World

3, June 2017

Attending religious services boosts health, prolongs life ⁰

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

23, April 2017

The Holy Father likens refugee centers in Europe to concentration camps ⁰

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

8, April 2017

Pope Francis dismisses priest convicted of stealing ⁰

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

28, March 2017

When the Pope receives a President like Paul Biya who is 84 years old, has been in power for almost 35 years— what does he say? ⁰

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

25, March 2017

Chantal Biya at the Vatican: Any message for our violated women? ¹

Without Paul Biya in her life, Chantal Biya like many ordinary women in the society would have been an adorable person in her own right. Her background is an attribute of resilience, admirable courage, and commendable ability to make the best out of an ordinary citizen’s daily lifestyle. That is the lifestyle which a majority of ordinary men and women live and survive with joy and satisfaction.

She knows the toil and tribulations of a hard life and the exceedingly harsh reality of the sacrifices endured by poor parents, some of them single mothers, in raising their children with hope and faith in God as their most valued treasure. She knows that the poor in our societies are held together by the value systems that place humans and humans alone at the center of society’s preoccupation. Indeed she is aware that among these values are the deep commitment of society, at large, in particular, the poor and down trodden to protect the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life.

She knows that the greatest miracle of human life in our poor societies is the ability of poor parents to toil and sacrifice their lives to provide their children with the education and better lives they did not have. She knows that this miracle includes the fact that many times poor people’s kids compete in their educational pursuits with the children of the rich and powerful and prevail.

Ordinarily, she will be doing grave injustice to herself, were she to forget this world from which she rose to become a Presidential wife. Has she, has she not? The answer may perforce not be discerned from the plethora of opportunistic sycophants and hypocritical stooges who have elevated praising her and her husband Paul Biya to a life sustaining credo. To this category of nitwits Chantal and Paul Biya are the very oxygen of their lives. But wait a minutes! Has a woman from very humble but admirable beginnings become the goddess she is often portrayed by these demented jesters?

From when she became the wife of President Paul Biya, Chantal Biya took upon herself another life; a life of opulence, avarice, power and political philanthropy. She transformed Jeanne Irene Biya Foundation to Chantal Biya Foundation and thus an Alibaba empire of graft and sesame to unbridled wealth was established by her and for her glory. It may not matter that she her last paying job was when she was a priceless ordinary hardworking young lady in search of a livelihood under stultifying circumstances. That was when hard earned income elevated the spirit and blessed the dignity of visionary hard working children of ordinary mortals like you and me. That was when human values, the sanctity and dignity of the human person kept her closer to spiritual values of collective pain and joy that hold our societies together and gives societal cohesion its relevance.

But since fate and destiny brought Chantal Biya to the centre of power, she seems to be comfortable not just with the trappings of power but with the web of criminality that sustains absolute power by hook or by crook. Until the genocide and crimes against humanity against the Southern Cameroons in which rape as a weapon of systemic criminality has been unleashed on Southern Cameroons girls and women were escalated by Paul Biya, it was hard to conclusively state the position Chantal holds within the crime syndicate overseeing these and other crimes.

It can now be conclusively stated without any fear of contradiction, that Chantal Biya not only condones these crimes, she encourages them. As a woman and mother she has not raised her voice to condemn the systemic widespread rapes of girls in the University of Buea and parts of the Southern Cameroons. It is unknown if in her youth she was ever a victim of rape, but she surely knows from her humble background, the pain, humiliation, shame and enduring violated spirit of rape victims. She knows for sure that the use of rape as a weapon of war, crimes against humanity and genocide which her husband is practicing against Southern Cameroons women is a violation of the very essence and substance of humanity. So therefore, how does she feel living with man who is perpetrating these crimes against not just the victims but all women worldwide?

On the supposed International Women’s day celebration, she sat in one of her many moments of glory surrounded by other spiritually and morally depraved women and sycophants. It never crossed her mind that on that occasion and on that very day, millions of women in the Southern Cameroons were at home protesting the systemic rapes and indignities that her husband had ordered. As she sat there with her own daughter basking in the glory of absolute power and prurient arrogance, it did not occur to her that the conditions she left to become the public face of a crime syndicate could well come back to confront her.

The visit of Paul Biya and Chantal Biya to the Vatican was a rare moment when she seemed to take her life into her own hands and presented an image of a frail human being; at least for one. Although expiation and the salvific predisposition of each person is individual and belongs to that person and his or her God, it was discernible that Chantal Biya’s conduct and actions on meeting the Pope gave an insightful view of some one suffering from spiritual imprisonment requiring deliverance. In this regard, she seemed a victim as much as a participant in crimes of the unfolding genocide and other crimes targeting Southern Cameroonians; in particular Southern Cameroonian girls.

