Pope Francis has refused to extend the mandate of the head of the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases, replacing the conservative cardinal who is said to have been “at odds” with the pontiff’s attempts to create a more inclusive Church. In a brief Vatican statement on Saturday, Pope Francis appointed the deputy of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, as the new head of the office, declining to renew the five-year mandate of Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, its former head.

The 69-year-old Mueller allegedly had frequent clashes with the Pope over key reform issues, criticizing the pontiff’s openness to allowing civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. The German cardinal had also censured parts of a 2016 papal treatise called “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love), a cornerstone document of Francis’ attempts to make the 1.2 billion-member Church more inclusive and less condemning, according to Reuters.
Mueller’s successor, the 73-year-old Ladaria from Spain had been appointed to the CDF by former Pope Benedict in 2008 and is said to be a soft-spoken person. “They (Ladaria and the Pope) speak the same language, and Ladaria is someone who is meek. He does not agitate the pope and does not threaten him,” said a priest who works in the Vatican and knows both Mueller and Ladaria, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Clearly, the Pope and Cardinal Mueller have not been on the same page for five years.”

The head of the CDF enjoys the most important position in the Vatican hierarchy after the Secretary of State, and most incumbents keep the post until they retire at the traditional age of 75. Mueller had been appointed to the powerful department by former Pope Benedict in 2012. In another major shakeup of the Vatican’s administration, the Pope granted a Vatican finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, a leave of absence from his position to return to his native Australia to face trial on sexual assault charges.

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. The issue of abuses being concealed by the Church has left many child rights defenders, including Christians, disgruntled by the Church and has put Church authorities on the defensive.

Pope Francis, who was appointed in 2013 with a plan to overhaul the Vatican, has warned that there will be “no privileges” for bishops when it comes to child sex offenses. The pontiff also promised more action in response to accusations of cover-up and excessive leniency by the Vatican.

Source: Presstv

A new study shows that attending religious services like those at mosques, churches or synagogues may help you live longer. “We found in our study that actually attending church is actually good for your health, particularly for those who are between the ages of 40 and 65,” said Marino Bruce, the associate director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Research on Men’s Health, in a video posted on Vanderbilt University’s website on Friday.

The study showed reduced mortality risk by 55% for those middle-aged adults who go to churches, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship. The study on “Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults” was published in the Plos One journal in May. “For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year,” Bruce said.

For the study a total of 5,449 participants of both sexes and races were recorded. The researchers used publicly available data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

“I’m ordained clergy so I’m always about what do we mean by our spiritual health. Does spiritual health matter with respect to biological outcomes?” Bruce added.  The study focused on the participants’ survey results, analyzing their worship attendance, mortality and allostatic load, which is a physiological measurement, and social support.

Bruce further emphasized, “While churches are places where people can get social support, we actually found that and began to think about whether compassion is particularly important — feeling that you’re doing good or having empathy for others.”

Culled from Presstv

Pope Francis has likened the detention camps set up by European states to hold refugees to concentration camps. “Refugee camps, many of them, are of concentration [conditions] because of the great number of people left there, inside them,” the leader of the Roman Catholic Church said during a sermon at the Basilica of Saint Bartholomew in Rome on Saturday.

He reprimanded the European states for exercising collective apathy toward the plight of the refugees by sealing the continent’s borders, and advised European leaders to uphold and defend human and refugee rights. The Pope encouraged European leaders to welcome more refugees rather than devise new means of how to stem their flow.

In March, the Pope said Europe had been founded on the basis of multiculturalism. “Europe finds new hope when she refuses to yield to fear or close herself off in false forms of security. Quite the contrary, her history has been greatly determined by encounters with other peoples and cultures; hers is, and always has been, a dynamic and multicultural identity,” the pontiff said back then in an address to the leaders of the European Union (EU) member states, who had gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which led to the formation of the bloc.

Refugees fleeing from war and persecution in the Middle East and North Africa have been heading to Europe in hopes of rebuilding their lives. Many European countries, subsumed by xenophobia or fears of terrorist infiltration, have enforced strict regulations to prevent refugee arrivals. Some countries, particularly those on the EU’s external borders, have closed their borders to refugees altogether.

Presstv

Pope Francis has dismissed a Roman Catholic priest from New Hampshire who was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and a deceased priest’s estate.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault, who served as the face of the church in the state during a sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty to three theft charges in 2014 and is serving a jail sentence.

