Bangalore, India, Jul 24, 2024 / 13:47 pm (CNA).

As anti-Christian violence continues in India, Christian leadership there, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), has been putting pressure on the national government to address violence against Christians from Hindu nationalists as well as other concerns.

A delegation under the ecumenical United Christian Forum (UCF) on July 20 called on Kiren Rijiju, minister for minority affairs, to curb “targeted violence and atrocities against Christians.”

The UCF meeting with the key minister in the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government came a week after the entire leadership of CBCI — led by its president, Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, and secretary-general, Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi — met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 12.

“It is with heavy hearts that we express our anguish over the growing attacks on Christians and their institutions by antisocial elements in different parts of India,” the CBCI leadership told Modi, who assumed the office of prime minister for the third in time early June.

“There have been several instances of harassment and attacks under false allegations of forced conversions and the misuse of anti-conversion laws. We wish to clarify that the Church firmly opposes forced conversions,” the CBCI pointed out.

The ecumenical UCF, which had been consistently monitoring and documenting anti-Christian violence, was more graphic in its memorandum presented to the minister for minority affairs.

“As of June 2024, a staggering 361 incidents targeting Christians or against persons with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ have been recorded [in 2024],” the UCF pointed out. “The primary reason for these attacks has been allegations of fraudulent conversions. Chattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh [both states ruled by BJP] are the leading states with 96 and 92 incidents [of atrocities].”

The UCF recorded 733 incidents of violence against Christians in 2023, which has steadily increased since the BJP came to power in 2014.

“The minister [Rijiju] assured us that the government will look into the concerns we have raised and talk to states where most of the incidents have been reported,” UCF coordinator A.C. Michael told CNA on July 23.

“Since December 2022, there have been a series of attacks displacing Adivasi [tribal] Christians in Chhattisgarh who are threatened to denounce their Christian faith and convert to the Hindu religion,” said the memorandum elaborating on several incidents, including the June 24 murder of a young woman named Bindu Sodhi in the Dantewada district.

“Villagers and some of her close relatives had been preventing her from plowing their field because of her faith in Christianity. Some villagers armed with bows and arrows, axes, and knives attacked, during which Sodhi was caught and killed on the spot by having her throat slit.” 

The Hindu villagers did not even permit her body to be buried in the village. “But the police only registered the case as a “land dispute rather than persecution,” UCF report pointed out.

Amid the recurrence of such cases, the CBCI leadership brought to Modi’s attention another crucial concern about how the legitimate rights of Christians are being ignored. 

“We would like to bring to your attention that the Christian representation in National Commission for Minorities has been significantly absent for the last several years. Kindly ensure this be rectified,” the CBCI pleaded. 

The National Commission for Minorities is a government-appointed watchdog group that monitors the rights of religious minorities with members from all six religious minorities. However, the BJP government has not appointed a Christian representative to the commission for more than four years.

The Catholic bishops reminded Modi, who has not set foot in Manipur, a northeastern state that has experienced intense Christian persecution, for 14 months: “In solidarity with the people of Manipur we urge you to intervene earnestly to bring peace and harmony in the state.”

However, Father Robinson Rodrigues, CBCI spokesperson, told CNA that they have not received any response from the prime minister.

Since May 2023, Manipur has been suffering a protracted violent clash between the majority Meiteis (most of them Hindus) and the minority Kukis (all of them Christians), which has left more than 230 dead. 

More than 50,000 Kuki Christians have been chased out from Manipur’s Imphal valley along with over 10,000 Meiteis, who were driven out from Kuki strongholds.

“The situation in Manipur is really grim. Even ethnic Kuki churches and buildings are being occupied by the Meiteis,” Glady Hunjan from Manipur, a member of the UCF delegation, told CNA. 

“I told the minister about it. We hope the government will start serious action to restore peace in Manipur,” Hunjan said.

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 24, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Following Pope Francis’ decision to move the primatial see of Argentina — until now in Buenos Aires — to Santiago del Estero, elevating it at the same time to archiepiscopal see, some important questions arise, such as what this title means and what implications it has, as well as what changes it makes within the Church.

What is a primatial see?

Father Alejandro Russo, rector of the Buenos Aires cathedral, explained in an interview with the “Poliedro” program on channel Orbe 21 that “the Latin Church has the custom, rooted in time, of declaring primatial that diocese, that particular Church that was the first in what later became the national territories.”

