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Pope Francis donates 35 ventilators to developing countries battling coronavirus

June 26, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jun 26, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis has donated 35 ventilators to overwhelmed hospitals in developing countries as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide nears 10 million.

The pope donated four ventilators each to Haiti, Venezuela, and Brazil, a country which has suffered more than 50,000 deaths from COVID-19. 

Ventilators were also distributed to Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic through the local apostolic nunciatures, or Vatican embassies.

Pope Francis “expresses his closeness to countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those with more distressed healthcare systems,” the Office of Papal Charities reported in a statement June 26.  

The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) said June 24 that he anticipated that the world would reach a total of 10 million documented cases of COVID-19 by next week. 

As of June 26, more than 9.6 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide and 490,055 people have died after contracting the coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 

Earlier this week the WHO reported the largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases, with more than 183,000 new infections documented worldwide in 24 hours.

A religious sister and nurse who has treated patients on the frontlines of Italy’s coronavirus crisis said June 23 that the coronavirus pandemic is not over and “the situation is very worrying” for many sisters in other parts of the world seeking to help the most vulnerable.

“I have been in contact with many sisters working in places like Jordan … in South Sudan, in Chad, in Ecuador, and I can see the sisters exposed to many risks with no equipment at all,” Sister Alicia Vacas said at a virtual symposium organized by the U.S. and British embassies to the Holy See.

“They don’t work in many cases in government hospitals. They don’t have access to tests. So they are receiving suspected cases and patients without any possibility of protecting themselves.”

She added: “For many other sisters who are not working in medical issues, they have to face this explosion … of poverty and social crisis, and many sisters … are dealing with starvation.” 

Pope Francis has donated ventilators on several other occasions during the pandemic. The pope, who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, marked the feast of his namesake, St. George, with a gift of ventilators delivered to hospitals in Romania, Spain, and Italy on April 23.

Vatican News also reported that Pope Francis donated three ventilators to Zambia’s bishops’ conference in May. 

Archbishop Andrés Carrascosa Coso, the apostolic nuncio in Ecuador, told Vatican News June 26 that the delivery of the two ventilators in Quito was “a very heartfelt moment.”

“The two machines have been welcomed with great joy, because the pope’s paternal gesture and attention has been understood for this country that suffers from a very delicate situation,” Carrascosa Coso said.

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Douthat: Cardinals should look for ‘dynamic orthodoxy’ in next pope

June 25, 2020 CNA Daily News 8

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 25, 2020 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- Catholic columnist Ross Douthat on Wednesday said that the eventual next conclave could produce a leader in the mould of St. John Paul II, and that expectations of a more retiring successor to the charismatic leadership of Francis may shift after months of global upheaval.

“I think the goal of the cardinals should be to find someone who embodies what you might call ‘dynamic orthodoxy’–which is to say what I think is at its best is what Pope John Paul II was able to embody,” Douthat said.

Douthat, who writes for the New York Times, made the remarks while participating in a panel discussion on the publication of “The Next Pope,” a forthcoming book by National Catholic Register reporter Edward Pentin. In addition to Douthat and Pentin, also at the discussion were Crux editor John Allen and historian Roberto de Mattei. The discussion was moderated by journalist Diane Montagna. 

The Next Pope sketches profiles of nineteen cardinals who, according to Pentin, could be contenders to succeed Pope Francis. While there was disagreement among the panelists about the relative viability of the candidates proposed in the book, Douthat said that there is a need to elect someone who “simultaneously doesn’t leave people in serious doubt about what the Church is teaching and what it believes, but also seems to be engaged with where late modernity is going, engaged with where the world is going.”

Douthat said that while the “conventional wisdom” is that some cardinals could favor a less “charismatic leader” after Pope Francis, recent months may have shifted that perception. 

“I think the conventional wisdom is that the Francis pontificate has been such an era of sort of papal activity, intense media coverage of the papacy, and sort of particular pushes for reform or change driven by the Holy Father himself, that there may be a desire among the cardinal electors in the next conclave to sort of take the temperature down a bit,” said Douthat, suggesting that this view would suggest a “more of a retiring figure, or sort of a functional figure.”

But, he said, the coronavirus and other recent global events may have altered that calculus.

“We’ve also had this moment in the Western world, and really the whole world, over the last few months with the coronavirus that’s going to have tremendous repercussions, I think, for the Church going forward. It’s going to probably, at least temporarily, accelerate the decline of the institutional Church in the West and probably therefore accelerate some of the shifts in Catholic power and influence around the world,” he said.

Douthat said that tensions inside the Church over pushes for married clergy and other reforms had largely cooled in recent months.

