Pope Francis on Sunday urged EU leaders to show “concrete solidarity” with 49 migrants stranded on NGO ships off the coast of Malta who have been refused permission to land. “Forty nine migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by two NGO ships have been on board for several days now, waiting to be able to disembark,” Francis told thousands of people gathered in Saint Peter’s square in Rome.

“I address a pressing appeal to European leaders that they show some concrete solidarity with respect to these people,” he added.

Amid growing concern over the plight of the migrants, some of whom have been at sea for more than two weeks, the European Commission earlier this week called on EU member states to admit them.

The Netherlands and Germany have offered to take some but only if their EU partners do the same, highlighting again the European Union’s long-running deadlock over sharing responsibility for migrants.

There are 17 people on board the German NGO Sea-Eye vessel, with another 32 on the Sea-Watch. Among them are a one-year-old baby and two children aged six and seven. Both Italy and Malta have refused port access and on Sunday they reiterated that position.

“In Italy, there are no more arrivals. That is the line and it will not change,” hardline Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told the Il Messaggero newspaper. “Italian ports are closed and will remain so,” he added in a tweet.

(AFP)

The spiritual head of Orthodox Christians worldwide formally granted independence to the Ukrainian church on Saturday, marking an historic split from Russia which Ukrainian leaders see as vital to the country’s security.

The decree, granting “autocephaly”, was signed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at a service with the head of the Ukrainian church Metropolitan Epifaniy and President Petro Poroshenko in St George’s Cathedral in Istanbul.

“I want to thank the millions of Ukrainians around the world who responded to my appeal to pray for the church to be established,” Poroshenko said at a ceremony accompanied by solemn liturgical singing.

“I want to thank the generations of Ukrainians who dreamed…and finally God sent us the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” he told the congregation in the crowded church.

The patriarchate, the seat of the spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, endorsed Ukraine’s request for the new church in October. The decree, or Tomos, will be handed to Epifaniy at a ceremony on Sunday, completing the process of recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Ukraine last month chose 39-year-old Epifaniy to head the new church, in a move which Poroshenko compared to Ukraine’s referendum for independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The move incensed Moscow, and prompted President Vladimir Putin to warn of possible bloodshed in his annual news conference. Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow’s seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Ukraine imposed martial law in November, citing the threat of a full-scale invasion after Russia captured three of its vessels in the Kerch Strait.

Bitter Russian opposition

The Ukrainian Orthodox church has been beholden to Moscow for hundreds of years, and Ukraine’s leaders see church independence as vital to tackling Russian meddling.

Kiev says Moscow-backed churches on its soil are a Kremlin tool to spread propaganda and support fighters in the eastern Donbass region in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people. The churches strongly deny this.

“Tomos – is just a paper, the result of restless political and personal ambitions. It was signed in breach of canonicity and this is why it has no power,” Vladimir Legoida, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Synodal Department for Church-Society and Media Relations, posted in Telegram messenger.

Epifaniy was chosen by a council at the St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, built by the son of Prince Volodymyr whose baptism in 988 led to the spread of Christianity in the region.

The new church may boost pro-Western leader Poroshenko, who lobbied hard for its creation and faces a tight election race in March.

Russia bitterly opposes the split, comparing it to the Great Schism of 1054 that divided western and eastern Christianity. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill made a last ditch appeal against the process last month.

“Huge win for Ukraine, defeat for the Kremlin,” economist Timothy Ash wrote on Twitter. “(It) will make Moscow’s hope of some future pull of Ukraine back into its ‘orbit’ nigh on impossible without the use of overwhelming (catastrophic) military force.”

Religious divisions deepened in Ukraine after 2014 and two Orthodox factions vie for dominance.

The church known as the Moscow Patriarchate, aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, sees itself as the only legitimate church in Ukraine. On Dec. 20, Ukrainian MPs passed a law that could force the church to add “Russian” to its name.

The rival Kiev Patriarchate was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its popularity has grown since 2014. It favours European integration and championed the independent church but the Moscow Patriarchate denounces it as schismatic.

(REUTERS)

In his annual Christmas message, Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has urged people to overcome their differences and find political solutions to conflicts, especially those gripping the Middle East region.

Addressing a 50,000-strong crowd at Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Tuesday, the pope called for a spirit of “fraternity” to be rekindled in conflict zones such as Syria, Yemen and Palestine.

“My wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity,” among individuals of “every nation and culture” as well as among people “with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another,” the 82-year-old pontiff said.

He also stressed that differences should not be seen as a “detriment or a danger” but rather “a source of richness.”

“May the international community work decisively for a political solution that can put aside divisions and partisan interests, so that the Syrian people, especially all those who were forced to leave their own lands and seek refuge elsewhere, can return to live in peace in their own country,” the pope said.