“For example, Lyon is that of France, Toledo is that of Spain; it’s neither Paris nor Madrid, because [in those cases] it is the oldest episcopal see in the territory, which does not mean the nation’s final borders, because that sometimes happens later,” he explained.

Canon 438 of the Code of Canon Law states: “The titles of patriarch and primate entail no power of governance in the Latin Church apart from a prerogative of honor unless in some matters the contrary is clear from apostolic privilege or approved custom.”

Furthermore, in this particular case, although it is now elevated to an archiepiscopal see, Santiago del Estero will continue to be part of the ecclesiastical province of the Archdiocese of Tucumán. Consequently, the archbishop will not wear a pallium, “because the pallium is worn by archbishops who are metropolitans, who preside over ecclesiastical provinces,” Russo noted.

In Argentina, primacy does not have its own statute either, the priest explained. “In other parts of the world, for example in Hungary, or in Poland, or elsewhere, the primate has, for example, the right to have a superior ecclesiastical court of third instance,” which in Argentina never existed.

It’s an honorable mention “for being a bishop of the oldest place,” he added.

Historical overview

In Argentina, “the first episcopal see, erected in what would later become the territory of the Argentine Republic, was a diocese based in the current district of Santiago del Estero, which was called the Diocese of Tucumán, because that was the region that also received that name,” Russo continued.

“Immediately, the pope then, St. Pius V, at that time created a diocese and placed a bishop — the Holy Father rightly says in the papal bull — where the cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul was erected, which no longer exists, but it was the first time that in this territory, which later would become the Argentine Republic, the proclamation of the Gospel was heard from a successor of the apostles, a bishop,” the priest said.

“In that place where the Diocese of Santiago del Estero is today was the first cathedral, in what would later become Argentine territory,” he summarized.

“Therefore, because it is then the oldest place, to the heir of that oldest diocese, the current diocese of Santiago del Estero, which was erected in 1907, the title of primacy belongs.”

In January 1936, almost a month after having created Archbishop Santiago Luis Copello a cardinal, Pope Pius XI decreed that Buenos Aires would be the primatial see, explained the rector of the Buenos Aires cathedral.

However, “the custom of the Church is not to declare the first archdiocese the primatial see but rather to declare the first diocese the primatial see,” he clarified.

Although “that original diocese of Tucumán does not exist,” Russo explained, because in 1690 the see was transferred to Córdoba, “the territory where the first cathedral was, where the first diocese was, is the territory of the current Diocese of Santiago del Estero.”

What does this mean for Santiago del Estero?

“Archiepiscopal sees are so because they preside over an ecclesiastical province, which is a group of dioceses: Here Buenos Aires is an archdiocese and includes all the dioceses of the suburbs and some more, which are called suffragans, that is, they are in the surrounding area and so make up the ecclesiastical province of Buenos Aires,” Russo explained.

However, in this case, “Santiago del Estero will not have an ecclesiastical province; its elevation will be honorary as an archiepiscopal see,” but “it will be under the Archdiocese of Tucumán as Tucumán is a metropolitan see,” Russo further clarified.

According to Canon 436, in the suffragan dioceses it is the responsibility of the metropolitan archbishop “to exercise vigilance so that the faith and ecclesiastical discipline are observed carefully” and “where circumstances demand it, the Apostolic See can endow a metropolitan with special functions and power to be determined in particular law.”

The bishop of Santiago del Estero, Vicente Bokalic, who was appointed its archbishop on Monday, referred to the same issue when speaking with Radio María: “Pastorally, we continue to be under the metropolitan Church of Tucumán; we belong to Tucumán and it is clearly expressed in the communication from the Holy See.”

“Our mother Church, our metropolitan Church, is Tucumán, so these are titles that help us recognize history, they help us a little to know more about our roots, which is always good to know, especially in times of great changes: to not cut the roots and to take a little look at those great men and women who have planted the Gospel in our lands.”

What changes then?

Now, Russo explained, “it is going to say ‘Archdiocese of Santiago del Estero, primatial see of the Argentine Republic.’” Buenos Aires then ceases to be primatial, and from this change “the primates in Argentina will be all those who are archbishops of Santiago del Estero.”

