Vatican City, Dec 29, 2020 / 01:27 pm (CNA).- The Vatican’s COVID-19 commission said Tuesday it is working to help promote fair access to the coronavirus vaccine, especially for those who are most vulnerable.
In a note published Dec. 29, the com… […]
Los Angeles, Calif., Dec 29, 2020 / 12:52 pm (CNA).- Jesse Martinez, a COVID-19 patient who beat a fellow patient to death with an oxygen tank at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, will be arraigned on December 31st for murder, elder abuse, and religion-motivated hate crime, authorities announced on December 28.
The victim, David Hernandez-Garcia, an 82-year-old Catholic Latino man, was a resident of Lancaster, a suburb north of Los Angeles in California. He was being treated for a COVID-19 infection in a two-person room.
According to a report from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, on Thursday, December 17, 2020, at approximately 9:45 a.m., “the victim was at Antelope Valley Hospital receiving treatment for Covid-19. He was housed in a two-person room inside the hospital with the suspect, who was also there receiving treatment. The suspect became upset when the victim started to pray. He then struck the victim with an oxygen tank.”
“The victim succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased on December 18, 2020, at approximately 10:20 a.m. The victim and suspect did not know each other”, the statement added.
Martinez was arrested at the scene after hospital staff detained him until police arrived, according to Lt. Brandon Dean, a spokesman with the Sheriff’s Department.
City officials said there is little the hospital could have done to prevent the violence, given that the hospital, an urgent care center, was “drastically understaffed and medical staff is suffering from exhaustion.”
The sheriff’s department told CNA that the investigation was still ongoing and that it could not comment further. A spokeswoman for the hospital provided the same reason for not commenting.
According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Martinez’s arraignment was rescheduled from Monday, December 28 to New Year’s Eve because he was unable to come to court for medical reasons. Sheriff’s jail records indicate that he is being held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles in lieu of $1 million dollars bail.
He could face up to 28 years to life in state prison if convicted as charged.
Vatican City, Dec 29, 2020 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest who hid Italian Jews from the Nazis and went on to baptize the former head of the Gestapo in Rome, is world renowned for the heroism he displayed during and after World War II.
They called him the “Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican.”
Many of his exploits were portrayed in the 1983 movie “The Scarlet and the Black.” But more details could soon be revealed to the public, as the Vatican archives from the pontificate of Pius XII (1939 – 1958) were opened to historians earlier this year, and mention of O’Flaherty’s work is sure to draw the interest of scholars.
Born in County Cork in 1898, O’Flaherty grew up in Killarney playing golf on the course where his father worked as a steward before discerning his vocation to the priesthood.
As a seminarian, O’Flaherty studied theology in Rome at the Urban College of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and went on to earn doctorates in both canon law and philosophy in Rome.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 1925, and became a Vatican diplomat during which time he served in posts in Haiti, Egypt, and Czechoslovakia.
During World War II, O’Flaherty lived in the German College inside Vatican City State, and worked at the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, then known at the Holy Office.
The Holy See assigned O’Flaherty the task of visiting the Italian prisoner of war camps, where he brought books, cigarettes, chocolate, and hope to the English-speaking Allied prisoners, according to the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society. After these visits, the priest used Vatican Radio to contact the prisoners’ relatives.
When the Nazis occupied Rome for nine months following the fall of Mussolini, O’Flaherty created what came to be known as the “Rome Escape Line” — a network of priests, diplomats, and expatriates in Rome who helped to hide more than 6,000 escaped Allied POWs and Jews in convents, monasteries, and residences.
Secret meetings among members of the Rome Escape Line to exchange documents and information on safe houses took place inside of St. Peter’s Basilica at the foot of Michaelangelo’s Pieta or near the Altar of the Chair, according to Vatican News.
The Museum of the Liberation of Rome is today located in the building that formerly served as the headquarters of the German SS under Kappler, near the Basilica St. John Lateran.
After the liberation in Rome in 1944, the head of the German SS Herbert Kappler was sentenced in 1948 to life imprisoned in solitary confinement in Italy. O’Flaherty went to the prison to visit Kappler, who had previously threatened to torture and kill the Irish priest, every month for ten years.
In 1959, O’Flaherty baptised Kappler and received the converted war criminal into the Catholic Church.
The Vatican honored O’Flaherty in 2016 with a plaque on the wall of the Teutonic Cemetery inside Vatican City. The cemetery sits above the former site of Nero’s circus, where early Christians were martyred in ancient Rome.
O’Flaherty’s Vatican plaque reads: “Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, born in Ireland 28.2.1898. Founder of the Rome Escape Line. Tireless defender of the weak and oppressed. Resident at this College 1938-1960 from where he saved over 6000 lives from the National Socialists. Died 30.10.1963. Buried in Cahersiveen, County Kerry, Ireland.”
This article was originally published on CNA March 17, 2020.
Vatican City, Dec 29, 2020 / 10:06 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Tuesday named theologian Bishop Dermot Farrell of Ossory, Ireland, as the next archbishop of Dublin.
Farrell, 66, takes over leadership of the metropolitan archdiocese from Archbishop Diarmuid… […]
CNA Staff, Dec 29, 2020 / 09:57 am (CNA).-
The White House on Tuesday issued a proclamation praising St. Thomas Becket, an English archbishop who was martyred 850 years ago after conflict with King Henry II over the rights of the Church.
… […]
CNA Staff, Dec 29, 2020 / 09:05 am (CNA).- The bishops of Nigeria have urged prayer for the safety and release of a Nigerian Catholic bishop who was abducted Sunday in Owerri, the capital of Nigeria’s Imo State.
