In his homily during Mass at Casa Santa Marta, Rome, last Tuesday, Pope Francis said: “Sometimes we think that humility is to go quietly, perhaps head-down looking at the floor… but even pigs walk with their heads down: this is not humility. This is that fake, ready-to-wear humility, which neither saves nor guards the heart. We have to be aware that there is no true humility without humiliation, and if you are not able to tolerate, to carry humiliation on your shoulders, you are not truly humble: you pretend you are, but you are not.
“Let us ask the Lord for the grace of humility, with humiliations. There was a nun who used to say: ‘yes, I am humble, but never humiliated!’ No, no! There is no humility without humiliation. We are asking for this grace. And if someone is brave – just as St Ignatius teaches us – he can even ask the Lord to send humiliations so he can be more like the Lord.”
Cathedral sheltering persecuted Muslims
Fr Yovane Cox, a Chilean missionary in the Central African Republic, contacted Aid to the Church in Need saying that the cathedral in Bangassou was attacked in an attempt to massacre Muslims that were being given shelter in the cathedral grounds.
In May 2017, some 2,000 Muslims took refuge on the grounds of the diocese of Bangassou’s minor seminary (some 200 yards from the cathedral), seeking protection. Today, almost a 1,000 Muslims are still living in the encampment.
Only two of the eight parishes in the diocese are still functioning, and most of the priests are living at the cathedral in Bangassou for their own security.
Archbishop criticises election plans
Archbishop Diego Padrón of Cumaná, former president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, described as “a midnight ambush” the plans of the government to advance presidential elections in the country by more than seven months.
The Archbishop of Cumaná said that “as a Venezuelan, it is my opinion that moving up the date for elections has no legal basis”.
He added that the National Constituent Assembly “is very discredited because it is fraudulent in its origin and how it is run”. Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Santa Lucía also demanded that the presidential elections be held with enough time to properly prepare for participation by all Venezuelan political actors.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)