After a week fending-off Boko Haram, Nigerian military join in Sunday Mass – Vatican News

Paul Samasumo – Vatican City

Barely, a few hours after Pope Francis’ Saturday tweets, urging prayers for northeast Nigeria, on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a sizeable number of Nigerian military personnel attended Sunday Mass at the Madagali community parish in the Catholic  Diocese of Maiduguri. This is according to information made available to Vatican News’ English Africa Service by Fr. Gideon Obasogie of the Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri.

The Mass became a thanksgiving event 

It was an emotional Eucharistic celebration as the Madagali community Mass turned into a celebration of thanksgiving. The Nigerian military personnel, in attendance, had literally come from the front line following a week spent repelling a series of Boko Haram attempted attacks on the Madagali community.

Pope Francis is praying with us, says Parish Priest

The Parish Priest, Fr. Innocent Sunu encouraged the Military personnel to remain steadfast in protecting the vulnerable community. He reminded parishioners that they were not alone, but that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and the Universal Church were praying and were united with them in their life of constant insecurity.

We are neglected by politicians

Fr. Sunu, however, said the state of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly in the northern regions was the result of neglect by politicians. With some bridges in the region recently washed away by heavy rains or destroyed by Boko Haram, the area could as well be considered “comfortably cut off from other towns,” said Fr. Sunu.

“The weak but faithful Christians here in the north (of Nigeria) have nothing much to say or do other than seek the intercession of our Mother of Hope -as prayed by the Holy Father. This is the only lifeline left for our people in a country where our political leaders seem to have fallen asleep at the wheel and have taken their eyes off the ball,” lamented the Madagali Parish Priest.

Madagali is near the Sambisa forest

Nigeria’s Madagali community has in the past been vulnerable to Boko Haram attacks because it is situated just a few kilometres from the infamous Sambisa forest that unfortunately has become synonymous with Boko Haram terrorists. Boko Haram has used the forest as its fortress and hiding place.

The insurgents have been waging deadly attacks against the Nigerian State in a bid to impose their brand of a religious government (Caliphate). In the process, Boko Haram has attacked civilians through killings, bombings, forced conscription and abductions of women and girls.

Abducted victims are often spirited away in the dense Sambisa forest. Over the last few years, the Nigerian military has, appeared to have gained a noticeable upper hand over the terrorists. Nonetheless, Boko Haram are relentless fighters who are still a significant menace to Nigerian society.

We thank God for sparing us from COVID-19

Turning to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the Madagali Parish Priest, Fr. Sunu, thanked God that, so far, the community had been spared the worst.

“We give thanks to God for His care as we have been protected against the Coronavirus. The world is experiencing a global pandemic, but we have been saved in this our little village. If COVID-19 cases come here, the numbers would hit the roof, and we would all be history because the health care facilities here are as good as non-existent,” said the Parish Priest. 

Pope to Brazil’s religious: Jesus our first and only love – Vatican News

By Robin Gomes

Pope Francis is urging Brazil’s consecrated men and women to fight worldly tendencies is “to give priority to prayer” beccause the “person who keeps his or her eyes fixed on Jesus learns that to live to serve.”

He makes this exhortation in a message to them as they observe the first Week of Consecrated Religious Life, August 16 to 22.  In the message addressed to Sister  Maria Inês Vieira Ribeiro, the national president of the Conference of the Religious of Brazil (CRB), the Pope expresses his joy at the initiative which “aims to promote and renew the mission” of each consecrated religious in the Land of the Holy Cross, as the first explorers of the unknown territory called it.  

Joy in the gift of self

The Holy Father, himself a Jesuit, reminds them that the vocation of a religious has its origin in the experience of knowing that one is loved by God. Life itself, he explains, is the fruit of the loving call of God, who accompanies us along our journey, and is aware of our anxious longing for love and happiness, He calls us to joy.  This joy, the Pope stresses, is found only in the gift of self to others.

