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Tag: Pope Francis

  • There’s light at end of the tunnel – Catholic Archbishop

    The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins, says despite the hardship many are facing in the nation, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

    Martins spoke on Wednesday at a news conference on the Marian Year celebration at the Holy Cross Cathedral, Lagos.

    The  celebration is to mark the centenary of Mary’s apparition to the Three Shepherd children of Fatima in Portugal 1917.

    Pope Francis, in view of this, had declared a Centenary Celebration running from Nov. 27 2016 to Nov. 26 2017.

    In Nigeria, the Marian Year is dedicated to the blessed virgin Mary as the Queen and patroness of Nigeria.

    Martins said Nigeria was in need of healing in several areas, and assured the faithful that their prayers were not in vain.

    ”I have good news for all my fellow countrymen, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The prayers of God’s children in this last one year will not be in vain.

    ”He will surely restore the glory of the nation and bring to shame all those who have consistently worked to hold us in perpetual bandage.

    ”Our assurance that God will restore the glory of the nation requires that we also rededicate ourselves to living lives of righteousness, shun sin and embrace the truth,” he said.

    The archbishop regretted that innocent lives were being lost to Boko Haram and  herdsmen attacks, among others, praying that God would help the nation to overcome the problems.

    Martins said that the Marian Year celebration was to give all Christians in the country the opportunity to give special honour to the blessed virgin Mary.

    He said it was also to seek her maternal intercession with her son, Jesus Christ, for the needs of families, individuals in the nation, and the nation as a whole.

    According to him, this is to pray God to save the nation from the moral, economic and political problems facing her.

  • German President meets Pope for talks

    German President meets Pope for talks

    German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, held his first meeting with Pope Francis on Monday since taking over the largely ceremonial post, with migration and refugees on the agenda.

    Steinmeier, who assumed office in February, held a private audience with the pontiff in the Vatican.

    The talks were also expected to focus on international tensions as well as the outcome of September’s German election, which resulted in new right-wing populist party, the Alternative for Germany, entering the national parliament in Berlin for the first time.

    A Protestant and former Foreign Minister, Steinmeier has repeatedly sought to promote ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.

    His visit to Rome coincides with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which forged a new the relationship between the Protestant and the Catholic churches.

    Steinmeier’s predecessor, Joachim Gauck, met with the former Pope, Benedict, in 2012.

    NAN

  • Pope urges host nations, govts to welcome undocumented migrants

    Pope urges host nations, govts to welcome undocumented migrants

    Pope Francis on Monday urged host nations and governments to welcome undocumented migrants and also help more people fleeing poverty and conflict.

    The Argentinian pontiff, son of an Italian immigrant family, renewed his pro-migrant stance even as the U.S. and Europe are seeking to contain migrant inflows, sometimes linking this to anti-terrorism efforts.

    In a message in advance of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which the Catholic Church will observe on Jan. 14, Francis said we should “always prioritise [the] personal safety [of migrants] over national security.”

    There must be “alternative solutions to detention for those who enter a country without authorisation,” and governments should be “offering broader options for migrants and refugees to enter destination countries safely and legally,” the pope insisted.

    “This calls for a concrete commitment to increase and simplify the process for granting humanitarian visas and for reunifying families,” as well as “humanitarian corridors” for vulnerable refugees, the pope said.

    Newcomers must be offered “adequate and dignified initial accomodation,” guaranteed “freedom of religious belief and practice,” and helped to integrate, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics added.

    “This process can be accelerated by granting citizenship free of financial or linguistic requirements, and by offering the possibility of special legalisation to migrants who can claim a long period of residence in the country of arrival,” the pope argued.

    Francis has often recalled that helping the destitute is a Christian duty, and, on Monday, he noted that, “when duly recognised and valued, the potential and skills of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are a true resource for the communities that welcome them.”

    According to the International Organisation for Migration, there have been just under 3,500 migrant deaths since the start of the year, including 2,410 in the Mediterranean, 265 in North Africa and 245 on the US-Mexico border.