Up to this point, Russo said, the primates of Argentina have been Cardinal Santiago Luis Copello, Archbishop Fermín Emilio Lafitte, Cardinal Antonio Caggiano, Cardinal Juan Carlos Aramburu, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — today Pope Francis — Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli, and Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva.

“Now we will have to count the primates who are going to start the list with Archbishop Bokalic, who is going to be the primate archbishop because he is archbishop of the see of Santiago del Estero,” he said.

What happens now with the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires?

“Buenos Aires, of course, will keep its place in history, with the reality of being the archdiocese that is the seat of the national government” and where in the first move for independence, the Spanish viceroy was deposed in May 1810.

“Being an old see, the Diocese of Buenos Aires dates back to 1620; it is 400 or so years old, and of course with the baggage of historical and pivotal circumstances as the city of Buenos Aires itself has,” Russo noted.

“Secondly, I do not believe that this is the pope’s intention, but as a consistent thing, it also makes us recall the spiritual figure of St. Mama Antula, who also came from Santiago del Estero to Buenos Aires and who, in some way symbolically, came that holiness and that preaching of the Gospel that she brings with all her own charism — today recognized by both the Church and the one that canonized her — comes from Santiago del Estero to Buenos Aires.”

Along these lines, Bokalic said that “Mama Antula has a lot to teach us and a lot to say in these times to all Christians, to the entire Church, to pastors, to those responsible, to pastoral workers; she is an immense gift.”

“We are heirs, we are a link on this path to serve better, to be in these very challenging hours, with so many problems at the national level, at the global level, to sow what we have received,” he said.

Russo considered that this event “invites us to take an inside look at the country,” turning around the thought that “God is everywhere and attends to Buenos Aires,” a common saying that refers to centralization in the country, because “God is everywhere and attends to everywhere, so what concerns the Church also makes us look at some dioceses deep in the interior of the country, such as Santiago del Estero,” thus having “a more federal vision.”

As to the consequences of Pope Francis’ decision, Russo said: “First, this gesture by Pope Francis invites us to [be aware of] historical truth, this is very typical of the pope: The pope does not like it that historical things are not truly respected.” In other words, “the first diocese is that one, not this one.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2024 / 09:45 am (CNA).

With the conclusion of its recent July 8–13 young adult immersion, the Truth & Beauty Project offered participants immersive and transformative experiences in Rome, having encouraged them to revive a Christian culture through their encounters of “truth through beauty.”

The nonprofit offers both young adult and curated immersion trips throughout the year to those who wish to “fall in love with the roots of their Christian faith” and acquire a “deeper understanding of the dignity of the human person, through experiences of art, Scripture, liturgy, and beauty in Rome.”

“Coming to Rome without a Catholic perspective means that you’re missing out on the true meaning of Rome,” participant Moritz Scholtysik shared with EWTN Vaticano. “We are in the heart of Europe, essentially the heart of Christian Europe. If you come here with an open heart and an open mind to the Christian history and culture, only then can you truly experience Rome to its fullest extent.”

Often credited as an epicenter of Christianity, millions of people flock to Rome each year to visit its monuments, art, and over 900 churches.

The Truth & Beauty Project’s curated immersion trips to the eternal city are typically designed with a focus or theme that best fits the needs of the group. As the project cites, these groups have consisted of “CEOs, professional association members, parish staff, VIPs, donor groups, priests, seminarians, friends, families, and more.”

Additionally, the project offers weeklong young adult immersion trips for those between the ages of 18 and 30. While the total cost is 2,500 euros (about $2,700), those who wish to attend can apply for either a partial or full scholarship.

A typical day for this immersive trip usually consists of morning Mass, prayer, discussions held with speakers, and “a walk of Rome” to experience the city’s “art, architecture, history, and beauty,” among other things.

John and Ashley Noronha founded the Truth & Beauty Project in 2017. Credited as speakers, media personalities, theologians, and pontifical university professors, the couple sat down with EWTN Vaticano to share more about this project.

“The idea behind the Truth & Beauty Project was that we realized that there wasn’t this comprehensive program where one could truly understand their Christian identity from all different aspects,” John shared.

