Quotes and news

Bishop Sylvester Magro of Benghazi recently spoke to the Catholic News Service of a need to rebuild his congregation and of the un­certainties ahead. He spoke after celebrating Mass on the first anniversary of the revolution. Just a few dozen people, many from the Philippines, attended the Mass.

“Thank God everything passed peacefully” on the anniversary, Bishop Sylvester Magro said. “After such a prolonged war you are always in doubt of what might happen next,” the bishop said.

It is thought that there were about 40,000 Catholics in Libya before the revolution, 2,000 of whom were in Benghazi. The Catholics came from the Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria and elsewhere. Now just 300 practising Catholics remain in the city, Mgr Magro told Catholic News Service.

The meaning of Lent

The Pope described the time leading up to Easter as “a time of metanoia, a time of change and penance, a time which identifies our human lives and our entire history as a process of conversion, which begins to move now in order to meet the Lord at the end of time”. He was speaking during his weekly audience on Ash Wednesday.

The Pope said Lent was originally a time when catechumens were prepared for Baptism. Eventually all of the faithful were encouraged to join in the same process of penance and preparation.

He said the 40 days of Lent remind us in the 40 days that Jesus spent praying in the desert. “The Church is always praying in the desert, in a sense,” the Pope said. He referred to the desert created by “the aridity and poverty of words, life and values, of secularism and the culture of materialism which enclose people within a worldly horizon and detach them from any reference to transcendence”.

Iranian pastor convert faces death penalty

The American Centre for Law and Justice reports that Iran has probably issued the execution order for Protestant pastor Rev. Yousel Nadarkhani. He will be executed for refusing to renounce Christianity.

Rev. Nadarkhani was sentenced to death in 2010 for apostasy after he embraced Christianity. Although he has testified that he was never a practising Muslim, Islamic law prescribes the death penalty for anyone who leaves the faith.

Rev. Nadarkhani has been ordered repeatedly to accept Islam or face death, and has always clung to his Christian faith.

Archbishop’s pastoral letter irks politicians

Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemyskl commented in his Lent pastoral letter that Poland is “wit­nessing a systematic attack on the Church from various libertine, atheist, and Masonic spheres.” His comments gave rise to a controversy that included various political leaders who denied the archbishop’s claim that Catholic voices are being excluded from public discussions.

Beatification sought for founder of CL

Members of the Communion and Liberation (CL) movement have present­ed a petition to Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan requesting the opening of a cause for the beati­fication of Mgr Luigi Guissani, the founder of the movement. Mgr Giussani was a priest of the Milan archdiocese, worked and died there.

Mgr Giussani saw CL grow to become an important factor in the Church and in European political affairs. He died in 2005 aged 82.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)