Pope Francis described human trafficking as “a crime against humanity” and “a social wound of our times”. He was speaking to 17 new diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
The Pope said human trafficking “affects the most vulnerable people in society: women, children, the disabled, the poorest and those who come from situations of family or social disintegration”. These groups are the least protected of all refugees and migrants.
He appealed to these diplomats to work for effective international action as “together we can and must take action to free the victims of human trafficking and to put an end to this horrible trade”.
Cardinal sympathises with demonstrators
Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the retired leader of Ukranian Catholics, expressed sympathy for anti-government demonstrators, saying the Ukrainian government should be “dishonored for what it does”.
He praised the demonstrators for acting “very sensitively”, saying the situation would otherwise have become much worse. He said the government is “vanishing” and that it “is good that they are vanishing”.
Sharia law imposed on Syrian Christians
Sharia (Islamic) law has been imposed on Christians living in a small village in northwestern Syrian after it was overrun by Syrian rebels.
“In Kanayé, Salafi militants and the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra have imposed [that] the pastor not ring bells,” said Bishop Giuseppe Nazzaro, the retired vicar apostolic of Aleppo. “Women must not go out on the street bare-headed, but must be veiled. And if they do not obey these orders, the threat is massacre.
“This could be the first step: tomorrow they will force them to convert to Islam,” he added.
Vatican’s financial reforms praised
Moneyval, a Council of Europe monitoring committee, said the Vatican was making “enormous” progress toward transparency in financial affairs. It added that one still has to see how new Vatican rules will be implemented at the Vatican bank.
René Brulhart, head of the Financial Information Authority, told Vatican Radio that the Moneyval report was “a very positive sign”. Its 2012 report had said the Vatican authorities had to address serious problems.
Corruption deplored
The Catholic bishops of Haiti’s Christmas message lamented “lack of respect for the other, norms, and laws, moral degradation and administrative mismanagement and corruption”. Like the Holy Family, “many Haitian families continue to flee, facing the sea, risking their lives by crossing the border, suffering humiliation, rejection, exclusion and the denial of their fundamental rights. In their travel in search of a better life they find abuse, degradation, xenophobia and even death.”
Religious freedom ‘highly restricted’
Mary Ann Glendon (a Catholic) and Katrina Lantos Swett (a Mormon), members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said 75 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries where religious freedom is “highly restricted”.
Many of the nations that repress religious freedom – including Myanmar, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan – signed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which enshrined the right to religious freedom in international law.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)