Prayer helps fix gaze on Jesus

In today’s society, which is undergoing epochal changes, the Pope urges the religious to “be vigilant in order to avoid the temptation to have a worldly outlook, which prevents us from seeing God’s grace as the protagonist of life and leads us to go out in search of a substitute”. 

And the best antidote against such a temptation, the Pope says, is to give priority to prayer in the midst of all our activities.  A person who keeps his gaze fixed on Jesus, learns to live and serve, recalling that he or she is loved.

Our first love

Pope Francis thus invites Brazil’s religious men and women to ask themselves: “Is Jesus truly the first and only love, as we proposed when we professed our vows?”  Only this way, the Holy Father says, “will we be able to truly and mercifully love each person we meet on our journey”.  By learning from Jesus what love is will we know how to love, the Pope says.

Ever onward

Consecrated religious present in Rome participated in the recitation of the Angelus with Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square on Sunday. He singled them out, saying:

“In particular, I greet the Brazilian men and women religious present here in Rome – with so many flags – these religious are following spiritually the First National Week of Consecrated Life being celebrated in Brazil. Happy week of consecrated life. Ever onward!”

Pope Francis sends message to annual Rimini Meeting wishing it success – Vatican News

By Vatican News

Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin has conveyed Pope Francis’s warmest greetings to Bishop Francesco Lambasi of Rimini, on the occasion of the opening of the Meeting for Friendship between Peoples.

“The Holy Father wishes to convey through you his wish for the success of the 41^st Meeting for Friendship amongst Peoples,” reads the letter dated 5 August. “To the organizers and all those who will participate, Pope Francis assures his closeness and his prayer.”

Every year since 1980, the Meeting for Friendship between Peoples takes place in August, in Rimini, Italy.

This year’s meeting is themed: “Devoid of wonder we remain deaf to the sublime” from A.J. Heschel’s book God in Search of Man. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the meeting is taking place online.

All in the same boat

Echoing Pope Francis’s words during the Extraordinary Moment of Prayer on 27 March 2020, Cardinal Parolin said that we all are in the same boat tossed about in a storm that unmasks our vulnerabilities especially since we are all affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The theme of this year’s meeting, therefore, “offers a precious and original contribution at a dizzying moment in history” when we have lost our ability to look in amazement at reality like children. 

Instead, said the Cardinal, “many have focused exclusively on their own strengths, on their ability to produce and earn,” in our search for goods rather than for good.

It is for this reason that Jesus’s invitation to become like children (Mt 18:3) comes to mind as amazement “sets life in motion, allowing it to start again in any circumstance,” said Cardinal Parolin.

The world in the face of Covid

Cardinal Parolin pointed out that in recent months “we have experienced that dimension of amazement that takes the form of compassion in the presence of suffering, fragility and the precariousness of existence.”

This noble human feeling, he explains, has taken many forms including pushing doctors and nurses to face the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic; encouraging teachers to adapt to the difficulties of distance learning to finish the school year, and “allowing many to find in the faces and presence of their families, the strength to face discomfort and difficulties.”

In this sense, the theme of the meeting is a call to “descend into the depths of the human heart by means of amazement.” “Amazement”, he added “is the way to grasp the signs of the sublime, that is, of that mystery that constitutes the root and foundation of all things.”

If this type of vision is not cultivated, the Cardinal warned, “one becomes blind to existence, closed within oneself, attracted by what is fleeting, and stops questioning reality.”

Beauty in art

Cardinal Parolin recalled that Pope Francis recently received a letter from several artists who thanked him for praying for them during Mass at the Casa Santa Marta on 7 May. On that occasion, the Pope said: “Artists make us understand what beauty is, and without beauty the Gospel cannot be understood.” 

In that regard, Cardinal Parolin said the Meeting launches a challenge to Christians to witness the profound attraction that faith exercises by virtue of its beauty. This, according to the Servant of God Luigi Giussani is the “attraction of Jesus.” And, as Pope Francis stresses in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (167), “every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus…so a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith.”

