Six months after Pope Francis dismissed its top administrators, Caritas Internationalis’ new leadership team elected Alistair Dutton, who also serves on the board of Stop Climate Chaos and Jesuit Refugee Services, as its new secretary general Monday night.
Dutton is the chief executive of Caritas Scotland, which works to build “a green and just world” by putting faith into action, according to its website.
He is now tasked with leading the second-largest humanitarian aid organization in the world until 2027. Caritas Internationalis is the Church’s main charitable arm, made up of a confederation of more than 160 Catholic charities operating in 200 countries and territories.
Speaking to the more than 400 delegates taking part in Caritas Internationalis’ 22nd General Assembly in Rome this week, Dutton reflected: “My journey with Caritas has taken me all over the world.”
“From the war in Kosovo, Darfur, Iraq, Liberia, and Syria; to tsunamis in Asia, earthquakes in Haiti, India, Indonesia, and Chile; conflicts born of greed and the exploitation of wealth in Africa; waves of displacement in the Middle East; and the devastation caused by the climate emergency and extreme weather: cyclones and floods in Pakistan, Myanmar, India, and Bangladesh; food crises in so many countries in Africa from the Sahel to Somalia, the Sudan to Zimbabwe; and the frightening reality of sinking island states in the Pacific.”
“We are an amazing confederation, one united by our mission in service to the world’s poor,” Robertson said.
“As a woman it is a particularly important day for us in the confederation. By every measure possible, women are disproportionately affected by poverty. As a confederation we are committed to serving women in villages, parishes, and communities, but also in leadership. My appointment today reflects that commitment.”
Dutton first worked with Caritas in 1996 and spent five years as Caritas Internationalis’ humanitarian director from 2009 to 2014. He was a former novice with the Jesuits and holds a master’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from the University of Oxford.
His election as president comes as Caritas Internationalis is going through a critical period of reform, six months after Pope Francis dismissed its top leaders.
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Members of the Sts’ailes First Nation at Holy Rosary Cathedral last year for the first Mass to integrate a First Nation language. A Cardus report presents the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking about their faith and distinguishing it from the traditional spirituality they’re often associated with. / Photo courtesy Nicholas Elbers, 2022
Vancouver, Canada, May 17, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
A groundbreaking report published by the Ottawa-based Cardus Institute has given voice to Indigenous Canadians who are frustrated by secular society’s unawareness of — or unwillingness to accept — the fact that almost half of them are Christian.
“I find that insulting to Indigenous people’s intelligence and freedom,” Catholic priest Father Cristino Bouvette said of the prejudice he regularly encounters.
Bouvette, who has mixed Cree-Métis and Italian heritage and now serves as vicar for vocations and Young Adults in the Diocese of Calgary, was one of 12 individuals interviewed by Cardus for the report “Indigenous Voices of Faith.”
Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, left, leads a post-production discussion by Indigenous Voices of Faith participants. Photo courtesy of Cardus
Prejudice against Indigenous Christians has become so strong, even inside some Indigenous communities, “that Indigenous Christians in this country right now are living in the time of new martyrdom,” Bouvette said.
Although that martyrdom may not cost them their lives, “they are ostracized and humiliated sometimes within their own communities if they openly express their Christian or Catholic faith.”
Statistics Canada reported last year that the 2021 census found that 850,000, or 47%, of Canada’s 1.8-million Indigenous people identify as Christian and that more than a quarter of the total report they are Catholic. Only 73,000, or 4%, of Indigenous people said they adhere to traditional Indigenous spiritual beliefs.
In a new report, Cardus wants to “amplify the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking for themselves about their religious commitments, which sometimes clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Photo courtesy of Cardus
Ukrainian Catholic Deacon Andrew Bennett, program director for Cardus Faith Communities, conducted the interviews for the think tank last fall. He published his report in March at a time when Canadian mainstream media and many political leaders continued to stir division and prejudice through misleading commentary about abandoned cemeteries at Indian Residential Schools.
