(Vatican Radio) A Dutch court has ruled that a trove of historical artefacts being held by an Amsterdam museum must be returned to Ukraine and not to four museums in Crimea, which loaned them out for an exhibition in 2014. The decision is aimed at ending a cultural tug-of-war triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea.Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: Wednesday's ruling by the District Court of Amsterdam came after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 left treasures in a legal limbo. Both the Crimean museums and Ukraine demanded the return by Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum of some 300 stunning historical artefacts. The museum had borrowed them for a 2014 exhibition that opened a month before the annexation. However judge Mieke Dudok van Heel ruled that the artefacts should be returned to Ukraine, in part because Crimea is not recognized as a separate country. She explained "that the Crimean museums take the position that the Crimean treasures ...
(Vatican Radio) A Dutch court has ruled that a trove of historical artefacts being held by an Amsterdam museum must be returned to Ukraine and not to four museums in Crimea, which loaned them out for an exhibition in 2014. The decision is aimed at ending a cultural tug-of-war triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
Wednesday's ruling by the District Court of Amsterdam came after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 left treasures in a legal limbo. Both the Crimean museums and Ukraine demanded the return by Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum of some 300 stunning historical artefacts.
The museum had borrowed them for a 2014 exhibition that opened a month before the annexation. However judge Mieke Dudok van Heel ruled that the artefacts should be returned to Ukraine, in part because Crimea is not recognized as a separate country.
She explained "that the Crimean museums take the position that the Crimean treasures belong to the cultural heritage of Crimea, or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea."
However, she said, "neither Crimea, nor the Autonomous Republic of Crimea are sovereign states. It is certain that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was anyway, at the moment of the export of the Crimean treasures, part of the sovereign state of Ukraine."
The Amsterdam court's decision was a clear victory for Ukraine, the court said that the treasures should remain in storage in Amsterdam pending the outcome of a possible appeal. While Kiev was celebrating, authorities in Crimea quickly announced they would appeal, calling the ruling "another politicized, wrong decision which contradicts the laws."
Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...
Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, VermontCNA Staff, Apr 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New England prelate is urging Catholics to both minister to transgender-identifying individuals in the Catholic Church while still continuously affirming "the goodness of human creation" as male and female.Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, told CNA last week that he would make it a point not to challenge a transgender-identifying man or woman when they present as the opposite sex.Coyne appeared on Connecticut Public Radio earlier this month arguing against the basic claim of gender ideology, which argues that men and women who "identify" as the opposite sex should be treated as such."Biology is biology. You're either XX or XY. That's a scientific fact. You can't un-prove that fact," the bishop told public radio. But, he argued, the LGBT debate has "pulled me more into a place of understanding and care," including regarding trans...