Pope Francis appoints apostolic visitor for Ethiopian Catholics in US and Canada

July 2, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, Jul 2, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed an apostolic visitor Thursday for Ethiopian Catholics in the United States and Canada.

The pope named Fr. Tesfaye Woldemariam Fesuh, a priest of the Archdiocese of Addis Ababa, July 2 as apostolic visitor of Ge’ez Rite Catholics in the two countries.

The move follows the pope’s decision in January to appoint an apostolic visitor for Ethiopian Catholics in Europe.

In the Latin Rite Church, an apostolic visitor refers to officials who perform a short-term mission on behalf of the pope. But in the Eastern Catholic Churches, an apostolic visitor often has a long-term role supervising communities which do not yet have their own ordinary.

The Ethiopian Catholic Church is one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See. It has an estimated 71,000 members and is based in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, but also has diaspora communities in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Ge’ez is a Semitic language used in the liturgies of the Ethiopian Catholic Church, which follow the ancient Alexandrian Rite.

Fesuh spent more than a decade in the United States, beginning in 2001. He served the Ethiopian faithful in Washington, DC, helping to bring together African Catholics in the city.

He was a pastoral assistant at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington from 2007 to 2011.

In 2015, he returned to Ethiopia, where he now serves as chancellor of Addis Ababa archdiocese.

Earlier this year Pope Francis named Fr. Petros Berga, a priest of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam in the Netherlands, as apostolic visitor for Catholics of the Alexandrian Ge’ez Rite resident in Europe.

Berga, who was born in Ethiopia, was ordained in the Netherlands in 1998 after studying at the Catholic University of Utrecht. While serving as a pastor in Edam, a town in the northwest of the country, he dedicated himself to the pastoral care of Ethiopian Catholics. Returning to Ethiopia, he was appointed secretary of the local bishops’ conference.

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Vatican condemns religious violence in Ramadan statement

May 1, 2020 CNA Daily News 3

CNA Staff, May 1, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- In a statement marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Vatican has condemned an increasing spate of attacks on churches, synagogues and mosques around the world.

Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, M.C.C.J., president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue said in the council’s “message for the month of Ramadan” on May 1 that “the context of recent attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues by wicked persons who seem to perceive the places of worship as a privileged target for their blind and senseless violence.”

He cited the 2019 joint statement of Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar on human fraternity, which stated that such attacks are “a deviation from the teachings of religions as well as a clear violation of international law”.

Religious freedom advocates, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have drawn attention to an increasing number of attacks on churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship in recent years.

USCIRF released a fact-sheet in October of 2019 that called on states to protect places of worship, emphasizing their “protected status during armed conflict” and saying that “an intentional attack” on a church, synagogue, or mosque “may be considered a war crime.”

The commission’s 2020 annual report noted an increase in attacks on houses of worship around the world in 2019.

In 2019, Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka targeted three churches as well as hotel resorts, killing more than 250 people. Shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Muslim Friday prayer, killed 51 people in March, 2019. Shootings at synagogues in the U.S. in October of 2018 and again in April of 2019 killed 12, and roughly 80 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in France were vandalized with Nazi and anti-Semitic symbols.

Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar of fasting, prayer, and acts of service; it began on April 23.

“The month of Ramadan is so central in your religion and therefore dear to you at personal, familial and social levels. lt is a time for spiritual healing and growth, of sharing with the poor, of strengthening bonds with relatives and friends,” the Vatican’s statement read.

After extending good wishes, the Vatican stated that “[t]he thoughts we like to share with you this year following our cherished tradition are about the protection of the places of worship.”

Churches, synagogues, and mosques have historically been places of hospitality, the statement noted.

“While appreciating the efforts done by the international community at different levels for the protection of the places of worship worldwide, it is our hope that our mutual esteem, respect and cooperation will help strengthen the bonds of sincere friendship, and enable our communities to safeguard the places of worship to assure for coming generations the fundamental freedom to profess one’s own beliefs,” the statement said.

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