Rome Newsroom, Jul 10, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The archbishop of Paris has criticized the French parliament’s decision to debate a controversial bioethics bill which would increase access to in vitro fertilization while the country is still … […]
CNA Staff, Jul 10, 2020 / 10:15 am (CNA).- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has signed a decree converting Hagia Sophia, the former cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, into a mosque.
The presidential decree was signed within hours of a court ruling Friday, which declared unlawful an 80-year old government decree which converted the building from a mosque into a museum.
Ayasofya Mosque, as it is known in Turkish, will now fall under the supervision of the government’s religious directorate.
The decree is the culmination of a long-held goal of Erdoğan, who has called for the building to be returned to the status of a mosque for years.
The court’s decision drew heavy criticism from the international community, as has the Turkish president’s stated aim of ending the building’s neutral usage.
The Greek culture minister, Lina Mendoni, released a statement condemning the decision, saying the court ruling “absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice” in Turkey, and that “the nationalism displayed by President Erdogan… takes his country back six centuries.”
Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has said that the building’s prior status as a museum made it “the symbolic place of encounter, dialogue, solidarity and mutual understanding between Christianity and Islam.”
In a June 30 homily, Bartholomew said that Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage site, belongs “belongs not only to those who own it at the moment, but to all humanity.”
Hagia Sophia was founded in 537 under the Emperor Justinian. For a time it was the largest building in the world and the largest Christian church. It served as the cathedral of the Patriarch of Constantinople before and after the Great Schism split Western and Eastern Christianity into the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
After the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a mosque. Under the Ottomans, architects added minarets and buttresses to preserve the building, but the mosaics showing Christian imagery were whitewashed and covered.
In 1934, under the leadership of President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman empire, the mosque was turned into a museum.
The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum was considered a symbol of the Atatürk government’s commitment to building a secular liberal state. Mosaics were uncovered, including depictions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Justinian I, and the Byzantine Empress Zoë Porphyrogenita.
When the museum reopens for worship as a mosque, it is believed that the mosaics will have to be covered during Muslim prayers, as well as the seraph figures located in the high basilica dome.
Hagia Sophia is one of Turkey’s most recognizable landmarks and its most visited site, drawing more than 3.7 million visitors a year.
Erdoğan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said that “Opening up Hagia Sophia to worship doesn’t keep local or foreign tourists from visiting the site.”
Rome Newsroom, Jul 10, 2020 / 08:20 am (CNA).- A Turkish court paved the way Friday for the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to be turned back into a mosque.
Turkey’s highest administrative court ruled July 2 to revoke the … […]
Rome Newsroom, Jul 10, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- The European Catholic bishops’ commission urged the European Union this week to commit to deepening solidarity in its pandemic recovery plan.
The bishops issued an 11-page joint proposal in partners… […]
Vatican City, Jul 10, 2020 / 06:45 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed the former president of the European Central Bank to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Friday.
The pope named Mario Draghi July 10 as one of three new members of the pontific… […]
Denver Newsroom, Jul 9, 2020 / 11:22 pm (CNA).-
Catholics in one Indianapolis suburb are divided over the suspension of a priest who called organizers of the Black Lives Matter Movement “maggots and parasites.”
On June 28, Fr. Ted … […]
CNA Staff, Jul 9, 2020 / 06:15 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York announced Thursday that 20 of its schools will not reopen, following the coronavirus crisis, and three of its schools will merge.
Michael Deegan, the archdiocese’s Superintendent of Schools, said July 9 that “the reality of these schools being lost is painful, and it was only accepted reluctantly after a detailed study was conducted of their respective fiscal standing in the wake of the coronavirus public health crisis. I have been a Catholic school educator for more than 40 years, and could never have imagined the grave impact this pandemic has had on our schools.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York commented that “I’ve kept a hopeful eye on our schools throughout this saga and my prayers are with all of the children and their families who will be affected by this sad news. Given the devastation of this pandemic, I’m grateful more schools didn’t meet this fate, and that Catholic schools nearby are ready to welcome all the kids.”
