Maputo, Mozambique, Sep 5, 2019 / 03:13 am (CNA).- In his opening speech in Mozambique Thursday, Pope Francis encouraged the country’s authorities to work diligently for peace.
“Peace is not merely absence of war but a tireless commitment … […]
Antananarivo, Madagascar, Sep 3, 2019 / 10:59 am (CNA).- Later this week, Pope Francis will visit the island nation of Madagascar, a place where the faith is practiced with simplicity and with a strong solidarity, according to one priest on the island … […]
Jalingo, Nigeria, Aug 30, 2019 / 10:08 am (CNA).- A Catholic priest was killed in Nigeria this week when the car he was driving was set ablaze.
Fr. David Tanko was traveling within the Jalingo diocese of Nigeria, near the country’s border with Cameroon, when he was attacked Aug. 29. The priest was traveling to a “peace meeting” of local clergymen to discuss a conflict between the local Tiv and Jukun ethic groups.
“We received the news of his death with shock. This is sad. The diocese is mourning,” Bishop Charles Hammawa of Jalingo told local media.
“We have been preaching peace and making efforts to bring both parties in the crisis in the area to a roundtable discussion,” the bishop added.
Shiban Tikari, chairman of Taraba State Council, told local media that a Tiv militia carried out the attack.
Hammawa encouraged a peaceful response to Tanko’s killing.
“Our basic concern now is to give him a befitting burial,” the bishop said.
“We don’t want any group to go on reprisal. Going on reprisal will only worsen the situation.”
The bishop announced a Vigil Mass for the priest on Monday, Sept. 2 and burial the following day at the diocesan cemetery in Jalingo.
A version of this story was initially reported by CNA’s sister agency, ACI Africa. It has been adapted by CNA.
Mombasa, Kenya, Aug 29, 2019 / 11:10 am (CNA).- Ahead of a papal trip to Africa, the “popemobile” – the vehicle in which Pope Francis will travel – has been shipped from Kenya to Mozambique, the first stop on the pope’s six-day swing through three African nations.
The “popemobile” is the same one the pontiff used during his 2015 visit to Kenya. It was shipped by sea from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Aug. 17, to Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique.
Fr. Benjamin Maswali, apostolic administrator to Kenya’s military ordinariate, told ACI Africa that the vehicle was inspected by Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, before it was authorized for shipment.
The vehicle was repainted and its seat covers were replaced before it was shipped.
Archbishop Bert van Megan, apostolic nuncio to Kenya, told ACI Africa that Vatican police contacted his office in June about having the “popemobile” shipped to Mozambique.
Archbishop van Megan told ACI Africa that because of the unique aspects of a papal trip, the pope’s vehicle, “must be relatively high so everyone can see the Holy Father when touring through the streets of the city.”
“It should be stable, sturdy and fast in case of an emergency,” the nuncio said, adding that the vehicle “needs to have the necessary protection against wind and rain.”
He confirmed that the car being temporarily transferred to Maputo, a modified Isuzu pickup truck, “met all the special requirements that a ‘popemobile’ needs” including being “light and friendly in design.”
“It should therefore come as no surprise that the team of the Vatican, preparing the papal visit, came up with the idea to use the same vehicle for the papal visit in Mozambique as well,” Archbishop van Megen said.
After it is used by the pope, the “popemobile” will be returned to Kenya, where it will be kept in storage for future papal trips to Africa.
A version of this story was initially reported by CNA’s sister agency, ACI Africa. It has been adapted by CNA.
Johannesburg, South Africa, Aug 24, 2019 / 03:38 pm (CNA).- Despite efforts by abortion advocates to expand the number of abortion clinics in South Africa, doctors in the country are largely unwilling to perform the procedure.
Under the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996, abortions are legal in South Africa up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. In cases of rape, incest, and financial hardship, abortions are legal up to 20 weeks.
Kgaladi Mphahlele, manager of Doctors Without Borders’ Choice of Termination of Pregnancy in Rustenburg, said it is hard to find clinics willing to perform abortions or doctors willing to give referrals.
Mphahlele said access to abortion clinics is necessary to prevent women from seeking unsafe abortion methods, according to Health-E News.
Guttmacher-Lancet Commission in Johannesburg issued a report last year finding that out of the 8000 medical clinics in South Africa, about 7% performed abortions, Health-E News reported.
