Nigeria’s bishops call for processions to honor those killed in church attack

CNA Staff, Oct 5, 2020 / 10:00 pm (CNA).- The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Spain is providing aid to nearly 70 religious communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo facing extreme poverty due to the coronavirus crisis.

ACN said that because of the pandemic and lockdown in the African country, they will extend urgent subsistence aid to 69 religious communities in the ecclesiastical province of Bukavu, located in eastern Congo.

The pontifical foundation noted that the pandemic has worsened the nuns’ already “extremely difficult” situation, in a country constantly suffering from ethnic conflicts, insecurity, armed incursions from neighboring countries, kidnappings and rapes.

“Since the state of emergency decreed by the president of the DRC on March 24, wages have been suspended,” ACN explained.

Some of the religious sisters work in healthcare and that sector has lost income because it is compensated “according to the number of patients and now people are reluctant to go to the hospital for fear of being infected with the virus.”

“Those who work in schools would receive a part of what the students’ parents paid, but at a time when schools are closed due to COVID-19, they have also lost this income,” the charitable organization lamented.

The Archbishop of Bukavu, François-Xavier Maroy, applied for aid from ACN, which responded by allocating 120,000 euros (about $140,000) to support 464 religious from six different congregations.

ACN’s project director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Christine du Coudray, said that as a foundation it is obliged “to give them relief in their destitution, relief that they will know how to multiply to those people more dispossessed than they are,” in a country that “has lived under smoldering conflict for 20 years.”

“When the conflicts have made all the NGOs flee, the Church and especially the religious sisters remain close to the most disadvantaged population, like anonymous good souls, in accordance with the spirit of Mother Teresa,” she added.

ACN noted its support for sisters is an addition to the work that it has already been doing in the country with the aid provided to priests, who because of the lack of Sunday collections and other resources have no means to survive on or carry on their pastoral work.

“Now that their parishioners are confined to their homes, life has become more difficult for everyone because most of the people are unemployed  (around 96% of the population) and live only on what they get from day to day,” lamented the bishop of the diocese of Mbuji-Mayi, Bernard-Emmanuel Kasanda.

The novice master of the Congregation of Labor Chaplains, Fr. Clemente Mwehu Muteba thanked ACN for its support and said that with the financial help he has been able to pay for fuel to continue his apostolate at his chapel in Lubumbashi, in the province of Alto Katanga and but also to pay “for some paper to meet the needs for the formation of the young people.”

Another member of the congregation of chaplains, Fr. Alain Mwila Wa Ilunga, said that it‘s a real relief to receive this financial support, which he has decided to share “with the most helpless and the poor who are sick so they can nourish themselves with their daily bread.”

This report was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil in Iraq. / Credit: ACN

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 9, 2023 / 18:40 pm (CNA).
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda recently expressed his concern to the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the wa… […]

Rabat, Morocco, Oct 17, 2019 / 10:39 am (CNA).- Morocco’s king pardoned Wednesday a journalist, her fiance, and the medical team who last month were found guilty of procuring and performing an abortion. The country’s penal code bars abortion except in cases when the mother’s life is endangered.

Mohammed VI’s pardon was granted Oct. 16.

Hajar Raissouni, 28, had been sentenced Sept. 30 to a year imprisonment for procuring an abortion and for fornication. Her fiance, Rifaat al-Amin, was also given a years’ imprisonment, and her doctor, Mohammed Jamal Belkeziz, was given two years in prison and a two-year ban on practising medicine.

A nurse and an assistant at the Rabat obstetrics-gynecology clinic were given suspended sentences.

Th e pardon was communicted by a statement from the justice ministry saying the king’s act was “within a framework of royal compassion and clemency” and considered his concern “to preserve the future of the two fiances who intended to found a family in conformity with religious precepts and the law, despite the error they committed and which led to the legal proceedings.”

Raissouni writes for Akhbar Al-Yaoum, which is critical of the Moroccan government.

Prosecutors have said her arrest has “nothing to do with her profession as a journalist,” but some worried it was politically motivated.

Raissouni was arrested in August as she left the clinic.

Saad Sahli, a lawyer for Raissouni and al-Amin, said that Raissouni had been receiving treatment for internal bleeding at the clinic where she was arrested.

After her arrest, Raissouni was taken to hospital where she was given a gynecological exam.

Prosecutors say there were indications of pregnancy and that she had received a “late voluntary abortion.”

Rabat officials have also indicated the clinic where the five were arrested if being surveilled, after reports that abortions are regularly procured there.

Raissouni and al-Amin have been religiously, but not legally, married.

Sunni Islam is the established religion of Morocco. The country has strict rules on moral behavior and has criminalized debauchery and adultery.

According to a group that support abortion rights, most abortion-related arrests in the country involve medical officials, and only rarely do they include the women who procure abortions.

In 2018, Moroccan courts tried more than 14,500 people for debauchery; 3,048 for adultery; 170 for homosexuality; and 73 for abortions, AFP reported.

[…]