Denver, Colo., Jan 11, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A U.S. cardinal has called Catholics to support the needs of refugees and immigrants living along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.
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Washington D.C., Jan 11, 2018 / 12:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Americans must recommit to the fight against racism through love and faith, said the head of the U.S. bishops’ conference in the days leading up to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
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Lincoln, Neb., Jan 10, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Unveiled on Wednesday, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts’ new state budget proposal would block federal funds from going to health clinics that provide abortion services.
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Washington D.C., Jan 10, 2018 / 03:54 pm (CNA).- Catholic leaders have responded to developments in the legal battle over the DACA program, including a court order maintaining legal protections for undocumented youth, known as “Dreamers,” a… […]
Temuco, Chile, Jan 10, 2018 / 03:03 pm (ACI Prensa).- Pope Francis will spend a day in Temuco, the capital of a Chilean region with a large indigenous population, during his Jan. 15-18 visit to the nation. The city’s bishop has said the Pope decided to come to the area because it represents Chile’s peripheries.
“If we look at where the Pope likes to go when on a visit, it is precisely the borders, the existential borders, where there is pain, where there is suffering, where there are wounds, where there is poverty, Bishop Hector Vargas Bastidas of Temuco told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency.
Temuco is the capital of Araucania, a region in south-central Chile where one-third of the population is ethnic Mapuche, who are by far the country’s largest indigenous group.
Bishop Vargas offered the indigenous population, their conflict with the Chilean state, and the region’s poverty as three reasons Pope Francis has chosen to visit Temuco.
During his Jan. 17 visit to the city, the Pope will say Mass at Maquehue Airport and will lunch with inhabitants of Araucania at the Madre de la Santa Cruz house.
Bishop Vargas explained that some 200,000 Mapuche people live in Araucania and live profoundly “their Mapuche identity, their worldview.”
While many Mapuche have moved to Santiago, the Chilean capital, many who have remained in Araucania live in their communities led by and encouraged by their ancestral authorities.
“There is a very great richness there,” the bishop explained. “This is a region where the issue of inter-culturalism is lived out and understood more and more, so this is a very important reason that the Pope certainly considered in planning his visit.”
He cited the Mapuche conflict as a second reason for Pope Francis’ visit.
Chile incorporated Araucania by military conquest between 1861 and 1883, and the manner of the region’s “pacification” led to “a major rift between the government and the Mapuche people,” Bishop Vargas explained.
“A very great historic debt was created with this people, who are still waiting for this debt to be rectified,” he said.
Mapuche communities ask for the return of ancestral lands, respect for their cultural identity, and even autonomy.
Even though the majority of those involved in trying to settle the conflict are working to find solutions, the bishop pointed out that some radicalized groups in the minority “unfortunately think that this can be solved or that much more rapid progress can be made through violence.”
From 2014 through 2017, thirteen Catholic churches were burned by these groups.
“The violence has only brought more poverty, new injustices, and new suffering,” the Bishop of Temuco lamented. In 2016 he took on the responsibility of acting as a facilitator in talks between the government and the Mapuche people.
Finally, Bishop Vargas explained that among the country’s 15 regions, Araucania “ranks first in poverty in Chile.”
According to a 2015 government survey, 23.6 percent of the people in this region are living below the poverty line, the highest rate in the country. And a 2017 survey showed an unemployment rate in the region of 8.4 percent, the nation’s second highest.
Given this situation, Bishop Vargas said that “the transformation that one and all hope for in Araucania is going to come only if all of us who live here changes our hearts.”
“First of all, we have to change our hearts, we have to grow in humanity; then, laws and decrees will have their place. What people want will not be achieved if first we don’t undergo a conversion and a major transformation, and that is something only the Lord can give,” he concluded.
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This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Vatican City, Jan 10, 2018 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- At a traditional new year’s meeting between Pope Francis and diplomats to the Vatican, the pope painted a picture of pontifical diplomacy around the globe: An international mission working to secure the common good, an always increasing network of relations, and the certainty of an impartial voice working for peace.
The Pope’s speech sets the basis and the guidelines for the Holy See’s diplomatic activities during the year. If the guidelines are based on concrete issues, then pontifical diplomacy has three main threads —three themes that include all the others.
The first is a commitment to peace; the second is a commitment to human dignity; and the third is a commitment to fight poverty.
In the mind of the Pope, all three seem linked to one another.