“And I would call the Truth & Beauty Project a school of Christian living because it’s an experience,” Ashley added, “a weeklong experience in Rome that really speaks to answer the questions that I think resonate in all of our human hearts: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What is God calling me to?”

Participant Katie Mlinek told EWTN Vaticano: “Being able to step away and go into these spaces that are much older than you and much grander than you help you remember that you are a part of a bigger story and something much grander than your own individual life.”

Citing Psalm 27:4 — “All I ask and this I seek is to dwell in the house of the Lord, and to gaze at his beauty for ever and ever!”— the Truth & Beauty Project wishes to “empower” its participants “to make their lives a masterpiece and to go out to share that masterpiece with the world.”

Father Vinay Kamath, who is orginally from the Diocese of Bombay, India, and currently works as a missionary priest in Riga, Latvia, mirrored this in recounting his recent experience attending a young adult immersion trip.

“It’s amazing what can be done by God and the Holy Spirit in six days with the right environment, with the right focus, and with the right innovation and fellowship,” Kamath shared.

Describing the young people in his group as initially being “hesitant” to get to know one another, Kamath then expressed how quickly they soon “bonded together,” feeling “at home” and as though “they’re with a family.”

“I think this is a beautiful experience of love, friendship, and fellowship, which I believe will last a lifetime for some of these young people,” he continued. “And they will go back richer, happier, and I believe holier as well.”

Those who wish to learn more about the Truth & Beauty Project can visit its website, or view recent coverage of the project on “EWTN News Nightly” below.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Father Terry Martin, a Catholic priest from West Sussex, England, has appeared in an advertisement for The Tablet denouncing bullfighting in his continued calls and efforts for Pope Francis to condemn the sport. 

Partnering with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Martin appears in a July 18 ad in red vestments posing alongside a bull with a caption reading: “It’s a sin to torture animals.”

Martin has long been outspoken in advocating for the welfare of animals, having sent a joint letter with priests from Canada and France to Pope Francis last year calling on him to condemn the “torture and violent slaughter of innocent bulls.” This latest advertisement forms part of the PETA campaign that also beseeches the Holy Father to sever the Church’s links to the sport. 

In an op-ed published in the Catholic Herald earlier this year, Martin cites the Holy Father’s 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si’, which states that “every act of cruelty toward any creature is contrary to human dignity.”

“Paragraph 2418 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also states: ‘[I]t is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,’” Martin continued. “Yet animals are taunted, terrorized, ridiculed, repeatedly stabbed, and eventually killed in bullfights.”

Bullfighting is a spectacle consisting of a physical contest between a bull and a matador in a sand arena in which the bull is normally killed. 

Before facing the matador, the bull’s neck is pierced with banderillas, or barbed lance, by picadors (men on horseback). With the bull’s range of motion impaired by this act, the matador then attempts to kill the creature by either thrusting a sword into its lungs or cutting its spinal cord with a knife. Oftentimes, the bull may be paralyzed but still alive as its ears or tail are cut off and presented as trophies to the matador before ultimately having its body removed from the arena.

The first bullfight traces back to Spain in 711 A.D. when the coronation of King Alfonso III was being celebrated. While this spectacle is banned in Italy, England, and many countries across South America, the sport currently continues on in Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador — all of which have Catholic majorities within their populations. 

Speaking with CNA, Martin referenced his faith as being an encouragement in his endeavors to decry bullfighting, stating that it “allows me to see the entirety of God’s creation as a loving, divine gift. I believe, with the Church, that all animals are God’s creatures and that God has created them decisively and consciously as part of his plan for the life of the world. The balance of ecosystems, and the Genesis depiction of animals as ‘companions’ to human beings (2:19), is inspiring and beautiful.”

“Given that in Spain, and in some other countries, the Catholic Church is culturally caught up with bullfighting, the lack of logic and absence of Christian compassion strikes me forcibly,” he said. “It seems that many bullrings have chapels and chaplains, and that matadors (a word that can easily be translated from the Spanish as meaning ‘murderer’) queue up for the Church’s blessing. More than this, many horrendous bullfights and bull runs that exist are held in honor of Catholic saints and in celebration of their feast days.”

As mentioned in Martin’s earlier op-ed, various Catholic celebrations such as San Fermín and San Isidro in Spain, as well as the Feria de Pâques in France, have often featured bullfights and chapels built inside these bullrings. 

