Vatican

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican at his general audience on Sept. 13, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 13, 2023 / 17:46 pm (CNA).

An Iraqi Christian figure involved in a dispute with the leader of the Catholic Church in the country was not, as he has implied online, granted a private audience with Pope Francis, the Vatican clarified on Tuesday. 

Rayan Al-Kildani, whose name means “Rayan the Chaldean,” is a Christian lawmaker and leader of the paramilitary group the “Babylon Brigades.” He has previously been sanctioned by the United States for alleged human rights abuses, including the cutting off of a detainee’s ear. 

In addition, Al-Kildani has publicly clashed with the leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Cardinal Louis Sako, over allegations by Sako that Kildani has been extorting Christians in the Nineveh Plains, a historically Christian but embattled region. Sako also has faulted Al-Kildani for his apparent desire to take over control of the Chaldean Church’s properties in Iraq. 

On social media Sept. 7, Al-Kildani shared photos and videos that seemed, at least to some observers, to imply that he had a private meeting with Pope Francis. Al-Kildani released a statement on Facebook after his visit to the Vatican along with photos of the encounter, one of which had been edited to blur the crowds in the background.

“At the end of the prayer, al-Kildani met His Holiness the pope… and conveyed to him the greetings of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people, asking him for his prayers for Iraq. In turn, His Holiness the pope granted Kildani his apostolic blessing and gave him a special gift, which is the rosary, blessed by His Holiness,” Al-Kildani said.

The Vatican in a brief Tuesday statement said Pope Francis’ meeting with Al-Kildani was during the weekly general audience. 

“During the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on 6 September last, His Holiness Pope Francis greeted some of the people present, as is customary. Among them was a group of Iraqis, which included Mr. Rayan Al-Kildani, with whom some brief words were exchanged,” the Vatican Press Office said.

Pope Francis’ general audiences are held in St. Peter’s Square and attract thousands of pilgrims from around the world, many of whom get the chance to greet the pope and take pictures with him. Al-Kildani previously asked for a personal meeting with the pope in 2021 when Francis visited the country, and again in April and was refused both times, the Washington Institute, a D.C.-based think tank, noted.

But in a Wednesday Facebook post, Al-Kildani said the Vatican’s statement served to confirm “its prior knowledge of the presence of Mr. Ryan Al-Kaldani among the Iraqi delegation in the interview with His Holiness the pope.”

Al-Kildani is a controversial figure not only because of his alleged crimes but also because of his public disputes with his Church’s hierarchy.

In July, Cardinal Sako announced his withdrawal from his seat in Baghdad after Iraqi President Abdul Rashid revoked a decree recognizing him as head of the Christian Church in Iraq, which the government had done since 2013. The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern-rite church in full communion with the Holy See, with about 300,000 members in the country and thousands more around the world. Once a nation with more than a million Christians, Iraq has seen its highly diverse Iraqi Christian community decimated by the Islamic State and other conflicts since 2003. 

Sako said in July that he will be taking up residence in a monastery in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq, where he will continue to lead the Chaldean Church. Al-Kildani’s militant group engaged in a “deliberate and humiliating campaign” against his office, which included “incorrect” legal advice to Rashid that helped lead to the president’s decision, Sako charged in his announcement letter.

According to reporting by ACI Mena, CNA’s Middle East and North Africa news partner, Sako has also accused Al-Kildani of seizing Christian seats in the Iraqi Parliament without real representation for Christians. As a result, Al-Kildani has taken Sako to court for slander. The proceedings are ongoing.

In 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Al-Kildani because he was engaged in “serious human rights abuses” in his capacity as head of a paramilitary group. The group Al-Kildani leads in purportedly “the primary impediment to the return of internally displaced persons to the Ninevah Plain,” the department said. 

According to the Treasury Department, Al-Kildani’s group “illegally seized and sold agricultural land” and “the local population has accused the group of intimidation, extortion, and harassment of women.” A video was circulated among human rights groups showing Al-Kildani cutting off the ear of a handcuffed detainee, the Treasury Department’s report said.

