The Catholic Church – both as a community of believers and the institution at large – faces many challenges in the world today. And in Asia, where there are serious threats in terms of nuclear weapons, and natural disasters, the Church has a big role to play. Tokyo Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, S.V.D., spoke about many of these challenges in an interview with The Tablet.
As the rich get richer, the increasing misery and cries of the poor are ignored every day, Pope Francis said.
Cardinal Orani Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro blessed the sculpture “Homeless Jesus” Nov. 18, ending a weeklong series of events by Brazil’s Catholic Church to celebrate World Day of the Poor.
Last month Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador who in recent months gained global fame for publishing a statement asking Pope Francis to resign, lost a civil lawsuit against his brother over a family estate.
Italian bishops have concluded their Nov. 12-14 extraordinary assembly. New guidelines on the question of clerical sexual abuse were discussed and presented, with the creation of a National Advisory Center to aid bishops and the promise to make a “more radical evangelical choice” in terms of prevention.
A Jesuit priest from Kenya was reported killed in central South Sudan. Father Victor Luke Odhiambo, 62, who directed a Church-run training center for teachers, died Nov. 14 when armed men stormed a church compound where he lived.
An advanced, unedited version of a ‘general comment’ on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by the United Nations Human Rights Committee wants to define abortion and assisted suicide as a human right.
“Clearly, the relationship between [Pope] Francis and the U.S. Church started with some tensions from the very beginning,” says theologian Massimo Faggioli, “… and it has become more tumultuous since then.”
So far, Pope Francis’ agenda on immigration has not proved powerful enough to withstand Europe’s new political reality, where opinion and votes are more easily driven by buzzwords such as “crisis” and “invasion.”
Pope Francis named Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, arguably the Catholic Church’s most respected abuse investigator, to be adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