Pope Francis, therefore, invites the Meeting’s participants to collaborate with him in witnessing to the experience of “the beauty of God who became flesh so that our eyes may marvel at his face and our eyes may find in him, the wonder of living.” This, “is a task from which we cannot refrain,” said the Cardinal, especially in this critical time in history.

Concluding, Cardinal Parolin said the Pope imparts his Apostolic Blessing on the participants of the Meeting, asking them to remember him in their prayers.

Protesters demand political reform in Thailand – Vatican News

By Vatican News

Protesters want change in Thailand. They are calling for the government’s resignation, a new constitution and fresh elections.

Over the past few weeks there have been daily demonstrations in Bangkok led by student groups. However, Sunday’s protest was the biggest since a 2014 coup.

Demonstrators’ demands

The message from the street is clear. Demonstrators are demanding that the government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha – who won disputed elections in 2019 – step down.

They want constitutional reform and for an end to the harassment of opposition activists.

But students are also turning their attention to the monarchy there. They are calling for its reform, including a curb on the current King’s constitutional powers, and an end to the monarchy’s role in politics, although there is no appetite for abolishing it.

Protest Roots

Anti-government protests first began late last year after courts banned the opposition Future Forward party, which opposed the current government.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the protests were mainly online based, but by July student groups were back on the streets.

The disappearance of a Thai anti-government activist in Cambodia, the latest of nine to go missing in recent years, has also fueled tensions.

‘No place for racism in the world today’ – Vatican News

By Sr Bernadette M. Reis, fsp

“Racism is a sin and should be eliminated in all its forms… individual, institutional, direct, and indirect”. Thus states the Archdiocese of the Port of Spain’s Catholic Commission for Social Justice (CCSJ).

Racism eats our nation’s soul

The CCSJ issued the appeal in a statement last Thursday. They classify racism as a “vile worm that eats at the very soul of our beings and nation.”

This statement comes on the heels of the General Elections in Trinidad and Tobago on 10 August. The campaign preceding the election was characterized by racist sentiment. The CCSJ states it “abhors all the recent racist statements made on social media before and after” the General Election. They also say they are in agreement with an assessment made by UK journalist Kehinde Andrews that “focusing on individual prejudice” avoids “tackling endemic, systematic racism, leaving significant inequalities”.

Heart of the matter

In view of Trinidad and Tobago’s upcoming Independence Day celebrations, the CCSJ invites its citizens to “reflect NOW on ways in which each of us may have, wittingly or unwittingly, through thought, word, or action, fed this socially constructed, hydra-headed monster”, racism. “Let us commit to root out this evil from our hearts and minds. Indeed, the heart of the matter is in the human heart.”

The CCSJ says the vision of a country without racism is found in the laws, Constitution, Equal Opportunity Act and policies of the island nation, and in the values professed by faith communities. That vision can only become transformational when “we move from paper to action”, the CCSJ notes.

From racism to unity in diversity

 “Justice and peace will never become a reality,” the CCSJ continued, “as long as racism exists”. They said the “rejection of racism in order to “embrace and promote unity in diversity” is “long overdue”.

The CCSJ say they pray for conversion of heart, citing the United States Bishops: “True justice and peace can be a matter of policy only if it is first a matter of the heart.”

“Let us pray for God’s grace”, they conclude the statement, “to open our eyes and those of our leaders, so that we will choose values and virtues that will help us to flourish/progress as a people.”

Trinidad and Tobago is home to people of Indian, African, European, and Middle Eastern descent. The islands obtained independence from the United Kingdom on 31 August 1962 and became a republic in 1976.

Belarus: Russia provides security as protests grow

By Stefan Bos

Lukashenko’s comments came amid mounting pressure on the embattled head-of-state to step down.  Thousands rally in the Belarusian capital Minsk. They gather at a makeshift memorial at the exact spot where 34-year-old protestor Alexander Taraikovsky died last Monday in clashes with police. Many bring flowers.