  • ‘Pope Francis is world rarest icon of humility’

    ‘Pope Francis is world rarest icon of humility’

    Head of the  Vatican State and leader of the Catholic Communion  Pope Francis has been commended as the “world most outstanding living exemplar of sacrificial humility, inexhaustible love and extraordinary  meekness”.

    Senator Annie Okonkwo, a knight of Saint John international, made the observation at St Peter Basilica, Vatican City, Europe, after a privileged audience with the Pope together with his daughter, Dr Miss Nkem Okonkwo on August 2. The Pope blessed them and prayed for Nigeria  on the Senator’s request. He urged them to remain flaming lights of service as global ambassadors of peace  to humanity, and to  Nigeria .

    Okonkwo said: “You cannot experience Pope Francis personally and remain the same. Of course, I caught my miracle of  spiritual rebirth swiftly and gladly, with a revived charter of  love to all and ill to none,  firmly implanted.

    “It is now remarkably clear to me, why the centrepiece of Pope Francis Pontificate is on peace, love and mercy. This is because his total substance in its entirety, is locked down to his peculiar aromatic charisma, which resonates in a dedicated life of continual giving, caring and healing to all humanity, especially the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.

    ‘Yes, I know the truth  is obvious, but I echo it loudly the more from the exhilaration of my heart and the command of my conscience, that His Holiness greatest sword of revival and evangelism remain his plain simplicity and open meekness”.

    Capturing her own feelings like her dad, an equally elated Dr Nkem Okonkwo, a London Ivy league physician, said.

    “The pure bliss of her hilarious experience is spiritually unforgettable, and I owe this Pope my prayers for canonization, and my awesome dad, a lifetime gratitude for this rare kindness’.

    Okonkwo also visited the Nigerian Embassy in the Vatican where he encouraged the Charge’ d’Affairs, Anthony Stephen Awuri, and his staff to be faithful in their work and steady in their intercessions for the speedy return of President Mohammad Buhari to our the country in complete good health.

  • Pope to G20: Give ‘absolute priority’ to poor, marginalised

    Pope to G20: Give ‘absolute priority’ to poor, marginalised

    Pope Francis on Fridau urged world leaders taking part in the G20 summit in Hamburg to give “absolute priority” to the problems of the poor and marginalised and to efforts to end wars.

    “There is a need to give absolute priority to the poor, refugees, the suffering, evacuees and the excluded, without distinction of nation, race, religion or culture, and to reject armed conflicts,” Francis wrote to summit host, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

    According to the pontiff, the G20 target of achieving more inclusive and sustainable global economic growth is “inseparable from the need to address ongoing conflicts and the worldwide problem of migrations.”

    The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics made “a heartfelt appeal for the tragic situation in South Sudan, the Lake Chad basin, the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

    He said that these were where 30 million people are lacking the food and water needed to survive.

    In what could be seen as coded criticism of the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, Francis also urged G20 leaders “to respect and honour international treaties, and to continue promoting a multilateral approach.”

    “I ask God’s blessings upon the Hamburg meeting and on every effort of the international community to shape a new era of development that is innovative, interconnected, sustainable, environmentally respectful and inclusive of all peoples and all individuals,” he concluded.

  • Pope dismisses Cardinal in charge of Vatican watchdog

    Pope dismisses Cardinal in charge of Vatican watchdog

    German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, an arch-conservative who led the Vatican’s doctrine watchdog, has been dismissed from his post by Pope Francis, several media outlets reported on Saturday.

    Mueller, 69, was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on July 2, 2012.

    Francis met him on Friday, and according to the reports, told Mueller that his mandate had come to an end after five years.

    The news, published by the La Stampa and Il Messaggero newspapers, among others, was first reported on Friday by conservative blogs, Corrispondenza Romana and Rorate Caeli.

    The Vatican press office was not immediately available for comment.

    The German cardinal is seen as a leading critic of Francis’ landmark Amoris Laetitia document which in 2016 suggested that people who were divorced and remarried could, under special circumstances, be allowed to take the Holy Communion.

    In March, Mueller’s congregation was accused by clergy sex abuse survivor Marie Collins of resisting the work of a papal commission on child protection.

    She told Jesuit magazine America that the CDF’s “shameful’’ attitude led her to resign from the commission.