Considering this observation to be true, it is unclear if she took advantage of her presence and prayerful moment during and after her visit in the Vatican to take a strong stand against the crimes perpetrated by her husband in the Southern Cameroons. It must be brought home to her that violating the humanity of a single woman is a violation of the very temple of human existence. She must condemn it and cause her husband Paul Biya to reverse the cause of criminality in the Southern Cameroons in which he is committed. Not doing so, will consign the theatrics of her Vatican visit to the pantheons of Nollywood movie industry where it should belong.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Rome

24, March 2017

Pope Francis holds audience with Biya calls for respect of minority rights ⁰

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

22, February 2017

Giant lie about Eseka train disaster: Name of Roman Catholic priest not on list of victims ⁰

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

12, January 2017

African Cardinal: If we allow Communion for adulterers, what about our polygamists? ⁰

A leading African cardinal has suggested that if Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia actually allows Westerners in irregular situations to receive Holy Communion, it would make the Catholic Church in Africa, which has fought long and hard against the irregular situation of polygamy, lose credibility among its people. “If Westerners in irregular situations can receive Communion, are we to tell our polygamists & other ‘misfits’ that they too are allowed?” Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, South Africa, posted on his Twitter account January 5.

3/3 If Westerners in irregular situations can receive Communion, are we to tell our polygamists & other “misfits” that they too are allowed? Cardinal Napier was responding to a Dec. 30, 2016 article by Fr. Raymond de Souza in which the Canadian Catholic priest and editor-in-chief of Convivium Magazine took a hard look at the “acrimony and division” in the Catholic Church caused by the ambiguity in the pope’s April Exhortation on marriage and the family.

Fr. de Souza argued in his article “Debating ‘Amoris Laetitia’: A Look Ahead” that if the Exhortation actually allows civilly divorced and remarried Catholics to “receive absolution and Communion without a required intention to change their situation” then a “great unraveling would begin” regarding the Church’s teaching on marriage.

“Marriage is the key issue,” de Souza wrote, adding that the Exhortation lends itself to allowing Catholics to question if it is “possible to be in a conjugal relationship with someone other than a validly married spouse that would be pleasing in the eyes of God?” Commenting on this, Cardinal Napier noted the implications of the Church weakening its teaching on marriage in reference to the significant problem of polygamy in traditional African cultures. “Was the faith taught by the missionaries, e.g. that polygamy is morally wrong — because Scripture teaches one-man-one-wife for life — completely wrong?” he tweeted.

The practice of polygamy in Africa continues to be widespread. Famous polygamists include the King of Swaziland who currently has 15 wives and Jacob Zuma, fourth president of South Africa, with 6 wives and 20 children. Because marriage in God’s plan involves one man and one woman, the Catholic Church condemns this practice, forbidding practicing polygamists on account of their obstinate and public sin from receiving Holy Communion. To combat the problem, the latest document on the Church in Africa, Africae Munus: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Church in Africa, calls for a “change of behavior – for example, sexual abstinence, rejection of sexual promiscuity, fidelity within marriage” and a new “sex education based on an anthropology anchored in the natural law and enlightened by the word of God and the Church’s teaching.” Cardinal Napier’s tweet all but denounces what would become a vast problem in his country if the “discernment” process proposed by Amoris for allowing couples in irregular situations to approach the sacraments comes into vogue.

Such a discernment process has already been championed by several leading prelates, following Amoris’ lead, who have given their own justifications for giving Holy Communion to people in “difficult” situations. These include Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Germany, who suggested admission to Communion by both partners of mixed marriages, Cardinals Walter Kasper and Kevin Farrell with their call to admit “remarried” divorced Catholics to the sacrament, as well as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn with his interpretation of Amoris allowing for “discernment” along with “graduality of admission” to the sacraments for couples in irregular situations.

Napier’s tweet indicates that he recognizes the problem that “individual discernment” could have in his own cultural context, namely, people who live in polygamous relationships could now claim to have “discerned” in their own “conscience” that it is valid for them to receive Holy Communion. If polygamists were to be admitted to Holy Communion in certain circumstances, decades of work of Catholic missionaries would be undone and swept away along with the Catholic understanding that marriage is a union between one man and one woman that can only be dissolved by death.

During the recent Synods on the Family, Napier was not on the side of theologians supporting the “Kasper proposal” that would allow Communion for Catholics living in objective adulterous relationships. In a video interview with Catholic News Service from that time, Napier rejected outright Cardinal Kasper’s Communion proposal, warning that it would mean opening the door to Communion for polygamists as well. He was so concerned about the bewilderingly wide acceptance of Kasper’s proposal among leading Catholic prelates at the Synod that he went as far as endorsing Edward Pentin’s explosive book The Rigging of a Vatican Synod?, as LifeSiteNews reported.