The pontiff also used the occasion as an opportunity to address the ongoing war and the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

“My thoughts turn to Yemen, in the hope that the truce brokered by the international community may finally bring relief to all those children and people exhausted by war and famine,” he added.

Pope Francis also expressed hopes for a resumption of dialog between Israelis and Palestinians to “put an end to a conflict that for over 70 years has rent the land chosen by the Lord to show his face of love.”

He further affirmed the Palestinian side’s readiness to hold new discussions with the Tel Aviv regime on the basis of the international law and relevant United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.

Referring to other hotspots across the globe, Pope Francis further called for rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula, peace in Ukraine, “social harmony” in Venezuela, reconciliation in Nicaragua and an end to conflict in Africa, “where millions of people are refugees, or displaced or in need of humanitarian assistance and food security.”

Source: Presstv

During the Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Francis has denounced the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, calling on people in the developed world to seek a less materialistic life and help the poor.

Leading a solemn service for about 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican for his traditional Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Francis said, “Let us ask ourselves: Do I really need all these material objects and complicated recipes for living? Can I manage without all these unnecessary extras and live a life of greater simplicity?”

“In our day, for many people, life’s meaning is found in possessing, in having an excess of material objects. An insatiable greed marks all human history, even today, when, paradoxically, a few dine luxuriantly while all too many go without the daily bread needed to survive,” the head of the Catholic Church said.

The pope has made defending the poor a hallmark of his papacy since his election on March 13, 2013.

Late in 2017, the Catholic charity Caritas estimated that there were over 16,000 homeless people in Rome and the number of such people congregating near the Vatican had increased obviously, particularly at night when they clustered under arcades to sleep.

Francis is set to deliver his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Day on Tuesday.

Source: Presstv

Almost 700 clergymen in the US state of Illinois have been accused of sexually abusing children, a far greater number than the Catholic Church had previously disclosed, dealing a new blow to the credibility of the church.

The state’s six Catholic dioceses had publicly identified 185 priests accused of sexually abusing children and had not released the names of at least 500 others, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Wednesday.

In a scathing statement, the attorney general’s office criticized the Church’s handling of the abuse allegations, saying in some cases the archdioceses did not investigate the allegations at all or did not notify law enforcement or child welfare agencies.

“The preliminary stages of this investigation have already demonstrated that the Catholic Church cannot police itself,” Madigan said.

The Illinois investigation was opened following the release of a probe by the attorney general of Pennsylvania that found over 300 Catholic priests in that state had sexually abused at least 1,000 children over a 70-year period, crimes that were systematically covered up by bishops.

The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into child sex abuse by hundreds of Catholic priests in the state of Pennsylvania. In October, the US Justice Department opened an investigation for the first time into clergy abuse.

In a letter released by the Vatican in August, Pope Francis condemned the US Catholic Church’s failure to bring to justice perpetrators of abuse. The Roman Catholic Church has been hit by numerous scandals in the past few years, involving allegations of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests to protect pedophiles and the reputation of the Church.

Approximately 6,900 US Roman Catholic priests were accused of sexual abuse with at least 16,900 young victims between 1950 and 2011, according to data from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Similar patterns of abuse have since emerged at dioceses around the globe, undermining the Church’s moral authority and depleting its finances as it paid out billions of dollars in settlements.

Cases of Catholic priests raping and molesting children, and of bishops covering up for them, have erupted on nearly every continent in recent years. Some theologians have argued that the church’s policy on celibacy fosters sexual dysfunction and abusive behavior among priests.

Source: Presstv

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) has encouraged its members to pray for people affected by escalating violence in the Republic of Cameroon in West Africa. Violent clashes, with increasing loss of life, is growing between Cameroon’s English-speaking Anglophone community and French-speaking Francophone community, according to reports.

 Rev Uel Marrs, secretary to PCI’s Council for Global Mission, explained: “Through reports coming via family contacts of Cameroonians who attend Presbyterian churches in the Republic of Ireland, we understand that thousands of people have been displaced as the situation in parts of the country deteriorates, particularly in the northwest region and southwest region.

 “The increasingly violent situation has its origins in the division of the region during various colonial administrations and post-independence settlements. The situation is amounting to a ‘silent civil war’, as some have described it, as that has the potential to be a second Rwanda. Today we wanted to highlight the situation in the country and ask people to pray,” he said. “Prayer is an essential and powerful part of the Christian life and we are asking people to pray specifically for peace and calm in all areas of Cameroon and for tensions to decrease. For just and fair treatment of all people by the authorities and prayer for help and support for those affected by the violence.”

Speaking about the situation, Rev Alan Boal, minister of Abbey Presbyterian Church in Dublin, said one member of his congregation recently described the escalating crisis as “a second Rwanda” – a reference to the genocide which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 1994.

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