The purpose of the report, he writes, “is to affirm and to shed light on the religious freedom of Indigenous peoples to hold the beliefs and engage in the practices that they choose and to contextualize their faith within their own cultures.”
Too often, however, “the public narrative implies, or boldly declares, that there’s a fundamental incompatibility between Indigenous Canadians and Christianity or other faiths,” Bennett said. “[M]any Indigenous Canadians strongly disagree with those narratives.”
Father Bouvette is clearly one of those.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us because of [my Indigenous grandmother’s] time in the residential school or her father’s time in the trade school that he was sent to,” Bouvette said. “No, it was because our family freely chose to receive the saving message of Jesus Christ and lived it and had continued to pass it down.”
Bouvette said his “grandmother was not tricked into becoming something that she didn’t want to be, and then tricked into staying that way for 99 years and 11 months of her life. She was a Christian from the day of her birth, and she remained a Christian until the day of her death. And so that was not by the consequence of some imposition.”
Nevertheless, Canadians continue to labor under a prejudice holding the opposite view. “I do believe that probably the majority of Canadians at this time, out of some mistaken notion of guilt for whatever their cultural or ethnic background is, think they are somehow responsible for Indigenous people having had something thrust upon them that they didn’t want,” Bouvette said.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us,” Father Cristino Bouvette says in a Cardus report on Indigenous faith. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“But I would say, give us a little more credit than that and assume that if there is an Indigenous person who continues to persevere in the Christian faith it is because they want to, because they understand why they have chosen to in the first place, and they remain committed to it. We should be respectful of that.”
The executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, Christian Elia, agrees and says society should grant Indigenous Catholics the respect and personal agency that is due all Canadians.
“Firstly, I am not an Indigenous person, so I cannot speak for our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but neither can non-Indigenous secularists who choose to ignore that Indigenous people in Canada continue to self-identify as Christian, the majority of these Catholic,” Elia said in an interview with The B.C. Catholic.
He said his organization has heard from many Indigenous Catholics who are “growing weary of the ongoing assumption that somehow they have been coerced into the faith, that it is inconceivable that they wish to be Catholic. This condescending attitude must stop.”
Deacon Rennie Nahanee, who serves at St. Paul’s Indian Church in North Vancouver, was another of the 12 whom Bennett interviewed. A cradle Catholic and member of the Squamish First Nation, Deacon Nahanee said there is nothing incompatible with being both an authentic Indigenous person and a Catholic.
“I’m pretty sure we had a belief in the Creator even before the missionaries came to British Columbia,” he said. “And our feelings, our thoughts about creation, the way that we lived and carried out our everyday lives, and the way that we helped to preserve the land and the animals that we used for food, our spirituality and our culture, were similar to the spirituality of the Catholic Church.”
“I believe that’s why our people accepted it. I don’t think anybody can separate themselves from God, even though they say so.”
Interviewed later by The B.C. Catholic, Nahanee said he is not bothered by the sort of prejudice outlined by Bouvette. “People are going to say or do what they want,” he said.
Voices of Indigenous Christianity
Bennett, program director of Cardus Faith Communities, interviewed 12 Indigenous Canadians, most of them Christian, about their religious commitments, “which often clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Here is a selection of some of their comments:
Tal James of the Penelakut First Nation in Nanaimo spoke about the relationship between Indigenous culture and his Christian faith:
Tal James and wife Christina. Photo courtesy of Project 620 – James Ministry
“I think … that our [Indigenous] cultures were complete, and in Jesus they’re more complete. I think that’s a big thing and a big step for a lot of us. You’re going to have a lot of non-Indigenous people look at you and question your actions based on your Aboriginal heritage. Don’t take that to heart. They’re the ignorant ones who don’t want you to flourish. Those of you who are Christians, First Nations Christians, you come to the table with the same gifting that non-Aboriginal people have. For them to say, ‘We want to make room for you at the table,’ correct them. You are already at the table, and encourage them to step back and allow your gifts to flourish. Because it’s one in the same spirit.”