Judiac Ranape, a nurse who trains doctors on abortions, argued that conscientious objection is a problem.
“You’ll find an operations manager who says, ‘We won’t perform it [an abortion] because it’s against my religious beliefs’,” Ranape said, calling for restrictions on conscientious objection.
However, surveys show that the general population in the country is strongly opposed to abortion.
The South African Social Attitudes Survey, conducted 2003-2006, found that 9 of out 10 adults in South Africa believed abortion to be wrong in times of financial dilemma, and three-quarters said abortion was still immoral if the child was to be born with a disability.
Church leaders have called for efforts to provide women facing difficult pregnancies with alternatives to abortion. Catholic Mater Homes, a pro-life group in the Archdiocese of Cape Town, is one such organization. It works to provide shelter for women during a crisis pregnancy.
“The establishment of Mater Domini was was born out of the need that existed within Archdiocese of Cape Town to create an alternative to abortion for women who might have felt forced into making such a decision out of desperation,” the organization’s Facebook page reads.
“When we talk about the nameless, faceless and voiceless victims of abortion, we have to include the mothers, who so often find themselves in helpless circumstances, with little other alternative but to make the difficult choice to end the life of their unborn child.”
Nairobi, Kenya, Aug 19, 2019 / 05:45 pm (CNA).- At the launch event for a new African Catholic news agency Saturday, a Kenyan bishop urged journalists to focus their work on the “grassroots” life of the Catholic Church across the continent…. […]
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aug 15, 2019 / 02:03 pm (CNA).- Scientists are hopeful after a clinical trial of two experimental drugs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) showed promise in treating the deadly Ebola virus.
Regene… […]
Maputo, Mozambique, Aug 10, 2019 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis’ visit to Mozambique Sept. 5-6 will be a moment of rejoicing for Catholics in that country, who greatly look forward to the encounter, according to a priest from the country.
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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Aug 7, 2019 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- Fr. Willy Milayi is a Missionary of the Immaculate Conception who lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works rescuing children who fled the coltan mines and offering them a place to live and learn a trade.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one the world’s top producers of coltan, a rare mineral used the manufacture of many electronic devices, such as cell phones.
Working conditions in the DRC’s coltan mines are dangerous and the workers, including young children, are often exploited.
“The exploitation of these mines is in the hands of the guerrillas,” explained Fr. Malayi in an interview with the Diocese of Málaga in Spain.
“Our cell phones are stained with the blood of the ‘walking dead children’.”
Malayi works with children who have escaped forced labor in the mines. Many of them are living on the streets when he finds them. Some 20,000 children lives on the streets of Kinshasa alone.
The Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception have started an educational center in the city. He described the center as “a home where they can learn a trade that ensures them a future away from the mines and to never return to the streets.”
“We can’t solve all the problems, but we thank God for every one of the children we can rescue. It’s a true miracle that is made possible thanks to people of goodwill,” Malayi said.
The priest recounted one boy he encountered in his ministry, who had escaped the mines and fled hundreds of miles.
Starving and grief-stricken, the boy needed someone to listen to him. “After giving him something to eat, he told me about his life,” Milayi said.
The boy said that his family had been kidnapped from their house by militiamen, who took them to the forest and told them they must choose between death and mining coltan 13 hours a day.
The family chose the mines: “They worked 650 feet below the surface taking out 15 sacks of coltan a day, for which they received two dollars at the end of the month,” Milayi said.
When riots broke out against the militias, they raped and killed and the boy’s mother and two teenage sisters. They also killed his father.
“He managed to escape. But he told me amid tears: ‘I’m not afraid of death, I’m a corpse and a corpse does not fear death’,” the priest said.
At the educational center, the Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception teach the children “to take care of each other,” Malayi said.
“We have heard more than one of them say: ‘Father Willy taught us that when we are older we’ll have to help.’ I think this is a very important step,” he said.
Malayi called on Christians to “defend the dignity of the person, the image of God” and recognize the value of each person as a brother or sister.
“In our world this concept has been lost, and we have put material things ahead of people,” he said. “What is killing us today is indifference. We don’t want to know anything about other people’s problems, and we just talk about our own. What is more worrisome than material poverty is spiritual poverty.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Erbil, Iraq, Aug 6, 2019 / 01:52 pm (CNA).- Five years on from the conquering of Christian communities in Iraq by the so-called Islamic State, Christians in the country remain at the “point of extinction,” Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda o… […]
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