Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 20, 2020 / 03:28 am (CNA).-
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CNA Staff, Nov 19, 2020 / 06:27 pm (CNA).- The reconstruction of a church in Beirut severely damaged by the massive explosion that rocked the city this summer is a sign of hope to the area’s inhabitants, said a local priest.
Fr. Nicolas Riachy is pastor of the Church of the Savior in Beirut, Lebanon. He told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in a recent interview that the blast not only damaged his church, but caused a local exodus.
“Ten percent of the population of this neighborhood has left, because they can no longer live in their homes,” he said. “I can’t do anything to stop them because I can’t give them security, which is what they want.”
It is becoming more and more difficult to maintain hope, he said, as “those who have money and a foreign passport leave, but we poor people will die here.”
The priest hopes the rebuilding of the church will be a beacon of hope amid difficult circumstances.
On the afternoon of August 4, 2020, a massive explosion ripped through Beirut, as 2.75 metric tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse exploded in the city’s port area.
More than 200 people were killed in the blast, and another 6,000 were injured. More than 250,000 people were left homeless. The blast could be heard in Cyprus, more than 250 km away.
Survivors of the explosion told Aid to the Church in Need that it had left the area economically devastated and the people traumatized. One survivor said it was “worse than a war, because it took out everything at once. The effort of years was lost in seven seconds.”
The incident caused the total destruction of the poor neighborhoods around the port, where migrants and Christian workers who came from the mountains in search of a better life settled.
Riachy said his church lost its roof in the blast. The Greek Melkite church was built in 1890 and is one of the oldest in the city. It has great historical value for Beirut and has a symbolic location on the border between Christian and Muslim neighborhoods.
“We’re a kind of gateway to the Christian quarter,” Riachy said. “To those who want to stay we must give hope, our mission is to bring a light to the darkness we are living in.”
“There’s no Christianity without a cross,” he added. “Our example is Christ. It’s hard to be Christians, but many are still aware that this land is the Holy Land and that we can’t abandon it.”
The church is now undergoing reconstruction work, with the support of Aid to the Church in Need, which has pledged 5 million euros to help Christians in Beirut rebuild after the August explosion.
The cleaning phase of the church is nearly complete, but Riachy said there is still scattered glass and shattered window frames on the sides and entrance of the building.
“If the seasonal rains come it will damage everything. In addition, there’s a crack that must be fixed so that everything doesn’t collapse,” he said.
He voiced gratitude to Aid to the Church in Need for their help, saying the rebuilding efforts would be impossible without outside aid.
“All the homes of my parishioners have their windows and doors destroyed,” the priest said. “And then there’s the economic crisis. The banks won’t let people withdraw their money, now they have nothing. How can they help me rebuild the church?”
Riachy said he hopes the church will help bring hope to the Christians who remain in the city.
“Pope Francis said that a Middle East without Christians is unthinkable,” he added. “I hope this church can continue to be a beautiful testimony of the word of the Lord.”
Denver Newsroom, Nov 19, 2020 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- The English and Welsh bishops’ conference has decreed that in the translation of the conclusion of collects in the Roman Missal, “one” is to be omitted before “God”. The conclusions will now read “God, for ever and ever”.
The decision follows a letter sent earlier this year by Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, addressing a concern about the English translation.
A Nov. 9 decree signed by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, and Fr. Christopher Thomas, the president and general secretary, respectively, of the English and Welsh bishops’ conference, notes that “until now” in the three formulae of conclusions to collects, “the Latin words ‘Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum’ are rendered in English as ‘one God, for ever and ever.’”
“The addition of ‘one’ before ‘God’ in the conclusion of the Collects could be construed as mistaken and problematic. ‘Deus’ here refers to the earlier mention of ‘the Son’ and is a Christological, anti-Arian affirmation, and not directly Trinitarian in this context,” the decree states.
The bishops of England and Wales voted “that these formulae should be adjusted according with the removal of the word ‘one’ from the conclusion of the Collect.”
The most common formula, used when a collect is addressed to the Father, will read: “Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”
The correction will take effect in the dioceses of England and Wales from Nov. 29, the First Sunday of Advent.
An explanatory note added that the decision is “in harmony” with the bishops’ conferences in Scotland and Ireland, “as well as with other English-speaking territories”.
The addition of “one” before “God” “could serve to undermine the statement of the unique dignity of the Son within the Trinity”, or “could be interpreted as saying that Jesus is ‘one God,’” the explanatory note stated.
“Either or both of these interpretations is injurious to the faith of the Church.”
Continuing, the note said that the insertion of “one” before God “risks suggesting that Jesus became a god independent of the Blessed Trinity and is one god among many … what we pray needs to express what the Church believes, requiring that, in liturgical formulae, we uphold the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity.”
The Trinitarian doxology that concludes the collects “emphasises the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who as the Incarnate Son, intercedes on our behalf to the Father … thus, the Son’s role of priestly mediation is made clear.”
The explanatory note says the phrase was adopted in the fourth century “as a means to combat the Arian heresy,” which held that Jesus Christ became God, rather than having been God eternally.
Moreover, the note adds, “one” is not used in the translations of the conclusion in French, German, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese: “The English translation has, therefore, diverged from those of other major language groups.”
The English and Welsh bishops’ explanatory note said that “since the addition of the word ‘one’” could obscure prayer and thus belief, the Congregation for Divine Worship “has ruled it should no longer be used in the translation of these texts into English.”
Cardinal Sarah had written to the presidents of English-speaking episcopal conferences about the translation problem May 13.
This was followed up by a May 27 letter from the chairman of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy which clarified, Cardinal Nichols wrote, that bishops’ conferences determine “how and when the proposed change is made.”
The explanatory note added that “it is for Episcopal Conferences, through ICEL, to decide how best to translate these formulae in order to safeguard both their Trinitarian nature, as well as their profession of the divinity of the Son.”
By his 2017 motu proprio Magnum principium, Pope Francis granted episcopal conferences a greater share of responsibility in the translation of liturgical texts relative to the Congregation for Divine Worship.
The executive director of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship, Fr. Andrew Menke, told CNA that Cardinal Sarah’s letter has been discussed by the conference’s divine worship committee, who “will probably discuss the question again” at their next meeting, in January.
The USCCB has been approving new translations of components of the Liturgy of the Hours, a new translation of the Roman Missal having been adopted in 2011.
At its 2019 fall general assembly, the conference voted overwhelmingly to approve the ICEL grey book translation of the hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours.
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