     

  • Top papal adviser charged with sexual assault in blow to Vatican

    Top papal adviser charged with sexual assault in blow to Vatican

    Australian police charged a top adviser to Pope Francis with multiple historical sex crimes on Thursday, in a case that poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences.

    Cardinal George Pell is the Vatican’s de facto treasury minister and is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be charged with sexual abuse.

    He faces “multiple charges in respect of historic sexual offences” from multiple complainants, said police in the Australian state of Victoria, where Pell was a country priest in the 1970s.

    The police did not specify the charges against Pell, 76, nor the ages of the alleged victims nor when the crimes were alleged to have occurred.

    The Australian Catholic Church said in a statement that Pell strenuously denied the charges and planned to return to Australia to “clear his name”.

    “He said he is looking forward to his day in court and will defend the charges vigorously,” the statement said. It also said his doctors would advise on his travel arrangements.

    Pell angered victims at a government inquiry into institutional child abuse in Australia in 2016 by saying he was too sick to fly home, testifying instead from Rome.

    He was ordered to appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 18.

    The cardinal was due to make a statement at the Vatican later on Thursday.

    The latest development in the long-running Pell case piled pressure on the pope to make good on promises to sack bishops found guilty of abuse, or of covering it up.

    Francis told reporters last year he would wait until Australian justice took its course before taking a position on Pell, and that his financial controller since 2014 should not undergo trial by media.

    “It’s in the hands of the justice system and one cannot judge before the justice system,” the pope said at the time.

    “After the justice system speaks, I will speak.”

    Pell told the Australian inquiry in 2016 the Church had made “catastrophic” choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and relying too heavily on the counsel of priests to solve the problem.

    Francis’s attempts to root out sexual abuse in the Church have hit stumbling blocks.

    Marie Collins, the top non-clerical member of a papal commission on abuse, resigned in frustration earlier this year, citing “shameful” resistance to change within the Vatican.

    Church sexual abuse broke into the open in 2002, when it was discovered that U.S. bishops in the Boston area moved abusers instead of defrocking them.

    Similar scandals have since been discovered around the world and tens of millions of dollars have been paid in compensation.

    Thousands of cases have come to light as investigations have encouraged long-silent victims to go public.

    “I would suspect (the charges against Pell) are going to be stunning to the Vatican and to the pope himself,” said Thomas Doyle, the U.S. priest whose report on sexual abuse in the Church led to the discovery of cover-up practices in Boston.

    Under previous popes, the Vatican, a sovereign state in the middle of Rome, sheltered officials wanted by other countries.

    In the early 1980s, the Vatican refused to hand over to Italy Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, an American who was then head of the Vatican bank and was wanted for questioning about the fraudulent bankruptcy of a private Italian bank.

    Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston moved to Rome after a sexual abuse scandal erupted in his diocese and has been living in the Italian capital for more than 15 years.

    Victims groups were outraged when Law, now 85 and retired, was given a plum job as chief priest at a Rome basilica by the late Pope John Paul.

    However, Francis was tough in the case of Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop who was accused of paying for sex with minors while serving as papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic.

    Wesolowski was recalled in 2013, defrocked and arrested in the Vatican in 2014 but died shortly before his trial was due to start in 2015.

    Victims’ support groups say successive popes have failed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

    “It would be naive for us to assume that people will be only relieved,” Neil Woodger, vice president of the In Good Faith Foundation, said of the charges against Pell.

    “They’re going to be experiencing a bit of distress as well,” he said.

    “It is a result that I think points to justice working and that justice is there for everybody.”

    Woodger’s foundation says it represents 460 victims of Catholic Church abuse in Australia.

  • Old people should work less to create employment -Pope

    Old people should work less to create employment -Pope

    Pope Francis on Wednesday, in a renewed call for social justice, said that older people should be made to work less or retire early to create employment for younger generations.

    “There is an urgency for a new human social pact, a new social pact for work that should reduce working hours for those at the end of their working lives, to create work for the young, who have a right and a duty to work,’’ Francis said.

