Just as he did when the Olympic games began last July, Pope Francis on Wednesday referred to the opening of the Paralympic games the day before. The pontiff’s words had a particular significance for a “small yet loud” group of Paralympic athletes who were present in the Paul VI Hall when the Holy Father delivered his remarks.
The International Monetary Fund on Aug. 23 withheld $455 million in emergency COVID-19 relief funding from Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover of the country forced the organization to withhold its recognition of the Afghan government.
Pope Francis will be sending nearly a quarter of a million dollars to help people in Haiti, who are struggling in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake during a global pandemic.
After a 57-year stretch of loyalty to the same company, papal travel is set to change this fall with the closure of Italy’s national airline Alitalia, which has taken four popes to a total of 171 countries on all continents.
Of the 500,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to reach Haiti so far, only about 5%, have been injected into people’s arms. The Aug. 14 earthquake gets a lot of blame for that, but the assassination of Haiti’s president and a hesitancy among people to get their shots have also delayed the distribution, health officials said.
The Diocese of Brooklyn has the second highest population of Haitian-Americans and immigrants in the U.S. The diocese’s mobilization to help quake-ravaged Haiti stems from the solid bond between the long-suffering nation and the Roman Catholic Church.
On Saturday, Aug. 21, Bishop Sansaricq, a retired auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Brooklyn and the first Haitian bishop in the United States, died at age 86.
There are an estimated 200 Catholics in Afghanistan — a tiny minority within the minority of around 7,000 Christians — and days after the Taliban took control of the country following the withdrawal of U.S. troops, a papal charity is sounding the alarm over their situation.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio is asking the faithful in Brooklyn and Queens to support earthquake relief efforts in Haiti by contributing to a voluntary second collection at Mass during the next couple of weeks.
Caritas Pakistan has alerted its diocesan units bordering neighboring Afghanistan to help refugees fleeing the Taliban’s takeover of the country, reported ucanews.com. Thousands of Afghans have entered Pakistan via the Chaman border crossing, one of the most active trade and travel routes between the countries, according to media reports.
