

Thousands of Scots are joining the club by marking the special anniversary of the tremendous feat with a series of events. The Mass, one such event, was well attended on 20th May. In a clear attempt to continue to battle the sectarian ideology that has plagued the city in years gone by, one of the people in attendance at the Mass was Reverend Ian Miller, who represented the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Representatives from other faiths also attended.

On their official website, Celtic FC said of the Mass: “The Mass will not only mark the Lisbon Lions’ footballing achievement but also reinforce Celtic’s values as a club open to all, which have been an integral part of the club’s character since its inception.”

In his homily, Archbishop Tartaglia – a self-proclaimed Celtic fan – asked the faithful to remember in their prayers those members of the squad who had passed away: “We remember in our hearts and prayers those Lions who have died… most recently Tommy Gemmell, who scored our equaliser at Lisbon.” He also asked the faithful to remember the Lisbon Lions who could not attend the Mass because of bad health.

Reflecting on the choice to mark the anniversary at a Mass,  the archbishop said that he was pleased that the commemoration was “more than a secular sporting occasion” and that those in attendance had “chosen to retain a living link with the faith tradition out of which Celtic FC was born.”

He spoke about the club’s founding values of “active and charitable concern for the needs of the community, past and present” and about the culture of the club “which allows it to welcome and embrace all kinds of supporters into the Celtic family who come from other religious traditions and from none.”

His Grace spoke about the faith tradition represented by Brother Walfrid. He said that he hopes it will “continue to sustain and inspire the development of Celtic as it seeks ever more to be find the way to be a club open to all in Glasgow, in Scotland and throughout the world.”

The archbishop did not miss the opportunity to talk about his own love for the club. “I suppose in a certain sense, I am an example of Celtic being a club open to all. I am Scottish-Italian and I have always just presumed that Celtic is as much my team as anyone else’s. I love Celtic as much as anyone does. I rejoice as much as anyone when we win. I hurt as much as anyone when we lose. I consider myself to be as much part of the Celtic family as anyone else.”

The anniversary gives fans an opportunity not only to think about the past but about the future. Archbishop Tartaglia reminded them of their shared “responsibility and obligation” to ensure that the club moves forward with the “openness to all, active concern for the community, and thirst for justice and fairness and reconciliation” that have been characteristics of its history.

“In this way,” he concluded, “Celtic can continue to be an influence for good and for social harmony in our great city of Glasgow and in Scotland.”

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(Vatican Radio) Catholics in Scotland are gathering to pray for the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Manchester.

Bishops from Scotland are inviting their flocks to gather for Masses to pray for those who were killed and those who have been affected by the recent “massacre” in Manchester, when a suicide bomber killed 22 innocent people after a concert.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia is inviting people in and around the Archdiocese of Glasgow to attend a special Mass on Thursday 25^th May, the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, in St Andrew’s Cathedral. In his homily, released ahead of the Mass, Archbishop Tartaglia says, “We pray for those who have lost their lives. We pray for those who have been so horribly injured. We offer our deepest sympathies to the bereaved mothers, fathers, children, families and friends.”

In an emotional  look back on the events of 22^nd May, His Grace explains that he wishes he “could turn the clock back, freeze time and stop the massacre, bring back to life those who have died, restore those who have been injured,” adding, “I can’t do that and it breaks my heart to see such suffering.”

Reflecting on the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, the archbishop insisted that “Jesus has not gone from us but remains with us to comfort us, to strengthen us and to assure us of eternal life.” He added, “We can be sure that Jesus is with us and suffers with those who suffer… Today’s feast reinforces our hope that the Manchester Arena bereaved, so sorely bereaved, so deeply suffering, will see their loved ones again.”

Elsewhere, Bishop John Keenan from the Diocese of Paisley is inviting people to a Mass on Friday 26^th May for those affected by the attack. In a post on the diocesan website, people are told that they can support the people in Manchester in several ways: “There will be a book of condolences and the opportunity to make a donation supporting the victims’ families. Both will stay in [St Mirin's] Cathedral for a few days to give people the opportunity to come in and sign the book. It will then be sent to the Lord Mayor’s office in Greater Manchester.”

Earlier in the week, Archbishop Tartaglia condemned the bombing, responsibility for which has been claimed by the militant group known as the Islamic State.

“What makes it even more chilling is that there may be some twisted religious motive behind it; some totally erroneous and madcap idea that somehow God’s purpose is served by this kind of senseless atrocity; some crazy notion that God will reward in the afterlife the cowardly suicide of a demented individual who believes it is his sacred duty to murder other human beings; some diabolical madness that makes it virtuous to murder random human beings, carefree young people, and innocent children.”

He insisted that people must remember that to take the lives of human beings “in this cruel and vicious way” is “totally abhorrent to God and to man.”

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