    Speaking during an audience with Catholic-linked Italian trade union CISL, Francis said that “a society that forces old people to work for too long and forces an entire generation of young people not work is stupid and short-sighted’’.

    Francis, who is 80, also criticised so-called “golden pensions,’’ which granted generous payments to selected categories of Italian workers, and said work must be accompanied by a “healthy culture of leisure which is not laziness, but a human necessity.’’

    A critic of capitalist excess, the pope has often decried Europe’s youth unemployment crisis, saying it discourages young people from starting a family.

    However, many economists denied that pushing older people out of the labour market would create jobs for the young.

  • Pope Francis appoints Dechelem as Bishop of Bauchi Diocese

    Pope Francis appoints Dechelem as Bishop of Bauchi Diocese

    Pope Francis has appointed Rev. Fr Hilary Dechelem, parish priest of Church of Immaculate Conception Upper hill, Makurdi as Bishop of Bauchi Diocese.

    Rev. Fr Ralph Madu, General Secretary, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria on Wednesday in Abuja announced this in a statement made available to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

    The ordination date for the Bishop-elect is yet to be announced.

    Dechelem was born on June 3, 1966 in the former Benue Plateau State.

    Madu informed that Dechelem is a native of Moeda–Kwalla from Kwampan Plateau and attended L.E.A Primary School, Kabala, St Catherine’s Makurdi and Central Primary School, Awe, Nassarawa State respectively.

    Dechelem had his Secondary Education at St Peters College Toto, St John Bosco, Doma and Government Secondary School Obi all in Nassarawa State.

    The Claretian Missionaries admitted him in 1986 at Nekede Owerri for Petulancy, had his first Religious Profession in 1988 at Utonkon, Benue and Final Religious Profession in 1993 at Maryland, Nekede, Owerri.

     

    The Bishop-elect was ordained priest in 1995 at Kwa Parish, Jos Archdiocese, had Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Claretian Institute of Philosophy in 1990, an affiliate of the Pontifical Urban University, Rome.

    He had a Master’s Degree in theology from Spiritan International School of Theology, Attakwu, Enugu in 1995 an affiliate of Duquesne University Pittsburg Pennsylvania, U.S.

    He also had a Master’s Degree in Christian Spirituality from Creighton University Omaha, Nebraska, U.S, and a Certificate Course in Spiritual Direction from Creighton University in 2014.

    He Studied Masters in Business Administration and Project Management Technology at Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo.

    He is presently doing his doctorate degree in Policy Analysis and Public Administration at the University of Abuja.

    He worked as Bursar and part time lecturer 1995 at the Claratian Institute of Philosophy, Nekede and was elected in the Provincial Council as Consulter of Economy 1999 and Consulter of Spirituality, 2005.

    The Bishop-elect was a member of the General Economic Council (GEC) of the Claretian Congregation in Rome 2003 to 2006.

    He was the Parish Priest Maria Goretti, Parish Ikenegbu, Owerri Archdiocese 2005 to 2010 and also Parish Priest St John Mary Vianney Parish Kwande, Shendam Diocese and Vicar for Religious 2010.

    He is a lecturer and a core team, Institute for Formators, Du, Jos, from 2015 till date.

  • Trump meets Pope Francis at the Vatican

    Trump meets Pope Francis at the Vatican

    United States President, Donald Trump, has met Pope Francis at the Vatican for a short private audience on the third leg of his overseas trip.

    He arrived for the meeting along with his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

    The meeting was keenly awaited as the two men have already clashed at a distance on issues including migration and climate change, the BBC reports.

    Mr. Trump will later meet Italy’s president and prime minister.

    He will then fly to Brussels for a NATO summit.

    He earlier vowed to help Israelis and Palestinians achieve peace, as he ended the Middle East leg of his tour.

    The U.S leader began his foreign trip with a two-day stop in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, urging Muslim countries to take the lead in combating radicalisation.

    Mr. Trump and his entourage arrived at the Vatican just before 06:30 GMT.

    They were led by the Swiss Guard from the Vatican courtyard to the offices of Pope Francis.

    Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were part of the entourage, which also included Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser, HR McMaster.

    The two men spoke privately for about 20 minutes before joining the rest of the entourage and posing for photographs.