Belarusian police claim he died when an explosive device he intended to throw at police blew up in his hand. But his partner, Elena German, told reporters that when she saw his body in a morgue on Friday, his hands showed no damage. She claimed he had a perforation in his chest that she believes is a bullet wound.

People here express their anger over what they view as an authoritarian president’s ongoing crackdown on opposition demonstrators. Alexander Lukashenko.

Some male protesters pulled off their shirts to show bruises they said came from police beatings. Others carried pictures of loved ones beaten so severely they could not attend the rally. Many also participated in Taraikovsky’s funeral.

There have been seven consecutive days of massive protests prompted by the country’s August 9 presidential election results. Officials claimed the 65-year-old Lukashenko won a sixth term in a landslide.

LUKASHENKO’S WARNING

He warned that everyone is fighting for markets to sell, for instance, tractors. And Lukashenko suggested that if the strikes continue, Belarus may not be able to “kick-start” its production.

However, the European Union and the United States have urged him to respect the people’s will. Speaking in Poland, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern about the reported crackdown in protestors. “We’ve spent these last days consulting with our European partners.” He said he had personal meetings and by telephone “trying to understand precisely what’s happening,” he told reporters.

“The common objective is to support the Belarusian people to achieve their own sovereignty, their own freedom, to build out what you’re seeing happen in these protests. These people are demanding the simple things that every human being wants: the right to have determination for themselves about the nature of their government,” Pompeo added.

“And so we urge the leadership of Belarus to broaden the circle, as the foreign minister said, to engage with civil society in a way that reflects the central understandings that the Belarusian people are demanding.”
The international community is also considering stepping up sanctions against the authoritarian leader and other senior officials.

Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya from Belarus had called for peaceful rallies across the country this weekend. And there are no signs yet that the mounting protests are losing momentum.  

Apostolic Nuncio to Zimbabwe’ solidarity visit to Archbishop Ndlovu

Paul Samasumo – Vatican City

The Holy See’s Apostolic Nuncio to Zimbabwe, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, Sunday morning, paid a solidarity visit on the Archbishop of Harare, Robert Christopher Ndlovu. The Archbishop of Harare has been singled out for a scorching personal attack by the Zimbabwe Government. The Apostolic Nuncio’s visit was also a symbolic act of solidarity with all the Bishops of Zimbabwe.

Pastoral Letter asked Government to avoid suppression of citizens

It all started with a Pastoral Letter published Friday by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC). The Bishops’ Pastoral Letter called on the Government to address the economic and political crisis in the country without resorting to the violent suppression of citizens. The Letter followed a brutal police and military crackdown of 31 July protests, in Zimbabwe. Several activists and journalists are still under detention, in Harare -the capital city.

Personal attack on Archbishop Ndlovu

In reaction to the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa issued a statement attacking the Catholic Church leadership. The Statement was read in its entirety on national television and other government media on Saturday evening.

Although all Catholic Bishops in Zimbabwe signed the Pastoral Letter, the Information Minister chose to isolate and target Archbishop Ndlovu for a personal attack in the Statement she released. Archbishop Ndlovu is the current President of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference.

Government avoided content of the Pastoral Letter

The Government’s attack on Archbishop Ndlovu and other Bishops referred to their Letter as, “shards of a Pastoral Letter issued under the misguided if (not) evil-minded leadership of the Archbishop of Harare.” Minister Mutsvangwa’s Statement, however, avoided responding to the gist of issues raised by the Bishops. In many ways, most of the contents of the Pastoral Letter have been raised before by Zimbabwe’s lawyers, medical personnel and rights activists. Observers in Zimbabwe also noted that the Government’ Statement sought to misinform Zimbabweans. It portrayed Archbishop Ndlovu and other Catholic Bishops of acting contrary to the wishes and positions held by Pope Francis.

