News Briefs

Reported message from kidnapped nun calls on Pope for help

January 30, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Bamako, Mali, Jan 30, 2018 / 04:59 pm (ACI Prensa).- A reported video message from a Colombian nun kidnapped almost a year ago in Mali appeals to Pope Francis for his help in securing her release.

The video was reportedly created by two local terrorist organizations that are linked to Al Qaeda.

According to the online edition of the Spanish newspaper El País, the video, which may have been recorded in December, would prove that Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez Argoti
is still alive. In the video, Sister Cecelia reportedly mentions Christmas and the pope’s trip to Chile and Peru that concluded a few days ago.

The Al Akhbar agency published the contents of the message, although it has not released the video itself. It says that the video lasts 4:44 minutes and that “the Colombian hostage pleads with the Pope of the Vatican to intervene to free her.”

Sister Cecelia was kidnapped Feb. 7, 2017 in southern Mali.

The Colombian National Police told RCN Radio earlier this month that they are collaborating with the Vatican police to obtain the 56-year-old nun’s release and met in Holland to exchange information.

 “The pope is aware of what Colombia is doing and to what point we’ve come to obtain her release,” said General Fernando Murillo of the Colombian National Police’s hostage and extortion unit. He said the Colombian police are in ongoing contact with the Catholic Church in Mali to expedite negotiations.

Murillo said that the kidnapping was done for ransom purposes and that the authorities do not know the specific amount being asked for the release of the religious, nor of any communication the terrorists may have had with relatives.

At the end of the video, the terrorists reportedly propose “to negotiate through independent charitable organizations outside the colonialist force.”

Sister Cecilia has served in Mali for 12 years. Her community administers a large health center in the country, as well as a home where they care for some 30 orphans between one and two years of age.

The children were all orphaned at birth, and the sisters pick them up and take care of them, along with some moms that work with them, Sister Noemi Quesada, the superior of Sister Cecelia’s order in Colombi, told Colombia La FM Radio last February.

In addition to their pastoral ministry, they teach literacy to some 700 Muslim women and are working on a barn project for times of food shortages, as many mothers in the region die from malnutrition.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Pope taps Scicluna to investigate Barros accusations

January 30, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jan 30, 2018 / 07:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After recently affirming his support for a Chilean bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse, Pope Francis has named a delegate to examine information that, the Vatican said, has since been brought forward.

According to a Jan. 30 Vatican statement, “following some information recently received regarding the case of Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid,” the Pope has asked Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta to travel to Santiago “to listen to those who have expressed the desire to submit items in their possession.”

In addition to overseeing the Diocese of Malta, Scicluna in 2015 was named by the Pope to oversee the doctrinal team charged with handling appeals filed by clergy accused of abuse in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Scicluna served as the congregation’s Promoter of Justice for 17 years, beginning in 1995. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the canonical norms governing allegations of sexual abuse.

The Pope’s decision to send Scicluna to Santiago follows comes after fresh controversy on the appointment arose during Pope Francis’ Jan. 15-18 visit to Chile.

Francis named Barros as head of the Osorno diocese in Chile in 2015. The move continues to draw harsh criticism from activists and abuse victims who accuse the bishop of covering up the crimes of his longtime friend, Father Fernando Karadima.

Karadima, who once led a lay movement from his parish in El Bosque, was convicted of sexually abusing minors in a 2011 Vatican trial, and at the age of 84, he was sentenced to a life of prayer and solitude.

Barros has repeatedly insisted that he knew nothing of the abuse, and Pope Francis has backed him, naming him head of the Diocese of Osorno in southern Chile in 2015.

The decision set off a wave of objections and calls for his resignation from several priests. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral. However, Francis has insisted on keeping Barros in his post.

On his last day in Chile, before heading to Peru, the Pope responded to a Chilean journalist who asked about the Barros issue, saying “the day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak. There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

The comment was met with uproar from Barros’ critics, several of whom are victims of  Karadima’s abuse. It also prompted Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, one of the Pope’s nine cardinal advisors and head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, to release a statement saying the words were painful to victims.

When asked about it by reporters on his Jan. 21 flight back to Rome, Pope Francis apologized, saying “the word ‘proof’ was not the best in order to draw near to a suffering heart.”

He asked for forgiveness from victims he may have wounded, saying any unintentional harm he may have caused “horrified” him, especially after having met with victims in Chile and in other trips, such as his visit to Philadelphia in 2015.

“I know how much they suffer, to feel that the Pope says in their face ‘bring me a letter, proof,’ it’s a slap,” he said.

Francis also said he is aware that victims may not have brought evidence forward either because it is not available, or because they are perhaps frightened or ashamed.

He insisted that Barros’ case “was studied, it was re-studied, and there is no evidence…That is what I wanted to say. I have no evidence to condemn him. And if I condemn him without evidence or without moral certainty, I would commit the crime of a bad judge.”

“If a person comes and gives me evidence,” he said, “I am the first to listen to him. We should be just.”

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Venezuelan archbishop decries plan to change election date

January 29, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 29, 2018 / 04:34 pm (ACI Prensa).- Archbishop Diego Padrón of Cumaná, former president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, denounced plans to advance presidential elections in the country by more than seven months.

“In any country in the world, democracy operates with clarity, with transparency. Instead, [this] is a midnight ambush,” the archbishop told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, Jan 24.

The country’s National Constituent Assembly issued a decree on Jan. 23 to move up the elections that are usually held in December to no later than April 30, a measure that was “approved by acclamation” according to Delcy Rodriguez, the president of the assembly.

The Archbishop of Cumaná said that “as a Venezuelan, it is my opinion that moving up the date for elections has no legal basis.”

He added that the National Constituent Assembly “is very discredited because it is fraudulent in its origin and how it is run.”

Venezuela is currently in the midst of a severe economic crisis, with hyperinflation and chronic shortages of food and medicine.

The country’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while the items are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates. The International Monetary Fund has forecasted an inflation rate of 2,300 percent in Venezuela in 2018.

Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is due to run for re-election this year, as his term ends in 2019.

Last July, contested elections led to the formation of a National Constituent Assembly, which has superseded the authority of the National Assembly, Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature.

Mass protests against the Constituent Assembly were held, in which more than 120 people were killed by security forces.

Following the decree from the National Constituent Assembly, President Maduro asked the Board of Elections to set the closest day possible for voting, saying, “We’re going to get this over with as soon as possible.”  

Maduro also said that the elections will be held with or without the opposition.

According to the BBC, it is unknown whether any opposition candidate will run since the main leaders, Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez, have been disqualified from running for office.

Capriles was banned from running for office for 15 years by the Comptroller General’s Office for alleged irregularities in the state of Miranda where he was governor, the Associated Press reported last April.

In September 2015, El Confidencial news reported that Lopez was sentenced to 14 years in military prison for allegedly inciting violence at an anti-government demonstration the previous year.

Moving up the date of the election has been rejected by the Venezuelan opposition and the “Lima Group,” a coalition which is comprised of representatives from 14 countries of the Americas.

Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz read a statement on the matter emphasizing that “this decision makes it impossible to hold democratic, transparent and credible presidential elections.”

The text of the statement was approved by delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Santa Lucía.

“We demand that the presidential elections be held with enough time to properly prepare for participation by all Venezuelan political actors and with all the corresponding guarantees,” the text adds.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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