With Napier having defended Pope Francis against the four Cardinals and their dubia, while at the same time extensively quoting Amoris Laetitia in his tweets over the past months, faithful Catholics are left puzzled as to what game the Cardinal is playing. Last month after being challenged by another Twitter user, Napier, in a series of responses, suggested that Catholics who “analyses [sic] negatively” the Pope, do so “without checking what [the] Pope actually said.” He also suggested that by not responding to the dubia, Pope Francis was following the example of Christ who sometimes refused to answer questions from interlocutors.

Culled from LifeSiteNews

25, December 2016

Christians have celebrated the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ ⁰

Christians around the world have celebrated the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ, with a solemn mood presiding over many ceremonies, as war, terror and discord continue to plague many nations across the globe. Thousands of pilgrims and tourists converged on the city of Bethlehemin the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank for the occasion.

Crowds of worshipers gathered in the Church of Nativity, the biblical birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, where a midnight mass was led by the Latin Patriarch of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa. The ceremony was attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah as well as other dignitaries.

In his homily, Archbishop Pizzaballa expressed his sympathy for asylum seekers and pleaded for measures to stop the spiral of violence in the Middle East which has destroyed many countries across the region and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially children.

“Closed doors, defended borders before personal and political choices are a metaphor for the fear that inevitably breeds the violent dynamics of the present time,” he warned.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas congratulates Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa (R), the apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, during the Christmas Midnight Mass in Saint Catherine’s Church in Bethlehem December 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Meanwhile in Vatican City, head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Francis marked the birth of Jesus Christ. During his address, he called on the world to open their eyes to the plight of those in need, including Middle Eastern refugees, especially those from Syria and Iraq who fled to Europe, as well as those who are in war-torn countries.

In his Christmas message delivered at Saint Peter’s Basilica, the pontiff urged all worshipers to ponder on the situation of children “hiding underground to escape bombardment.” In Europe, people are celebrating Christmas amid fears of the repeat of the terror attacks they have witnessed in recent months, especially the latest truck attack which took place in the German capital Berlin on Monday.

Security has been tight in various parts of Europe as the holiday season reaches its peak. In Germany, authorities have worked through the Christmas to ensure public safety especially in Berlin where Tunisian national and Daesh sympathizer, Anis Amri, killed 12 people after crashing a truck into a crowded Christmas market. Many locals have visited the market, lit candles and laid flowers for the victims.

Also in Italy, security remains tight. Milan’s Cathedral has been highly secured by Italian police with concrete barricades set around the historic Piazza del Duomo. Also, in the Vatican people were on high alert following the shooting dead of the man believed to be behind the Berlin market attack.

Not far from Italy, France has deployed around 100,000 police forces and soldiers to guard public spaces including churches and markets.

Police carry out searches on visitors as they access a security perimeter in front of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris, December 24, 2016, ahead of Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. (Photo by AFP)

Christmas has also been observed elsewhere in the world including in Muslim countries.

In Iran, Christians have gathered in churches to celebrate the occasion.

Iranian Christians sing during Christmas Eve Mass at the St Joseph Armenian Catholic Church in Tehran on December 24, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Also, Christians in Iraq held a Christmas Eve service in the town of Bartella, near Mosul for the first time since it was captured from Daesh terrorists in 2014. Iraqi forces were deployed there to provide maximum security.

Volunteers prepared the church for the service which had been destroyed and set ablaze by the terrorists. Meanwhile, in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo, Christian residents prepared for celebrations just days after the army liberated the city from the clutch of militants. The celebrations in Syria’s second largest city came amid army operations against the terrorists in the suburbs of Aleppo.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All East John X Yazigi leads prayers during Christmas Mass at the Elias Orthodox Church in Aleppo on December 24, 2016. (Photo By AFP)

Culled from Presstv

11, December 2016

Nigeria: Scores dead in church collapse ⁰

A church collapse in southern Nigeria has taken the lives of a large number of worshipers who had gathered there for a service. Medical officials have so far confirmed 160 people dead, predicting that the final death toll could be much higher. Rescue operations are still underway to find potential survivors. Hundreds of people were inside the church in Uyo in Akwa Ibom state when metal girders crashed onto worshipers and the corrugated iron roof caved in.

The church was under construction and workers had to finish the job hastily for the service. The government is now set to launch an inquiry to find out if anyone compromised building standards. The state governor Udom Emmanuel was attending the ceremony in the church when the incident happened, but he was able to escape.

In a statement, he described the collapse as “an unfortunate incident” and said he “shared in the agony of the moment.” President Muhammadu Buhari has also offered his condolences. “I asked the Governor to convey to the people of Akwa Ibom the deep sorrow felt by me, and by the entire country, over this tragedy,” he said.

The president added, “I pray that the souls of the deceased will rest in peace, and that the injured will experience quick recovery.” Incidents as such are fairly common in Nigeria owing to the corruption of contractors and the use of substandard materials. Some are said to even bribe inspectors to ignore the risks. In 2014, 116 people lost their lives when a multi-story guesthouse of a church collapsed in Lagos, the country’s largest city.

Presstv