Catholic bishop protests deportation by Mexican immigration authorities
http://www.myspiritfm.com/News?blogid=8838&view=post&articleid=275010&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Bishop Joseph Khawam is apostolic exarch for the Melkite Church in Venezuela and apostolic administrator of the Melkite Eparchy in Mexico. / Credit: Facebook screenshot/Bishop Joseph KhawamACI Prensa Staff, Apr 9, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A bishop of the Melkite rite, one of the more than 20 Eastern rites of the Catholic Church that are in communion with Rome, protested the mistreatment he says he received and his subsequent deportation after arriving at Mexico City International Airport.Bishop Joseph Khawam, apostolic exarch for the Melkite Church in Venezuela and apostolic administrator of the Melkite Eparchy in Mexico, denounced that Mexican immigration authorities detained him for hours with illegal immigrants, confiscated his Vatican passport and his personal phone, and deported him to Venezuela from where he had flown to Mexico.In a statement posted April 6 on Facebook and Instagram, the prelate of Syrian origin said he "deplores and denounces" what reportedly happened on th...
Bishop Joseph Khawam is apostolic exarch for the Melkite Church in Venezuela and apostolic administrator of the Melkite Eparchy in Mexico. / Credit: Facebook screenshot/Bishop Joseph Khawam
ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 9, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
A bishop of the Melkite rite, one of the more than 20 Eastern rites of the Catholic Church that are in communion with Rome, protested the mistreatment he says he received and his subsequent deportation after arriving at Mexico City International Airport.
Bishop Joseph Khawam, apostolic exarch for the Melkite Church in Venezuela and apostolic administrator of the Melkite Eparchy in Mexico, denounced that Mexican immigration authorities detained him for hours with illegal immigrants, confiscated his Vatican passport and his personal phone, and deported him to Venezuela from where he had flown to Mexico.
In a statement posted April 6 on Facebook and Instagram, the prelate of Syrian origin said he "deplores and denounces" what reportedly happened on the night of April 2-3 at the airport in Mexico's capital city.
The statement said the Melkite bishop said that what happened to him is "a flagrant practice of racial discrimination and an insult to human dignity above all, given that his nationality of origin in the Vatican passport is Syrian and that he was treated by the authorities on this basis."
Khawam said that what happened is "a violation of human rights and a violation of international conventions that regulate the matter."
The prelate specified that this "is a great insult to the universal Church and the Church of Mexico in particular [in the legal capacity that he represents as apostolic administrator]" since he "was in his official clerical dress with the cross."
In the statement, the Catholic bishop also charged that the authorities at the airport refused "to see all the documents and credentials that he carried and that accredited his legal identity as apostolic administrator in the Mexican Catholic Church."
Khawam arrived in Mexico among other reasons to participate in the plenary assembly of the Mexican Bishops' Conference that is being held from April 8–12.
The prelate, the statement noted, requested on several occasions that the authorities contact the apostolic nunciature in Mexico or Father Alfonso Serna, legal representative of the Meltkite Eparchy in Mexico, who was expecting him, "but the response to his request was rejected several times."
The apostolic administrator of the Melkite Church in Mexico urged authorities to "provide a general explanation for this strange and reprehensible incident" and compensate him for the harm he suffered.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Full Article
http://www.myspiritfm.com/News?blogid=8838&url=10&view=post&articleid=275596&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
A patient at the new Misky María Palliative Care Hospital located on the outskirts of Lima, Perú. / Credit: Asociación de las Bienaventuranzas (Association of the Beatitudes)ACI Prensa Staff, May 4, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).In the context of the recent news of the death of Ana Estrada, the first person to request and receive euthanasia in Peru, there is a contrasting story to tell on care for the dying in that country: that of a new Catholic hospital on the outskirts of Lima that provides palliative care, which extends the love of Christ to those in extreme poverty who are in the final stages of their lives.The beginning of the 'Misky María' HospitalIn 2021, Father Omar Sánchez Portillo, a priest known for his extensive charitable work in the district of Lurín (south of Lima) and founder of the Association of the Beatitudes, had the dream of building a center to serve, with the "sweetness of Mary," people in situations of abandonment and extreme poverty who have terminal illnesses...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/News?blogid=8838&url=10&view=post&articleid=275586&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domainCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.Wh...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/News?blogid=8838&url=10&view=post&articleid=275585&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by "explicitly communist" outside forces. "There is an instrumentalization of what's going on in Gaza to advance an agenda," he said. "And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order."Speaking on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other "outside agitators." While he said he believes that many of the protesters we...