Rose-Alma McDonald, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, which borders New York, Ontario, and Quebec, talked about re-embracing her Catholic faith:
Rose-Alma McDonald. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“I surprised everybody, including myself, in terms of embracing Catholicism after 20 years away. So I’ve had a few epiphanies in the sense that this is why my mother made me do so much in the church growing up. When I’m working, volunteering, and doing stuff in the church, I remember that. I keep remembering I’m Catholic and I’m still Catholic. I will stay Catholic because of the way I was raised.”
Jeff Decontie, a Mohawk from the Algonquin First Nations who lives in Ottawa, talked about being a person of faith in a secular world:
Jeff Decontie. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“Secular worldviews can sort of eat up everything around them and accept a whole wide range of beliefs at the same time. For example, you have the prevailing scientific thinking alongside New Age believers, and people in society just accept this, saying, ‘Oh, whatever it is you believe in, all religions lead to the same thing.’ No one questions it. How can these contradictions coexist? … Then we ask an [Indigenous] elder to lead prayer? Any other religion would be a no-no, but you can ask for an elder who’s going to pray a generic prayer to some generic Creator, and it’s not going to ruffle any feathers. I think that’s the danger of secular thought creeping into Canada: It goes unnoticed, it’s perceived as neutral, but at the same time it’s welcoming a whole wide range of beliefs. And it doesn’t just influence Indigenous thought. It’s influencing Christianity.”
Rosella Kinoshameg, a member of the Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, spoke about being Indigenous and Catholic:
Rosella Kinoshameg. Photo courtesy of the Catholic Register
“Well, I can’t change being Indigenous. That’s something that is me. I can’t change that. But to believe in the things that I was taught, the traditional things, the way of life and the meanings of these things, and then in a church, well, those things help one another and they make me feel stronger.”
This article was originally published May 10, 2023, in The B.C. Catholic, a weekly publication serving the Catholic community in British Columbia, Canada, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Representatives of the Ombudsman’s Office arrive to dissuade the protesters in Peru, December 2022. / Credit: ANDINA/Dissemination
CNA Newsroom, Dec 13, 2022 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
The Peruvian Bishops’ Conference issued a statement “in view of the recent and painful events of violence” that the South American country is experiencing.
In a Dec. 12 message, the Peruvian bishops expressed their condolences to the relatives of those who died “as a result of the confrontation between protesters and law enforcement.”
The confrontations began after President Pedro Castillo on Dec. 7 declared a state of emergency, dissolved Congress, said he would rule by decree, and set a 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew. Hours later, Congress in turn voted overwhelmingly for a motion to declare the office of the presidency vacant for moral incapacity on the part of Castillo.
In addition, at least eight government ministers, including Alejandro Salas, the minister of Labor and Employment Promotion, submitted their resignations.
Castillo’s attempted usurpation of power took place amid a large number of corruption accusations against him, in which relatives of the president are involved.
After his removal from office, the now former President Castillo was arrested, and Dina Boluarte took office Dec. 7 as the new president of the Republic of Peru. Boluarte served as minister of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru and is also being investigated for corruption.
The removal of Castillo from office and his arrest caused his followers to start a wave of violent protests in the country’s south, which so far has claimed the lives of at least five people.
During the demonstrations, followers of Castillo invaded the runway of the Arequipa airport, which had to be closed to guarantee operational security.
Also in Arequipa, protesters looted and set fire to the Gloria company’s milk plant.
In addition, at least 25 points on the Peruvian highway network were blocked in protests demanding the release of the dismissed Castillo and the dissolution of the Congress of the Republic.
The violent protests caused President Boluarte to declare a 60-day state of emergency in the Apurímac district.
Faced with these acts of violence, the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference called for “building bridges of dialogue” and asked that the National Police of Peru ensure the people’s safety.
The Peruvian bishops called for all institutions “to seek the stability of the country, because we cannot afford the luxury of misrule in our country.”
“Violence is not the solution to the crisis or to differences. No more acts of violence! No more deaths! Peru must be our priority!” the bishops said in their statement.
Finally, they invoked the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose feast was celebrated the day of their statement, to “guide us along paths of justice and peace.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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