Bishop Moses Chikwe “is said to have been kidnapped in the night of Sunday 27 December 2020,” the secretary general of the Nigerian bishops’ conference has reported.
Bishop Chikwe is the auxiliary bishop of Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Owerri.
“Up to this moment, there has been no communication from the kidnappers,” Fr. Zacharia Nyantiso Samjumi said in a press release obtained by ACI Africa Dec. 28.
“Trusting in the maternal assistance of Blessed Virgin Mary, we pray for his safety and quick release,” the CSN secretary general added a press release circulated under the headline: “SAD EVENT FROM OWERRI.”
Various sources have confirmed to ACI Africa the abduction of 53-year-old Nigerian bishop, all indicating that the bishop’s whereabouts remain unknown.
“I spoke with the archbishop yesterday evening and asked him to let me know if any new thing occurs. Nothing yet,” a Catholic bishop in Nigeria told ACI Africa Dec. 29, making reference to Archbishop Anthony Obinna of Owerri archdiocese.
According to The Sun, the kidnapping occurred along Port Harcourt road in Owerri at about 8 p.m. local time.
Bishop Chikwe “was kidnapped alongside his driver in his official car,” The Sun reported, citing eyewitnesses, who added that the bishop’s vehicle “was later returned to Assumpta roundabout, while the occupants were believed to have been taken to an unknown destination.”
An anti-kidnapping police unit has begun investigating the abduction, the newspaper reported.
Bishop Chikwe’s abduction is the latest in a series of kidnappings that have targeted clergy in Nigeria, but previous abductions have involved priests and seminarians, not bishops.
On Dec. 15, Fr. Valentine Oluchukwu Ezeagu, a member of the Sons of Mary Mother of Mercy (SMMM) was kidnapped in Imo State en route to his father’s funeral in the neighboring Anambra State, in southeastern Nigeria. He was “unconditionally released” the following day.
Last month, Fr. Matthew Dajo, a Nigerian priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja, was kidnapped and released after ten days in captivity. Multiple sources in Nigeria told ACI Africa about negotiations for ransom following Fr. Dajo’s Nov. 22 kidnapping, some sources indicating abductors’ demand for hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars.
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department listed Nigeria among the worst countries for religious freedom, describing the West African nation as a “country of particular concern (CPC).” This is a formal designation reserved for nations where the worst violations of religious freedom are taking place, the other countries being China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.
The action by the U.S. State Department was lauded by the leadership of Knights of Columbus, with the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Anderson saying December 16, “Nigeria’s Christians have suffered grievously at the hands of Boko Haram and other groups.”
The murders and kidnappings of Christians in Nigeria now “verge on genocide,” Anderson added December 16.
“The Christians of Nigeria, both Catholic and Protestant, deserve attention, recognition and relief now,” Anderson further said, adding, “Nigeria’s Christians should be able to live in peace and practice their faith without fear.”
According to a special report released by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) in March, “no fewer than 20 clergymen including at least eight Catholic Priests/Seminarians were hacked to death in the past 57 months and not less than 50 abducted or kidnapped.”
Catholic bishops in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous nation, have repeatedly called on Muhammadu Buhari-led government to put in place strict measures to protect her citizens.
“It is just unimaginable and inconceivable to celebrate Nigeria at 60 when our roads are not safe; our people are kidnapped, and they sell their properties to pay ransom to criminals,” members of CBCN said in a collective statement on October 1.
A version of this story was first reported by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner.
Denver, Colo., Dec 29, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Chatting with Lee McDowell is a peaceful experience.
Seated in a comfy leather chair in a rust-colored office near downtown Denver, McDowell serenely and thoughtfully explains the “art and science&r… […]
New York City, N.Y., Dec 28, 2020 / 03:55 pm (CNA).- Handing an important religious freedom victory to houses of worship in New York, the state’s Second Circuit ordered that the 10 and 25-person caps to worship had to be suspended while the case is pending.
According to the Becket Fund, who represented a group of Synagogues and rabbis as well as the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, the court’s decision “effectively means that New York cannot enforce its caps against any house of worship.”
“And since Connecticut is also in the Second Circuit, it means that Connecticut’s similar caps on worship are unconstitutional,” Becket Fund explained in a tweet.
And since Connecticut is also in the Second Circuit, it means that Connecticut’s similar caps on worship are unconstitutional.
— BECKET (@BECKETlaw) December 28, 2020
On November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court ruled that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 10 and 25-person caps on worship attendance were discriminatory against synagogues and other houses of worship. Since that decision, a majority of states have moved away from caps on worship attendance.
“The Court also said that after remand the district court had to reconsider the 25% and 33% percentage capacity limits using ‘strict scrutiny’ – the highest standard known to constitutional law. That will be a hard standard for the Governor to meet,” The Becket Fund stated.
“It would be better to stop trying to restrict synagogues, churches, and mosques. Gov. Cuomo should read the writing on the wall and let New York join the 33 states that do not cap or put percentage limits on in-person worship,” The Becket Fund added.
According to Eric Rassbach, attorney at the Becket Fund, “under the Second Circuit standard, California would lose immediately. It makes no sense to allow thousands to mob Macy’s etc., as they did before and after Christmas while allowing zero worship. No other state has such differential treatment of worship.”
CNA Staff, Dec 28, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Relics of Auschwitz martyr St. Maximilian Kolbe were installed in a chapel in Poland’s parliament before Christmas.
The relics were transferred Dec. 17 to the Mother of God, Mother of the Church ch… […]
CNA Staff, Dec 28, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Bishop Alberto Rojas succeeded Bishop Gerald R. Barnes Monday as the bishop of San Bernardino, California.
The Holy See press office announced Dec. 28 that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Barnes,… […]
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