News Briefs

Nigerian priest abducted by gunmen after Sunday Mass

March 3, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Mar 3, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Another Catholic priest in Nigeria has been kidnapped by gunmen, according to local media reports.

Fr. David Echioda of Nigeria’s Otukpo diocese was kidnapped after Sunday Mass in Benue State, the Nigerian Tribune reported March 3.

The priest, who works at the minor seminary in Ochobo, had been doing missionary outreach, the Diocese of Otukpo told the Tribune.

The kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions and killings in Nigeria which have involved Catholics and other Christians; clergy, seminarians, and lay people.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in his homily March 1 at a Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said according to Naija News.

In February, another priest was kidnapped by gunmen in the state of Edo in the southwest region of the country.

Seminarian Michael Nnadi, 18, was killed in late January, weeks after he and three other seminarians were abducted from their seminary in Nigeria. The seminarians kidnapped with Nnadi have been released, but one is facing life-threatening injuries.

Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State, has been active in Nigeria for years. While the group has attacked both Muslims and Christians in the past, recent attacks have focused on the killing and kidnapping of Christians.

Also in January, Rev. Lawan Andima, a local Government Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the married father of nine children, was beheaded by Boko Haram.

Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City said Andima was killed “simply because he was a Christian.”

“This is the time to turn to God to save us and our dear country, Nigeria. We are told that once there is life there is hope,” Kaigama said. “We refuse to give in to pessimism. We are resilient, that’s why we are Nigerians.”

On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.

“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”

On Ash Wednesday, last week, Catholics in the country were invited to wear black to highlight the ongoing violence against Chrisitans.

In a letter read in all the country’s parishes on Feb. 26, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City, head of the country’s bishops’ conference, said that the black clothing would be a show of solidarity with victims of violent crime, as well as a display of mourning for victims of religious violence.

Also last week, the secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria issued a request for Catholics around the world to pray for peace in Nigeria and security for the nation’s Christians.

“I have been directed by the administrative board of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) to communicate to you that in the face of the current security situation, the Church needs to speak out in word and action against the level of insecurity in the country,” said Fr. Zacharia Nyantiso Samjumi on Feb. 25 to Nigerian press.

Samjumi said that the majority of Nigerians throughout the country live in a constant state of fear, and there is a ever-present state of insecurity. In Nigeria, Christians are subjected to “repeated barbaric executions” and “incessant cases of kidnapping for ransom” by the Islamist group Boko Haram, and other terrorist organizations.

The violence has “traumatized many citizens,” he said.

[…]

Vatican investigators to meet with Mexican sex abuse victims, bishops

March 3, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Mar 3, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican is sending Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeo to Mexico this month to meet with sex abuse victims and to strengthen the Mexican bishops’ fight against sexual abuse.

“We have tried to fight in a responsible, transparent and clear way against the culture of abuse and cover-up that allows it to perpetuate itself. This conviction, which stems from accompanying the victims in their pain, seeking justice and healing, led us to request support from the Holy See through the Apostolic Nunciature,” the Mexican bishops’ conference said in a statement March 2.

Scicluna and Bertomeu will travel to Mexico March 20-27. This team from the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith previously investigated the Church in Chile’s response to sex abuse allegations in 2018, which eventually led every Chilean bishop to submit their resignations to Pope Francis.

During their trip to Mexico, the two are scheduled to meet with all of the country’s bishops in Casa Lago outside of Mexico City on March 20. They will meet with the superiors of religious orders in Mexico on March 23.

For the remaining five days, Scicluna and Bertomeu will be available at the Mexico City nunciature to meet with sex abuse victims or “anyone who would like to share their experiences.” A statement put out by the Apostolic Nunciature provides a phone number and email address for people who would like to schedule a meeting.

In the past decade, 271 priests in Mexico have been investigated for sexual abuse and 152 priests have been removed from ministry due to incidents of abuse, according to the Mexican bishops’ conference president Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera.

A report released in December by the Legionaries of Christ religious order stated that since the group’s founding in Mexico in 1941, 33 priests of the Legionaries of Christ committed sexual abuse of minors, victimizing 175 children.

Scicluna, the archbishop of Malta, is widely known for his expertise in the canonical norms governing allegations of sexual abuse. In 2015 he was named by the pope to oversee the team in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith charged with handling appeals filed by clergy accused of abuse. He served as the congregation’s promoter of justice for 17 years and conducted the investigation into the Legionaries’ founder Fr. Marcial Maciel in 2002-2003.

The Church in Mexico has expressed its support in 2020 for several bills to eliminate the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of minors, which stands now at ten years.

The Mexican bishops’ conference said they hope the visit by Scicluna and Bertomeu will help to protect and benefit “the most vulnerable.”

