Pope Francis takes part in a video call with Patriarch Kirill, March 16, 2022. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Apr 22, 2022 / 09:48 am (CNA).
In an interview with an Argentine newspaper, Pope Francis said a meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill will no longer take place as planned.
The summit, which would have been the second meeting of the pope and patriarch, was expected to take place in Jerusalem in June, during the pope’s June 12 trip to Lebanon.
“I regret that the Vatican has had to cancel a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill,” Pope Francis said in the interview published in La Nacion.
The pope said his relationship with Kirill is “very good,” but “our diplomacy understood that a meeting of the two of us at this time could cause a lot of confusion.”
Pope Francis met with Patriarch Kirill at Havana’s airport Feb. 12, 2016, in the first summit between a pope and a Patriarch of Moscow.
The Russian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with an estimated 150 million members, accounting for more than half of the world’s Orthodox Christians.
Pope Francis has sought to strengthen Catholic-Orthodox ties since his election in 2013.
In the La Nacion interview, the pope also responded to a question about why he has not named Putin or Russia in his comments on the Ukraine war.
Pope Francis had been criticized for not calling out Russia or President Vladimir Putin by name in his speeches since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
“A pope never names a head of state, much less a country, which is superior to its head of state,” he said.
About the Vatican’s efforts to intervene in the war, he said, “the Vatican never rests. I cannot tell you the details because they would cease to be diplomatic efforts. But the attempts will never stop.”
Francis also conveyed doubts about the helpfulness of a papal visit to Kyiv, after he expressed a willingness to visit the Ukrainian capital during a trip to Malta earlier this month.
“I cannot do anything that puts higher objectives at risk, which are the end of the war, a truce or, at least, a humanitarian corridor. What good would it do for the pope to go to Kyiv if the war continued the next day?” he told the newspaper.
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A behind-the-scenes photo of the Darrows filming “The Cultivation of Purpose with Leah Darrow: Faith, Farming and Vocation” on their Missouri farm. / UST MAX Studios
Denver, Colo., Jan 28, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Nestled within the countryside o… […]
Pope Francis meets participants in an international conference on eradicating child labor at the Vatican’s Consistory Hall, Nov. 19, 2021. / Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Nov 19, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said on Friday that the persistence of child labor in 21st-century economies is “shocking and disturbing.”
Vatican Media.
Addressing participants in an international conference on Nov. 19, the pope said that the coronavirus pandemic had worsened the plight of millions of children forced to work worldwide.
“It is shocking and disturbing that in today’s economies, whose productive activities rely on technological innovations, so much so that we talk about the ‘fourth industrial revolution,’ the employment of children in work activities persists in every part of the world,” he said.
“This endangers their health and their mental and physical well-being, and deprives them of the right to education and to live their childhood with joy and serenity. The pandemic has further aggravated the situation.”
Vatican Media.
The pope was speaking in the Vatican’s Consistory Hall to participants in a conference on “Eradicating child labor, building a better future,” hosted by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, led by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson.
It was the second time this month that the pope has highlighted the scourge. He called on Nov. 2 for renewed efforts to free children from “the brutal yoke of labor exploitation” in a message to a virtual forum hosted by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Child labor is the exploitation of children. It is the denial of their rights to health, education, harmonious growth, to play, to dream. It means robbing children of their future, and therefore, humanity itself.
In his latest address, he distinguished between child labor and “the small domestic tasks that children … perform as part of family life, to help parents, siblings, grandparents or other members of the community.”
“Child labor is something else entirely,” he said. “It is the exploitation of children in the production processes of the globalized economy for the profit and gain of others.”
Vatican Media.
“It is the denial of children’s rights to health, education and harmonious growth, including the possibility to play and dream. This is tragic.”
“A child who cannot dream, who cannot play, cannot grow up. It is robbing children of their future and therefore humanity itself. It is a violation of human dignity.”
The ILO estimates that 152 million children across the world are forced to work in exploitative conditions, although the global figure decreased by 38% between 2000 and 2016.
The FAO reports that 70% of child labor takes place in an agricultural setting, with 112 million children working in crop production, livestock, forestry, fisheries, or aquaculture.
Vatican Media.
“If we want to eradicate the scourge of child labor, we must work together to eradicate poverty, to correct the distortions in the current economic system, which centralizes wealth in the hands of a few,” the pope said.
“We must encourage states and business actors to create opportunities for decent work with fair wages that enable families to meet their needs without their children being forced to work.”