Similarly, to celebrate the May 13 feast day of St. Peter de Regalado — a Franciscan friar who is considered a patron saint of bullfighters for having calmed the charge of bull that had escaped from a celebration near his convent — the town of Valladolid, Spain, hosts numerous bullfights as part of its annual San Pedro Regalado Fair. 

In one of the Church’s stronger stances against bullfighting, Pope Pius V issued an edict in 1567 prohibiting bullfighting under the threat of excommunication. Although this ban was rescinded by his successor, Gregory XIII, only eight years later at the request of King Philip II, Pius suggested at the time that the sport was “removed from Christian piety and charity.”

Calling on Pope Francis to take similar actions, Martin cited No. 2416 of the catechism, stating that “this is the official teaching of the Church. I would have to ask, with charity and openness to my hearer, is bullfighting bearing testament to this — and does the Church’s apparent involvement (and even celebration) of bullfighting align with this teaching?”

While PETA’s positions and campaigns do not completely align with Church teaching, Martin credited the organization as having a “habit of dramatically drawing attention to the cruelty and suffering to which so many animals are subjected, both here and throughout the world.”

“PETA is not a Catholic or Christian organization per se, but it does have a section called ‘PETA Lambs’ for Christians who support their animal advocacy,” he continued. “For me, the call to show compassion and goodwill to all living beings is a fundamental part of my Catholic view of the world and of human nature. It seemed, therefore, right that I confirm my willingness to help them in these matters.”

Through participating in this campaign, Martin then expressed his hope that by “inviting people to think about the place of animals in creation, and to consider more deeply the relationship between animals and humans, there might be a moment of clarity and new insight.”

“I suggest that our Catholic faith perfectly aligns with a way that is more charitable, more understanding, more compassionate, more creation-centered, and more Christ-like than that,” he said.

ACI MENA, Jul 24, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On July 22, the historic St. Maroun Monastery in Annaya, Lebanon, became a gathering place for Catholics as hundreds of pilgrims — Lebanese and expatriates — flocked to the monastery, filling the roads leading to Annaya at sunrise. 

This outpouring of faith culminated in a Eucharistic procession — the highlight of a three-day celebration honoring St. Charbel Makhlouf, whose feast is celebrated July 24 in the Latin Church but on the third Sunday of July in the Maronite Church.

St. Charbel, a revered saint in the Maronite Catholic Church, was known for his deep dedication to the Eucharist. This devotion resonated deeply with the faithful who participated in the procession. Many pilgrims speak of life-changing experiences after spending time in prayer at the monastery for the feast of St. Charbel year after year.

Special night of vigil

In a unique gesture every year on the eve of St. Charbel’s feast day, the Lebanese Maronite Order allows pilgrims to spend the night of July 21 in prayer within the monastery, culminating with a vigil before St. Charbel’s tomb. This marks a significant departure from the monastery’s usual practice, which strictly forbids sleepovers for the faithful throughout the year.

This special permission underscores the extraordinary significance of St. Charbel’s feast day, which falls around the time of a unique date — the anniversary of his July 23 priestly ordination. 

“Unlike most saints who are celebrated on the day they died,” explained Father Hadi Mahfouz, superior general of the Lebanese Maronite Order, “St. Charbel’s feast day marks the anniversary of the day he committed his life to serving God as a priest.” 

This choice of date reflects the profound impact his ordination had on the lives of the faithful who were keen to keep the tradition and honor him on this day.

During his sermon following the procession, Mahfouz implored the faithful: “Learn how to pray from St. Charbel. True prayer goes beyond what your lips utter. True prayer relies on inviting God into your life.”

A legacy beyond celebrations

The monastery offers visitors a chance to delve deeper into St. Charbel’s life through its museum. There, artifacts tell stories of the 19th century. From the simple utensils the saint used daily to the priestly garments he wore, each piece offers a window into his humble and dedicated life.

Another section of the museum displays a collection of letters — heartfelt messages of thanks from people who were healed through St. Charbel’s intercession. 

These letters from around the world stand as a testament to the enduring power of St. Charbel’s legacy, one that transcends both time and geographical boundaries.  His life and unwavering faith continue to inspire generations, serving as a beacon of hope for many.

This story was first published by ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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