Catholic News

• Nigerian priest's followers desecrate cathedral altar, vandalize bishop's residence (The Nation (Lagos))
  According to the report, followers of Father Camillus Ejike Mbaka, who leads an adoration ministry, reacted violently after Bishop Callistus Onaga of Enugu ordered him to leave his parish. The bishop called for seven days of reparation and atonement following the desecration.
• German diocese prepares for same-sex blessings (CNA)
  The Diocese of Essen, Germany has hosted an online forum on blessings for same-sex couples, looking forward to a May 10 event at which Catholic priests plan to defy the Vatican’s warning against such blessings. Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck has said that he will not take disciplinary action against priests who disregard the Vatican’s ruling. Several leading prelates have warned that the May 10 event, which will include many German dioceses, could lead to an outright schism.
• Vatican cardinal: each bishop--not conference--decides on denial of Communion (RNS)
  The US bishops’ conference is expected to vote in June on a statement regarding the reception of Communion by prominent Catholics who reject Church teachings on the dignity of human life. But Cardinal Michael Czerny, the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, remarked that as a matter of canon law, each diocesan bishop has the authority to make his own determination on that question. “It’s not up to the bishops in general to make these decisions; it’s up to the bishop of the person,” he said. While several American prelates have debated the issue in public this year, Cardinal Czerny is the only senior Vatican official who has addressed the question directly.
• Vatican offices provide few details regarding funding of controversial conferences (National Catholic Register)
  “Four Vatican institutions — the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences, the Pontifical Academy for Life, and the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development — have been at the forefront” of hosting such conferences, journalist Edward Pentin notes.
• Council of Cardinals reflects on life of Church in pandemic (Vatican News)
  The group, meeting online, also discussed the implementation of an apostolic constitution, due out soon, that will reorganize the Roman Curia. Pope Francis instituted the advisory Council of Cardinals in 2013.
• Federal court rules insurance company must pay for teenager's puberty-delaying hormones, mastectomy (Religion Clause)
  The court ruled that “denying a transgender [person’s] insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria violates the sex discrimination ban in the Affordable Care Act,” according to the report.
• Central African Republic cardinal: 75% of country is now under government control (Fides)
  Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the the war-torn nation’s leading prelate, said, “For many people there is relative calm again. However, most of them have lost their homes, possessions, and even family or friends.”
• Bishop Olmsted backs Archbishop Cordileone on withholding Communion (Phoenix diocese)
  Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix has welcomed a statement by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco—and an earlier statement by Denver’s Archbishop Samuel Aquila—saying that Catholic politicians who support abortion should not receive Communion. Bishop Olmsted lamented “a false patience and pastoral concern that, year after year, stays silent or speaks in abstractions while the slaughter continues...”
• Maronite bishops concerned about political crisis and 'disintegration' of Lebanese institutions (AsiaNews)
  Lebanon “is disintegrating in a way that is in danger of becoming irremediable” warned the bishops of the Maronite Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See.
• Catholic college's report sparks calls for accountability from survivors of alleged abuse by David Haas (National Catholic Reporter)
  “52 women have submitted reports about Haas’ alleged abusive behavior,” according to the report on the contemporary hymn composer.
• Historic Barcelona church hosts iftar meals during Ramadan (PRI)
  Iftar is the meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.
• Swiss president meets with Pontiff (Vatican Press Office)
  Guy Parmelin, Switzerland’s president since January 1, was in Rome for the swearing in of 34 new members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
• In Canada, bishops set up new confidential reporting system to report abuse (Canadian Catholic News)
  The Canadian bishops set up the new reporting system as called for by Vos estis lux mundi [You Are the Light of the World], Pope Francis’s motu proprio addressing sexual abuse.
• Palestinian foreign minister: 'you cannot talk about the Holy Land without Christians' (Fides)
  Christians are an “integral, essential, and solid part of the Palestinian people,” says Riyad al Maliki, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority. In Rome on May 6 for a meeting with his Vatican counterpart, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, he listed his government’s efforts to help Palestinian Christians, and said that “you cannot talk about the Holy Land without Christians.”
• Iowa bishops back state constitutional amendment on abortion (National Catholic Register)
  The amendment would overturn a 2018 court ruling that discovered a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.
• Archbishop Cordileone after downtown stabbings: 'We must stop hating one another' (Catholic San Francisco)
  “It happened again,” said San Francisco’s archbishop. “This time, two Asian women were stabbed on the streets of San Francisco in broad daylight. How can this be happening? . . . I ask San Francisco Catholics to engage in prayer, adoration, and fasting for an end to violence and hatred.”
• USCCB highlights 'fruitful work of lay ecclesial ministers' (USCCB)
  “Co-Workers: Bishops and Lay Ecclesial Ministers in Conversation” is hosted by the USCCB’s Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.
• Fauci headlines Vatican conference on health (AP)
  Dr. Anthony Fauci gave a keynote address to a Vatican conference on holistic health that opened May 6. Although the conference had been planned before the outbreak of the Covid epidemic, Fauci used the occasion to encourage religious institutions to promote vaccination, and the heads of two major vaccine manufacturers, Moderna and Pfizer, also spoke. An AP report noted the odd selection of speakers for a Vatican conference, which including rock stars and New Age theorists. The AP report noted: “Supermodel Cindy Crawford has a slot to talk about ‘beauty from the inside out,’ and Chelsea Clinton is teaming up with an Italian public health official to promote equal access to health care.”
• Papal message for World Day of Migrants: all in the same boat (Vatican News)
  In his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis says that as the Covid epidemic passes, the world should “think no longer in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those’ but only ‘us.’” The papal message, entitled “Toward An Ever Wider ‘We,’ insists that “we are all in the same boat and called to work together so that there will be no more walls that separate us.”
• Pope to institute formal 'ministry of catechist' (CNS)
  The Vatican press office announced that Pope Francis will institute the ministry in a May 11 apostolic letter.
• More...