The Migrant’s Way of the Cross is a book just published outlining the perils and difficulties migrants from Central America and Mexico face in their journey to the US. In the book, Fr Simon Kim tells the stories of these immigrants while adding reflections and prayers.
He told the Catholic Northwest Progress that by tracing Christ’s Stations of the Cross through these migrants’ journey he hopes to help people see Christ in them and accept them as true brothers and sisters.
Fr Kim said that at present there are many people with anti-immigrant sentiments in the US and hopes his book will help alleviate some of this negative feeling.
Ghana bishops favour right to health
The right to health is one of the rights Ghana’s bishops would like to have enshrined in their country’s constitution. This right would include that of individual access to health care. At present the country is discussing a new constitution.
According to the bishops, this right includes “the nutrition, hygiene, environmental sanitation and many other health issues that affect everybody from the rural areas to the big cities nationwide”.
Bishops call for peace
Bishops forming part of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam) said they cannot remain silent in face of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which they described as a drama that appears to have been forgotten. They urged the UN, the EU, “and the governments of other countries in any way involved” to take action to stop the fighting.
The Secam statement also drew attention to continuing violence in the Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, and the Horn of Africa, as well as South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Tunisia and Egypt.
‘Anglican’ ordinariates for baptised Catholics
Those described as ‘uncatechised’, yet baptised Catholics can, if they wish, join the personal ordinariates for former Anglicans. The ordinariate was established in 2009 for communities of former Anglicans who joined the Catholic Church.
When set up, the ordinariates were not open to people who were baptised Catholic, unless they were close family members of former Anglicans who became Catholic. This has now changed after a decision taken by Pope Francis. The norms approved by Pope Benedict XVI have now been changed to permit this innovation.
Monsignor’s bank accounts are frozen
The Vatican’s criminal court has frozen the Vatican Bank accounts of a monsignor arrested in Italy and has opened its own criminal investigation into how he used the accounts.
The Vatican had suspended Mgr Nunzio Scarano from his job as an accountant in the Vatican office overseeing property and investments when it learned he was under criminal investigation in Italy.
It is being alleged that the monsignor was part of a plot to bring €20 million in cash from Switzerland to Italy and is also suspected of money laundering.
Meanwhile, two ex-officials of the Vatican Bank, who recently resigned, could face criminal charges for violating Italy’s banking laws. Paolo Cipriani, who had been director of the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) since 2007, and his long-time deputy, Massimo Tulli, announced their resignation on July 1 “in the best interests of the Institute and the Holy See”.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)