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Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich (right), relator general of Synod on Synodality, speaks to the media on June 20, 2023, at the temporary headquarters of the Holy See Press Office in Vatican City. Beside him is Cardinal Mario Grech, the Secretary G… […]

Pope Francis gives his general audience address in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sept. 13, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 13, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).
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Pope Francis and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi at the Vatican on Aug. 24, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

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Cardinal-elect Víctor Manuel Fernández was appointed by Pope Francis on July 1, 2023, to become the next prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. / Credit: Courtesy of Archdiocese of La Plata

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A statue of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn at the Jeoldu-san martyrs’ shrine in Seoul, South Korea / Rabanus Flavus|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

The Vatican will dedicate a new statue of the patron saint of Korea, St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, in St. Peter’s Basilica this Saturday.

Born in 1821, Tae-gŏn was the first native Korean priest and one of the country’s earliest martyrs.

The statue of the Korean martyr was proposed by Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, a Korean prelate and prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, and approved by Pope Francis, according to the Holy See’s news arm, Vatican News.

The pope has pointed to Tae-gŏn’s missionary zeal as a model for all Christians to follow.

“The Christian is by nature a witness of Jesus,” Vatican News reported Francis saying in a May 24 homily. “St. Andrew Kim and the other Korean faithful have demonstrated that the testimony of the Gospel given in times of persecution can bear many fruits for the faith.”

The statue’s dedication will take place on Sept. 16, the anniversary of Tae-gŏn’s beheading by the Korean Joseon Dynasty.

Pope Francis will welcome a delegation of 300 clergy and lay members of the Korean Church who will be coming for the dedication of the statue in a private audience on Saturday.

Cardinal You will then celebrate a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Korean at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The 6-ton marble statue of the Korean martyr, which will be permanently installed in a niche in the walls of St. Peter’s Basilica, will then be blessed by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, at 4:30 p.m.

Speaking to Rome’s Agenzia Fides, You said that the statue’s dedication at the Vatican has brought great joy to the Church in Korea.

“We were very happy that Pope Francis wanted to accept our proposal,” You said. “It is a great honor for our Korean Church, which is very linked to the figure of this saint.”

“We believe and hope that he can be increasingly loved and his intercession invoked by the faithful from all over the world,” You added.

After converting to Catholicism at the age of 15, Tae-gŏn trained for the priesthood in Macao and was ordained in 1836 by French Bishop Jean Joseph Jean-Baptiste Ferréol, the first bishop of Seoul.

Despite an ongoing vicious persecution, Tae-gŏn returned to Korea to evangelize his homeland. He was only 25 years old when he was tortured and ultimately beheaded during the persecution by the Joseon Dynasty for the crime of being a Catholic.

Writing to his fellow Christians shortly before his death, Tae-gŏn encouraged them to stay true to the faith. He said: “We have received baptism, entrance into the Church, and the honor of being called Christians. Yet what good will this do us if we are Christians in name only and not in fact?”

In Tae-gŏn’s last words before his execution, according to research by Macao News, he gave a final exhortation for his compatriots to convert to the one true faith.

“This is the last hour of my life,” Tae-gŏn reportedly said. “Listen to me attentively. If I have held communication with foreigners, it has been for my religion and for my God. It is for him that I die. My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death, because God has eternal punishments in store for those who have refused to know him.”

Along with 102 other Korean martyrs, whose executions were documented, Tae-gŏn was canonized as a saint on May 6, 1984, by Pope John Paul II during a visit to Korea.

Though most executions were not well documented, it is estimated that approximately 10,000 Korean Christians were martyred for the faith before Christianity became tolerated in 1884.

The more than 12-foot-tall statue depicts Tae-gŏn with his arms outstretched and wearing traditional Korean dopo and a flat hat.

Created by Korean Catholic artist Han Jin-seop, the statue is made entirely of Carrara marble and weighs about 6 tons.

Speaking to a reporter for the Catholic Korean news source Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation, Jin-seop said: “More than anything, I sincerely pray that Father Kim Dae-geon’s [Tae-gŏn’s] bold, merciful, benevolent, yet Korean-like image will be expressed well in formative ways, so that his meaning and spirit will be known to the world.”