Eleven of the schools that will be closed are located in New York City: six in the Bronx, three in Staten Island, and two in Manhattan. Six schools will not reopen in Westchester County, and one each in Orange, Rockland, and Dutchess counties. Another three schools in Orange County will be merged into one.
Some 2,500 students and 350 staff will be impacted by the changes, according to the archdiocese.
No schools are closing or merging in Putnam, Sullivan, or Ulster counties.
The superintendent’s office has said it will help affected families find nearby Catholic schools for the autumn, and that it “is dedicated to working in coordination with the teachers’ union to do everything it can to help faculty of the affected schools to find employment within the Archdiocesan school system.”
The archdiocese said the coronavirus crisis “has had a devastating financial impact on Catholic school families.”
It noted that unemployment and health concerns “have resulted in families’ inability to pay their current tuition, and a significantly low rate of re-registration for the fall,” and that “months of cancelled public masses and fundraising for scholarships have seen a loss of parish contributions which traditionally help support the schools.”
The local Church expects the closures and merge to ensure “the overall fiscal stability and strengthen the vitality of New York Catholic schools for decades to come.”
Deegan commented that “if more assistance is not forthcoming in the longed for HEROES Act now before Congress, I am afraid even more might close.”
The Heroes Act would provide funding for state and local governments, assistance to hospitals, and direct payments to American families along with funding unemployment insurance. The Senate and White House have indicated their opposition to the bill.
In June the US Department of Education said that federal coronavirus aid to private schools is now enforceable by law, following concerns that Catholic and other non-public schools were being excluded from sufficient epidemic relief funds to support protective equipment for students and teachers, cleaning, training in remote education, and distance education tools.
Education Secretary Besty DeVos said on a June 25 phone call with reporters that “While a number of traditional public schools aren’t sure whether they will open their doors in the fall, too many other kinds of schools are sure they won’t open at all. More than 100 private schools, including many Catholic schools, have already announced they will never reopen, and hundreds more face a similar fate.”
The Education Department’s decision is being challenged by a July 7 suit filed by Michigan, California, Maine, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia
The National Catholic Education Association said in June that at least 100 Catholic primary and secondary schools across the US would not be reopening, citing low enrollment and decreased donations amid the coronavirus.
Sister Dale McDonald, public policy director for the NCEA, told CNA that for most Catholic schools about 80% of their operating budget comes from tuition. In addition, many Catholic schools hold major fundraisers in the spring, which had to be cancelled or postponed after the pandemic hit.
History is not fate but it is logical, even when the human actors do not themselves behave logically on occasion, or even much of the time. Intellectual historians, whose business is identifying and tracing the […]
CNA Staff, Jul 9, 2020 / 05:54 pm (CNA).- Bishop Stephan Ackermann of the German diocese of Tier announced the appointment of a commission of historians to review the beatification process of Fr. Josef Kentenich, founder the Schoenstatt Movement, a dec… […]
CNA Staff, Jul 9, 2020 / 05:02 pm (CNA).- President Emmanuel Macron of France has announced that the Notre Dame Cathedral spire will be rebuilt as a replica of the one destroyed in the fire at the cathedral last year.
Macron’s government had previously initiated an architectural competition to submit a variety of suggestions for the restoration. Macron has also called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral with a more contemporary design.
The possibility of a new design for the spire of the historic building had been controversial. The designs proposed included a rooftop swimming pool and a greenhouse atop the 850-year-old cathedral.
Last year, the French Senate passed a bill mandating that Notre-Dame be rebuilt as it was before the fire.
Macron’s change of mind on the spire construction is due to a desire to finish the project quickly, the BBC reported. Paris is scheduled to host the Olympics in 2024, and choosing a new design for the spire would have delayed the construction.
Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalized laïcité (a strict form of public secularism), religious buildings in France have been property of the state.
A major fire broke out in Notre Dame cathedral on the evening of April 15, 2019. The roof and the spire were destroyed. Shortly after midnight April 16, firefighters announced that the cathedral’s main structure had been preserved from collapse.
The major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.
Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.
Its original spire was constructed in the 13th century, but was replaced in the 19th century due to damage.
The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out, though it is unknown if the fire originated in the area of the work.
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