The Vatican’s commitment to peace is practiced via the art of mediation, and the Holy See has been a critical participant in the mediation of global conflict for decades. The Vatican’s commitment to human dignity is based on the principle that all people are equal and dignified in the sight of God. And the Church’s commitment to fight poverty is expressed in its diplomatic work for peace, international development, and support for marginalized. On that front, Pope Francis has asked who, in the end, is poorer than an unborn child, or than the forgotten or marginalized elderly.
These three commitments will shape the Holy See’s diplomatic activity for the upcoming year. Within that framework, there are two clear priorities for the diplomatic work of the Holy See in the upcoming year.
The first is advocating for migrants and refugees. The United Nations are finalizing a Global Compact on Migration, that follows the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants issued in September 2016. The Holy See participated in all of the meetings, and presented 20 points of actions on the issue gathered under the four keyworks “welcome, protect, promote and integrate.”
The Pope has made migration a core issue of his pontificate: he established a special section for Migrants and Refugee within the ranks of the Vatican dicastery for the Promotion of the Integral Human Development, and the Pope is personally chairing it. The theme for the World Day of Peace 2018 was “Migrants and Refugees: Seekers of Peace,” underscoring the importance the issue has for the Holy See.
The second diplomatic focus is on peacekeeping. The Holy See is aims to helping and assisting countries in achieving peace.
Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, a former papal nuncio now counsellor at the Vatican Dicastery for the Integral Human Development, stressed to CNA that for at least the past 50 years, “peacekeeping and the search for peace have dominated the Holy See’s public interventions.”
The Holy See is working to create a path to peace, Tomasi said, by working on “the formation of a new mentality, thanks to the World Day of Peace; the Holy See’s involvement in discussions on disarmament; and the Holy See’s encouragement to develop effective international institutions.”
How does the Holy See carry on its commitment?
First of all, with its work into the multilateral institutions, namely the United Nations and other global institutions.
The Holy See Mission at the United Nations in New York provided data on the Holy See’s work at the UN during the last year.
The Holy See at the UN in New York delivered 82 interventions, and 10 of them were delivered by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican “foreign ministry,” who led the Holy See’s delegation at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in September.
Archbishop Gallagher also signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for the Holy See and in the name of and behalf of the Holy See. The Holy See’s mission noted that “the Holy See was an active participant in negotiations, and was one of the 122 States that voted in favor of the treaty, adopted on July 7, 2017. The signing took place during the High Level Ceremony for the opening of the signing of the Treaty, in which the Holy See joined more than 40 states in signing the treaty, and was joined by only Thailand in simultaneously ratifying the treaty.”
The Holy See Mission at the UN Office in Geneva, led by Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, delivered 48 interventions, participating in many panels on the Global Compact on Migrations. The Holy See Mission in Geneva also represents the Holy See at the International Organization for Migration: the Holy See has been a member state of the IOM since 2012.
Those are only examples of the Holy See’s considerable involvement in multilateral international organizations. It is noteworthy to remember that there is also a Holy See Diplomatic Mission in Vienna, accredited to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and to other special organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency, to which the Holy See is a member state and founder.
No less important is the Holy See’s Mission at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Pope Francis has personally demonstrated that fighting world hunger is a priority to the Holy See. The Pope has visited the FAO headquarters two times, Nov. 20, 2014 and Oct. 16, 2017, and went to the World Food Program Headquarters June 13, 2016. In addition to that, the Pope symbolically donated $25,000 dollars to the FAO to support the Eastern African populations facing food insecurity and famine.
The Holy See’s diplomatic network of bilateral relations also continues to grow.In 1900, only about 20 countries had diplomatic relations with the Holy See. In 1978 the number was 84; in 2005 it was 174. During Benedict XVI’s pontificate, six new countries were added to the list, and, under the leadership of Pope Francis that number has climbed to 183, with Myanmar, also called Burma, joining the list of states with full diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
There are only 13 States who have no diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
Out of them, 8 have no Vatican envoy: Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Maldives and Tuvalu. The Holy See has apostolic delegates, not fully recognized as ambassadors, in four countries: Comoros, Somalia, Brunei and Laos. The Holy See has started negotiations with Vietnam to reach full diplomatic ties, and in 2011 the Holy See appointed the first non-residential Vatican envoy to Hanoi.
The diplomatic efforts of the Holy See are considerable, and, as Pope Francis emphasized, committed to important and deeply Catholic international goals.
© Catholic World Report