“We trust that it will serve to improve the response to these cases, seeking the action of civil and canonical justice under the principle of ‘zero tolerance’ so that no case goes unpunished in our Church,” Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera of Monterrey and Auxiliary Bishop Alfonso G. Miranda wrote in a statement.

“We pray to God and Our Lady of Guadalupe, so that this important mission helps us as a Church to act promptly and fairly to eradicate these crimes and all forms of abuse against minors, inside and outside the Church; and to strengthen the faith, hope and charity of the people of God who pilgrimage in Mexico,” the bishops said.

[…]

Nicaragua’s Father Ernesto Cardenal dies at 95

March 2, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Managua, Nicaragua, Mar 2, 2020 / 05:06 pm (CNA).- Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan poet and Marxist liberation theology activist whose priestly faculties were long suspended for his assuming a public office, died Sunday at the age of 95.

Fr. Cardenal died March 1 after a brief hospitalization.

His wake will be at the Mount of Olives funeral home, and a funeral Mass will be said March 3 Managua’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

Fr. Cardenal was born Jan. 20, 1925 in Granada, Nicaragua. He studied literature and was for a time at the Trappist’s Gethsemani monastery in Kentucky, but he returned to Nicaragua and was ordained a priest in 1965.

The following year he founded an artists colony on an archipelago in Lake Nicaragua.

When the Sandinista National Liberation Front ousted Nicaragua’s Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Fr. Cardenal was named Minister of Culture in the new government. Canon law forbids clerics from assuming public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.

St. John Paul II publicly reprimanded Fr. Cardenal when he visited Nicaragua in 1983.

The priest continued to serve as Nicaragua’s culture minister until 1987, and he later distanced himself from the FSLN.

He was absolved of all canonical censures one year ago. The Nicaraguan apostolic nunciature announced Feb. 18, 2019 that Pope Francis had accepted the request recently made by Fr. Cardenal “to be readmitted to the exercise of the priestly ministry.”

[…]

Catholics at conservative conference say they will back Trump, with reservations

March 2, 2020 CNA Daily News 5

Washington D.C., Mar 2, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Catholics attending Mass at the Conservative Political Action Conference convention, held outside Washington, DC, this weekend, told CNA their decision to support President Donald Trump’s bid for reelection is mostly because of his administration’s record on abortion. 

CNA spoke to several people who attended one of the daily Masses offered during the event Feb. 26-29. 

Several said they could not consider voting for Democratic candidates because of the party’s absolute support for abortion, even while some acknowledged that Trump himself once supported legal protection for abortion.

Javier Martin, an immigrant from Spain who now lives in New York, told CNA after Mass that while he does not agree with Trump on everything, the president’s policies align most closely with his own views, as compared to the other candidates running. 

“Policy wise, it’s much harder to vote for Democrats right now, if you felt the pro-life issue is imoprtant to you,” said Martin. “That’s just a non-starter on the Democrat’s side right now.” 

Martin said that he thinks that “Trump seems to be going in a better direction” than what other candidates are proposing. 

The annual CPAC conference is considered by many to be a reflection of the trends and topics of importance in populist conservative circles. While Trump was considered an outsider at the conference in the years before his presidential candidacy, the 2020 event had many of the trappings of a Trump campaign rally.  

Grace Dwyer and Lauren Pels are Catholic students who attended CPAC this year. They are both 17 and will be voting in their first presidential election this November. Both young women told CNA they plan to vote for Trump. 

Dwyer, who lives in the Washington area, told CNA that she was galvanized by seeing Trump speak at the 2020 March for Life, saying she found the event “really amazing.” 

“I’ve been [to the March for Life] every year since I was two, and just having the president there this year was amazing,” she said. 

Dwyer also appreciated hearing Vice President Mike Pence speak at the CPAC conference, especially, she said, because he stressed the Republican Party’s commitment to pro-life values, and invited disillusioned pro-life Democrats to join the Republican Party.

Being pro-life has “always been something big for me,” Dwyer explained. 

Pels agreed with Dwyer, and she said that she, too, plans to vote for Trump because of his pro-life record.

“A big thing for me is that President Trump is pro-life, especially with how far the left has moved on abortion,” said Pels, citing recent congressional debates over the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that would require medical care be given to a child who survives an abortion. 

Pels also said she approves of how Trump had “stopped giving aid to fund abortions in other countries,” referring to the president’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy. 

Pels acknowledged that while “some of [Trump’s] past comments have been problematic and conflicted with Catholic beliefs,” she said his actions as president have outweighed his past statements and behavior, “especially when you look at what the actions of the left would have been, which are absolutely egregious,” Pels said. 

Another Mass attendee at CPAC cited the president’s pro-life views as the reason she will be voting for him in November.

