Quotes and news

The Pope will present to Church leaders the apostolic exhortation based on the deliberations of the special synod of Middle Easter Bishops held in 2009. The Pope will do this during his visit to Lebanon between September 14 and 16.

Pope Benedict will also meet representatives of local Christian and Muslim communities and address political and cultural leaders during his three-day visit.

The 2009 synod was attended by 185 bishops, most of them from the 22 Eastern Catholic Churches. They had studied the difficult situation of 5.7 million Catholics in 16 Middle Eastern countries. The participants at the end of the synod called for “religious freedom and freedom of conscience” in Muslim lands. This will probably be one of the themes Pope Benedict is likely to address on his visit.

‘Nuns on the Bus’ tour concluded

A nine-state bus blitz organised by 14 nuns in protest against the budget plan of the US House of Representatives has come to an end. The protest was organised by the lobbying group Network. The tour, which attracted considerable media attention, was concluded at the United Methodist Building in Washington.

Executive director of Network Sister Simone Campbell said: “Some Catholic politicians are pushing budget cuts that violate Catholic social teaching. And they jeopardise the Catholic Sisters’ effort to really help struggling families, to practise the values of the Gospel by serving the poor and vulnerable.”

Nuncio cautious about designation

The designation of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity as a Unesco World Heritage site is a positive development which can have negative implications. Archbishop Antonio Franco, papal nuncio to Israel and the Palestinian territories, said this designation of the site could complicate relations between the three churches that oversee the holy site as well as relations between the Israeli and Palestinian communities.

The nuncio’s comment comes in the wake of the very strict protocol that exists between different churches which makes the management of the holy places a difficult task. The designation had been opposed by the custos of the Holy Land, Franciscan Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa. He told the Catholic news agency SIR that the initiative would make “it harder for us to run (the church), because, under Unesco rules, the board in charge of running a place for the UN agency is the government, not the owner of a site”.

Archbishop dismissed

The Pope has removed Archbishop Robert Bezak from his post as head of the Archdiocese of Trnava, Slovakia. This is the fourth time in just over a year that the Pope has forced a bishop from office. The Vatican did not give any public explanation. But Church observers noted that the Trnava archdiocese had been the subject of an apostolic visitation earlier this year, amid charges that Church funds had been mismanaged.

In March 2011 the Pope removed Bishop Jean-Claude Makaya Loembe from the Dicoese of Pointe-Noire, Congo and last May Bishop Francesco Micciche was removed from the diocese of Trapani, Italy. Both removals were rumoured to have happened over diocesan funds mismanagement. In May 2011 the Pope removed Bishop William Morris from the Diocese of Toowoomba in Australia because of unorthodox statements on Church teaching and discipline.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)