The Diocese of Manchester said Friday that Arsenault no longer has “faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest.” Prosecutors said Arsenault billed the church for lavish meals and travel for himself and often a male partner.

He was convicted of writing checks from the dead priest’s estate to himself and his brother and billing a hospital $250 an hour for consulting work he never did.

Presstv

Rev. Father Ludovic Lado has condemned the Rectors Conference of Italian Universities and the Vatican for the red carpet treatment accorded the evil butcher of Yaoundé, President Paul Biya. In a strongly worded academic article entitled “Diplomacy as Hypocrisy: the Biya system in Rome and the Vatican”, the Cameroonian prelate expressed his disapproval of the honors granted to Mr. Biya during his last visit to Italy and the Vatican observing that both the Vatican and the Italian government are aware that the system Biya has been embodying for nearly 35 years continues to crush and repress the Cameroonian people.

Father Ludovic pointed out that the Gold Medal awarded to Paul Biya by the Rectors’ Conference of Italian Universities (CRUI) for his achievements in the field of higher education is more like a mockery to the millions of poor Cameroonians. The much respected Revered Father Ludovic Lado also opined that the Biya visit to Rome and the Vatican was nothing but “diplomacy of hypocrisy punctuated by compromises and silences accomplices and guilt.”

On the visit of Paul Biya to the Vatican, Father Ludovic wonders what the Pope and the President of Cameroon could well say. “When I learn that President Biya will be received by Pope Francis, the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, I cannot help but think of the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate during his passion. Jesus who said to Pilate: “I was born and I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Whoever is of the truth hears my voice. And Pilate said unto him, what is truth? (Jn 18: 37-38). I then wondered whether the dialogue between President Biya and the Pope will be centered on truth, the one that will liberate Mr Biya and his people (Jn 8:32).

Father Ludovic regretted that the Church is moving away from its own teachings in the name of diplomacy. Diplomacy is a system whose very essence is hypocrisy and it is a game of masks and images that overshadows the truth and feeds on human lives.

By Sama Ernest with files from Cameroun Info.Net

Pope Francis received Paul Biya, President of the Republic of Cameroon, in a private audience at the Vatican on Thursday. A press release from the Holy See Press Office said their talks were “cordial.”

During the discussions, the good relations existing between the Holy See and Cameroon were mentioned, as well as the important contribution of the Church to the development of the country, particularly in the fields of education and care.

The peaceful co- existence and mutual respect among the different religious groups was also on the agenda and attention was paid to the importance of promoting national cohesion, strengthening the richness of the various historical and cultural traditions of the country, Human rights and minorities.

The Holy Father and the Cameroonian dictator also exchanged “views on certain topics of international interest, with particular reference to the current challenges affecting the region. President Biya later met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, who was accompanied by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary of State in charge of Relations.

By Soter Agbaw-Ebai

The name of the Italian Roman Catholic priest, Carlo Girola who died in the Eseka train accident is not on the list published by the regime in Yaounde. Relatives of the deceased priest also believe that Camrail and the ruling CPDM crime syndicate are maintaining a kind of vagueness on the number of victims and dividing the families so that they cannot meet and form a bloc to challenge the government.

The announcement of the death of Father Carlo Girola, Parish priest of Oyom-Abang in Yaounde, had caused consternation among the parishioners. Four months after the tragedy, the members of Oyom-Abang community say they do not understand the attitude of the Government. The Roman Catholics of this community say they are shocked by the will of the authorities to keep a blur around the drama. According to them, no official information has been disclosed regarding the progress of the investigation.

Rev. Father Angeel, the current Parish priest was quoted as saying that “We can see that the government is maintaining a deliberate silence so that the grieving families forget that an investigation was commissioned.” Father Angeel further added that “We do not understand how a government reported 78 deaths, but when we identified the body of our brother, he was numbered 121. And when we went to Camrail with the death certificate, we were surprised to find that his name was not on the list of victims.”

According to Rev. Father Angeel, the greatest regret today is mostly the fact of not having recovered the personal belongings of Father Carlo Girola. “He was the accountant of our community and he had his laptop on him that contained all the financial data of the community.” “However, a few days after the tragedy, I called the DO of Eséka whom I know well and he made me understand that the personal belongings of the victims were kept in a train station in Eséka. But until today, we have no news.”

 “We are not asking the Government, let alone Camrail, to give us any money. For even if they were to give us fifteen millions, it would be nothing compared to our brother whom we have lost. The only thing we want is that the truth be said and that such a tragedy does not happen again, “he says.

By Sama Ernest