“We must combine our efforts to promote quality education that is free for all in every country, as well as a health system that is accessible to all without distinction.”
Vatican Media.
“All social actors are called upon to combat child labor and its causes. The participation in this conference of representatives of international organizations, civil society, business, and the Church is a sign of great hope.”
African American Heritage Hymnal in a pew at Cure d’Ars Catholic Church in Denver. / Jonah McKeown/CNA
Denver Newsroom, Mar 16, 2022 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
A new survey of Black Catholics in the United States sheds light on what makes Black expressions of Catholicism unique, but also highlights the fact that Black Catholics remain a minority in the country as a whole, and in most parishes.
The survey found that Black Catholics are significantly less likely than other Catholics — and also less likely than Black Protestants — to attend a church where most of the other parishioners are of the same race or ethnicity they are.
About 6% of the Black population in the U.S. — around 3 million total people — is Catholic, compared with some 66% who are Protestant. Black Catholic communities in the U.S. include not only African-Americans, but also African and Caribbean immigrants. They make up about 4% of all Catholic adults.
Black Catholic communities have been present in the United States for centuries, with large African-American Catholic populations in cities including Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, and numerous cities throughout the South. Overall, 45% of Black Catholics in the U.S. live in the South, while 29% live in the Northeast, 15% live in the West, and 11% live in the Midwest.
Pew’s survey suggests that only a quarter of Black Catholics who attend Mass at least a few times a year report that they typically go to a Mass where most other attendees are Black, and about 17% of Mass-going Black Catholics say they worship at a “Black church.”
That compares with 80% of White Catholics who worship where most attendees are White, and 67% of Hispanic Catholics who worship where most attendees are Hispanic, Pew reported. And in contrast, more than two thirds of Black Protestants say they attend a predominantly Black church.
Pew’s survey drew on a sample of nearly 9,000 Black Americans and was conducted between Nov. 19, 2019-June 3, 2020.
According to the survey, 59% of Black Catholics say they pray at least once a day, while roughly half say that religion is very important in their lives. Black Catholics are somewhat more likely than White and Hispanic Catholics to say they pray every day, and somewhat more likely than White Catholics to say religion is very important to them. Black Catholics also are more likely than other Catholics to say they rely “a lot” on prayer for guidance in major life decisions.
Worship at predominantly Black Catholic parishes is different from that of predominantly White parishes. For one thing, Black Catholics are much more likely to report that other attendees often or sometimes call out “amen” or other expressions of praise during Mass.
Black Catholic Masses are typically longer than those attended by White Catholics; more than a third of Black Catholics say their Masses are longer than 90 minutes. But Black Catholic Masses are still shorter on average than most Black Protestant worship services.
A priest and deacon process up the aisle during a Mass at Cure d’Ars Catholic Church, a predominantly African-American parish in Denver, on Sept. 1, 2021. Jonah McKeown/CNA
About a quarter of Black Catholics say they have experienced jumping, shouting, and dancing spontaneously during Mass, or charismatic forms of worship such as speaking in tongues. Still, Black Catholics are less likely to report that these more charismatic forms of worship are present at their churches than are Hispanic Catholics, or Black Protestants.
Black Catholics also tend to travel farther to get to Mass than their White or Hispanic counterparts, with 41% saying they have to travel more than 15 minutes to get to Mass.
In terms of preaching at Mass, Black Catholics are more likely to report hearing a homily about racism, and slightly less likely to hear a homily about abortion, than are White Catholics.
A majority of Black Catholics — 77% — say opposition to racism is essential to what being Christian means to them. This contrasts with only 26% of Black Catholics who say that attending church regularly is essential to their faith, 22% who say opposing abortion is essential, and just 16% who say avoiding sex before marriage is essential to their religious identity. In addition, the survey suggests that most Black Catholics (71%) believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Compared to White or Hispanic Catholics, more Black Catholics are converts to the faith. Roughly half of Black adults who were raised Catholic still identify as Catholic (54%), compared with 61% of White adults and 68% of Hispanic adults who were raised as Catholics and still identify with the faith, Pew reports.
Compared to White or Hispanic Catholics, Black Catholics differ in their expectations of what their parish should be like, and what the congregation should do. Black Catholics are more likely than White or Hispanic Catholics to say they think it is essential that churches offer a sense of “racial affirmation or pride,” as well as to say it is essential that churches assist people who need help with bills, housing, or food.
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