“In some ways it’s a calmer moment in the Church and a more fraught moment in the world than it was two years ago, and that might arguably push the cardinal electors to look anew for dynamism in certain ways and worry less about the dangers of, you know, too much dynamism, which might have been the big worry a couple of years ago,” he said.

Douthat characterized the next pope as a man willing to do “an impossible job” and model and ability to balance clarity of teaching with an ability “to be engaged with where late modernity is going, engaged with where the developing world is going and not just sort of building a bunker around the Church.”

“I think it’s hard to identify a singular figure who fits that bill,” he said.

Pentin said that the papacy had become more reflective of the Church as a global reality and the role now requires a pope “to be pretty media savvy.” 

Pentin said that “the whole globalized setting” of the Church had become much more pronounced in recent decades and was increasingly reflected in the college of cardinals and would be so in the man elected as pope. “The Church, it’s always been international but that’s the greater emphasis now, and there has to be that greater awareness of the realities of the Church in every part of the world.”

“It can’t be Eurocentric anymore,” he said.

Pentin offered the final observation that predicting who the next pope would be was likely an impossible exercise. Noting that his book profiled 19 likely candidates, he said he was expecting a surprise.

“I’ve been saying that it’s 19 [candidates] but I expect the 20th will be the one that’s picked.” 

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Benedict XVI returns to Rome after visiting ill brother in Germany

June 22, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jun 22, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope emeritus Benedict XVI arrived back in Rome Monday after a four-day trip to Germany to visit his ailing brother.

The Diocese of Regensburg reported June 22 that 93-year-old Benedict XVI said goodbye to his 96-year-old brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who is in poor health, before departing for Munich airport. 

“It is perhaps the last time that the two brothers, Georg and Joseph Ratzinger, will see each other in this world,” the Regensburg diocese said in an earlier statement.

Benedict XVI was accompanied on the journey to the airport by Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg. Before the pope emeritus boarded an Italian air force plane he was greeted by Bavaria’s premier Markus Söder. The Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German daily newspaper, quoted Söder as saying that the encounter was a moment of “joy and melancholy.”

The pope emeritus landed in Rome at 1 p.m. local time, according to Vatican News. Benedict XVI and his entourage arrived 45 minutes later at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, his residence in the Vatican. 

Benedict XVI was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger in the town of Marktl in Bavaria in 1927. His older brother Georg is his last living family member.

On his final full day in Bavaria, Benedict XVI offered Sunday Mass with his brother in Luzengasse, Regensburg. He later went to pray at the shrine of St. Wolfgang, the patron saint of Regensburg diocese.

Archbishop Nikola Eterović, the apostolic nuncio in Germany, traveled from Berlin to meet with the pope emeritus in Regensburg over the weekend.

“It is an honor to welcome the pope emeritus again in Germany, even in this difficult family situation,” Eterović said June 21 following their meeting.

The nuncio said his impression during his meeting with Benedict was “that he feels good here in Regensburg.”

The former pope arrived in Bavaria on Thursday, June 16. Immediately upon his arrival, Benedict went to see his brother, the diocese reported. The brothers celebrated Mass together at the house in Regensburg and the pope emeritus then went to the diocesan seminary, where he stayed throughout the visit. In the evening, he returned to see his brother again.

On Friday, the two celebrated Mass for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, according to a statement.

On Saturday the former pope visited the residence in Pentling, just outside Regensburg, where he lived while serving as a professor from 1970 to 1977.

His last time seeing the home was during his 2006 pastoral trip to Bavaria. 

The diocese said Benedict XVI then stopped at the Ziegetsdorf cemetery to spend time in prayer at the graves of his parents and sister.

Christian Schaller, deputy head of the Pope Benedict XVI Institute, told Regensburg diocese that during the pope emeritus’ visit to his former home “memories awoke.”

“It was a trip back in time,” he said.

Benedict stayed at his Pentling home and in its garden for about 45 minutes, and was reportedly moved by old family portraits.

During his visit to the cemetery an Our Father and Hail Mary were prayed.

“I have the impression that the visit is a source of strength for both brothers,” Schaller said.

According to Regensburg diocese, “Benedict XVI is traveling in the company of his secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his doctor, his nurse and a religious sister. The Pope emeritus made the decision to travel to his brother in Regensburg at short notice, after consulting with Pope Francis.”

Msgr. Georg Ratzinger is a former choir master of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the cathedral choir of Regensburg.

On June 29, 2011, he celebrated his 60th anniversary as a priest in Rome together with his brother. Both men were ordained priests in 1951.

This report has been updated to include the time of Benedict XVI’s arrival in Rome.

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