Asia has been a major focus for the pope recently. Francis just completed a four-day trip to Mongolia after which he said: “I have been to the heart of Asia, and it did me good.”

At the conclusion of this year’s World Youth Day, in Lisbon, Portugal, Francis announced that the next event would take place in Seoul, South Korea, in 2027.

There are currently more than 5 million Catholics in South Korea, making up about 11.3% of the country’s total population, according to Agenzia Fides.

Though widely practiced in the southern portion of the peninsula, Christianity remains brutally repressed in North Korea under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Un.

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: “Anyone caught practicing religion or even suspected of harboring religious views in private [in North Korea] is subject to severe punishment, including arrest, torture, imprisonment, and execution.”

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A man looks at the rubble of homes in the village of Talat N’Yaaqoub south of Marrakech in Morocco on Sept. 11, 2023. The quake that struck the country on Sept. 8 killed at least 2,122 people, injured more than 2,400 others, and flattened entire… […]

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus reflection on Sept. 10, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 10, 2023 / 07:05 am (CNA).

To dialogue with someone who has wronged us is a process that requires “real courage,” Pope Francis said Sunday, reflecting on the theme of “fraternal correction.”

In Sunday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18:15-20) Jesus says: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.”

Fraternal correction is “one of the highest expressions of love, and also the most demanding, because it is not easy to correct others,” the Holy Father observed, speaking on Sept. 10 from a window at the Apostolic Palace to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “When a brother in the faith commits a fault against you, you, without rancor, help him, correct him: Help by correcting.”

The pope went on to condemn gossip, or “chattering,” which is “not right” and is “not pleasing to God.” He called gossip “a plague on the lives of people and communities because it brings division, it brings suffering, it brings scandal, and it never helps to improve, it never helps to grow.”

Fraternal correction, on the other hand, is a process that allows us to help the other person “understand where he is wrong. And do this for his good, overcoming shame and finding true courage, which is not to speak badly, but to say things to his face with meekness and kindness,” Pope Francis said. But he warned that “pointing the finger” at the other’s fault “is not good, in fact, it often makes it more difficult for those who made a mistake to recognize their mistake.”

“But we might ask, what if this is not enough? What if he does not understand?” the pope asked.

“Then we must look for help. Beware, though: not from the group that gossips! Jesus says: ‘Take one or two others along with you,’ meaning people who genuinely want to lend a hand to this misguided brother,” Francis urged.

“And if he still does not understand? Then, Jesus says, involve the community. But here, too, this does not mean to pillory a person, putting him to shame publicly, but rather to unite the efforts of everyone to help him change,” the pope said.

“And so, let us ask ourselves: How should I behave with a person who wrongs me? Do I keep it inside and accumulate resentment?” Pope Francis asked. “Do I talk about it behind their backs? ‘Do you know what he did?’ and so on. Or am I brave, courageous, and do I try to talk about it to him or her? Do I pray for him or her, ask for help to do good? And do our communities take care of those who fall so that they can get back up and start a new life? Do they point their fingers or open their arms?”

The pope asked again: “What do you do: Do you point the finger or open your arms?”

Following his reflection, the Holy Father expressed his “closeness to the dear people of Morocco” in the aftermath of a devastating 6.8 magnitude earthquake on the evening of Sept. 8 that has left more than 2,000 people dead and more than 2,000 injured as of Sept. 10.

Pope Francis also spoke briefly about the beatification of the Ulma family in Markowa, Poland. The Nazis brutally executed the devoutly Catholic family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children in 1944 for hiding eight Jews in their home outside the village of Markowa in southeast Poland. This is the first time an entire family has been beatified together.

The pope highlighted the family’s courage and evangelical love, for they “represent a ray of light in the darkness of the Second World War, be a model for all of us to imitate in our desire for good and in the service of those in need.“

Pope Francis used the example of the Ulma family to call for acts of charity to counter violence, as well as prayer; especially “for many countries that suffer from war; in a special way,” he said, “let us intensify our prayers for the tormented Ukraine.”

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The American actor and director Sylvester Stallone met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Sept. 8, 2023. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 8, 2023 / 09:15 am (CNA).
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