Catholics and non-Catholics stand with the Bishops

For their part, Catholics and non-Catholics in Zimbabwe took to social media to express solidarity with the Bishops. They particularly reminded Catholic Ministers and ZANU Party officials to remember that Bishops were Shepherds who have no political ambitions. The Bishops, they said, could not remain silent in the face of so much suffering, COVID-19 and growing poverty.

Investigators probe cause of Lebanon blast

By Nathan Morley

On Sunday, a French forensic police unit arrived in the Lebanese capital to begin work on an investigation into the explosion. At the same time, a US envoy also touched down in Beirut to assist with the probe into the August 4 explosion which killed more than 170 people and injured thousands.

The actual cause of the fire that ignited tons of ammonium nitrate still remains unclear.

French divers have already explored the underwater crater created by the explosion and taken samples of explosives.

Meanwhile, at section of the port left undamaged, workers were unloading wheat. Earlier in the week, the World Food Programme said 17,500 metric tons of wheat flour and a three-month supply of wheat is on its way to Lebanon.

In a separate development, the United Nations launched an appeal for $565 million in assistance for Lebanon.

The money will used for reconstruction efforts.

Najat Rochdi, a UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon said: “The task of rebuilding people’s lives and recovering from the devastation is only just beginning.”

Even before the blast, Lebanon was suffering a deep economic crisis and struggling to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. The country recorded record high unemployment levels, sluggish growth and holds one of the highest debt ratios anywhere in the Middle East.

Last week, international leaders took part in a virtual donor conference pledging nearly $300m in humanitarian assistance which will be directly delivered to the people through the United Nations, international organizations and NGOs.

Belarus: Exiled opposition leader calls for peaceful rallies

By Stefan Bos

After she was forced to leave for Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya urged her supporters to protest peacefully for a transfer of power. “Human life is the most valuable of all. We need to stop the violence on the street of Belarusian cities and towns. I call for the government to stop the violence and start a dialogue,” she said.

“I am appealing to appealing to mayors of all cities and towns on the 15th and 16th of August to organize peaceful mass gatherings in every town,” Tikhanovskaya added.  

The 37-year-old former English teacher and mother-of-two campaigned on behalf of her jailed husband, a popular blogger. “We saw new peaceful actions on the streets of our cities. The chains of solidarity by women with flowers, for instance, are not belligerent. They show the whole world that we Belarusians are open, honest people, and we are against violence, ” she stressed in the video message.      

Authorities claimed that the authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko won the presidential elections with 80 percent of the vote. But Tikhanovskaya stressed that in areas where counting was carried out correctly, she received 60 to 70 percent of the vote and in one region even 90 percent of the counted ballots.

However, after being held for hours by authorities for protesting the results, she was forced to flee to Lithuania. Some 7,000 people were arrested in protests that emerged following the election.

EVIDENCE OF TORTURE

Many of the former detainees have spoken of torture at the hands of the security services. Among them, Sergiy Meyanets, who showed reporters a doctor’s certificate confirming torture injuries. “They began asking who the organizers of the protests are. He electrocuted me about ten times. In the legs, near the heart and my arms,” Meyanets said.

“Whenever we moved or said a word, we would get hit with batons straight away. He [the police officer] even threatened to burn us alive,” the activist recalled.    

Advocacy group Amnesty International said accounts from released detainees suggested “widespread torture.” As protests continued for a sixth day and walkouts from state factories grew on Friday, European Union foreign ministers held an emergency video meeting. They agreed to prepare new sanctions on Belarusian officials responsible for what they called “violence and falsification.”

Amid the tensions, the increasingly isolated President Lukashenko released 32 Russians accused of being mercenaries to undermine state security by organizing mass riots.

Moscow has denied these accusations. It suggested that the 33 detainees –including one Belarussian citizen who wasn’t transferred to Russia – were innocent security personnel.