Bernadette Repisky spoke to CNA after Mass at the conference on Thursday evening. Repinsky traveled to CPAC from the Philadelphia area, and she previously attended the conferences in 2012 and 2016. 

Repinksy told CNA that she “loves” Trump because of his pro-life views, and that she believes that “he’s doing more for my country than any president has ever done in my lifetime, and I’m in my fifties.”

Trump had previously supported the right to an abortion, something Repinksy said does not bother her. She also offered her view on criticisms of the president’s moral character, which include allegations of sexual assault and harassment. 

“So he might’ve been a Democrat in his former life, might’ve been a playboy in his former life, but I don’t judge him by that,” she told CNA. “That’s for God. I judge him by what he’s doing right now and what he says he’s going to do for us and for this country.” 

“I stand behind him one hundred percent.”

While every Catholic CNA spoke with at CPAC indicated plans to vote for Trump, even with reservations, nationwide polling shows that the Catholic vote in November is likely to be far more diverse. 

In the recent EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll, 46% of Catholics said that there was a “sure” or “good” chance they would vote for Trump, and an additional 8% of respondents said it was “possible” they would vote for the president. Slightly more than a third–36%–said they would “never” vote for Trump. 

Fifty percent of Catholics surveyed by the poll said they would consider voting for a third party candidate.

This was the first year that daily Mass was celebrated at the conference, held at National Harbor outside of Washington, D.C., with priests volunteering from nearby parishes. 

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, told CNA that the decision to include daily Mass at the event came in response to widespread support for a vigil Mass celebrated on the final day of the conference last year. 

“There’s so many kids who are here from schools, and CPAC ends on a Saturday, and then most of them then get on airplane Sunday morning,” Schlapp told CNA. “And so we started with a vigil Mass last year and I got so much great feedback. I had people stop me in airports and train stations saying, thank you for doing Mass on Saturday night.”

[…]

Detroit parish designated Michigan’s third minor basilica

March 2, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Detroit, Mich., Mar 2, 2020 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Detroit announced Sunday that Pope Francis has granted the title of minor basilica to Ste. Anne Church in Detroit, one of the longest continuously operating parishes in the country.

“At its founding on the Feast of St. Anne in 1701, this parish was among the first fruits of a new missionary diocese,” Archbishop Allen Vigneron said March 1.

“I consider this designation as a basilica to be a providential reminder that today, we each are called to continue this same mission to unleash the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the men and women of our time.”

The title of minor basilica is an honor bestowed by the pope to signify a church of “particular importance for liturgical and pastoral life,” and signify a “particular link” with Rome and the pope, according to the norms laid out in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s 1989 document Domus Ecclesiae.

The United States is now home to 86 minor basilicas. Around 1,700 churches are designated as such worldwide; there exist only four major basilicas, all of which are located in Rome.

The parish submitted its application to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments during July 2018. Conditions for obtaining the title include the church’s status as “a center of active and pastoral liturgy;” “a certain renown throughout the diocese;” and “historical value or importance of the church and the worthiness of its art.”

St. Anne is the patroness of Detroit. Archbishop Vigneron in 2017 designated a side altar of the church, which includes a first-class relic of St. Anne, as an archdiocesan shrine. A symbol of St. Ann appears on the archdiocesan coat of arms.

French missionaries founded the parish in 1701, just two days after a party of French explorers established the city of Detroit.

The current building, which is the eighth in the parish’s history, dates to 1887 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

According to Detroit Catholic, the parish is the one of the oldest in the United States.

The parish is known for an annual novena to St. Anne that has been going for more than 100 years. It is also a participant in Matthew Kelly’s “Dynamic Parish” program.

Ste. Anne is the first basilica elevated in Michigan since 2015, when Pope Francis elevated the National Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit. St. Adalbert in Grand Rapids received the title in 1980.

Ste. Anne is in need of an extensive renovation that includes a new roof, work on the exterior walls and foundation and a new HVAC system and furnace.

According to Detroit Catholic, Ste. Anne’s pastor has estimated the renovations could cost upwards of $20 million.

Vigneron will celebrate the designation with a Mass April 26. After its designation, the church will exhibit the papal symbol of “crossed keys” and its pastor will enjoy the title of rector.

The faithful who devoutly visit the basilica and within it participate in any sacred rite or at least recite the Lord’s Prayer and the profession of faith may, under the usual conditions, obtain a plenary indulgence on certain days of the year.

[…]

French priest hospitalized with coronavirus

March 2, 2020 CNA Daily News 4

Paris, France, Mar 2, 2020 / 01:29 pm (CNA).- A priest has been hospitalized in Paris after testing positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus Feb. 28.

Fr. Alexandre Comte, 43, had recently returned from Italy, where there are currently over 1,800 register… […]