The Weekly Round Up

In today’s weekly round up, we cover the news we missed from the 27th September to the 3rd October 2021

• Sep 27, 2021 – The Canadian bishops are aiming to raise $30 million (USD 23.8m) over the next five years to support the Indigenous peoples of the country, including survivors of residential schools.  “The Bishops of Canada, as a tangible expression of their commitment to walk with the Indigenous Peoples of this land along the pathway of hope, are making a nation-wide collective financial commitment to support healing and reconciliation initiatives for residential school survivors, their families, and their communities,” the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops stated.

• Sep 29, 2021  – Pope Francis on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was cleared of sexual abuse allegations by the Vatican at the start of this month. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) reviewed the results of a Church-led investigation into DiMarzio and determined that the allegations lacked “the semblance of truth,” according to a Sept. 1 statement from the New York archdiocese.

  On Sept. 29, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Columbus, Ohio, to lead the Diocese of Brooklyn after DiMarzio. With 1.5 million Catholics, Brooklyn, which includes the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, is the fifth-largest U.S. diocese.

• Sep 29, 2021 –  Bishops should consider requiring DNA tests or physical examinations to ensure that all seminarians are biological men, said Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki in a recent memo sent to the members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “Recently, the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance was made aware of instances where it had been discovered that a woman living under a transgendered identity had been unknowingly admitted to the seminary or to a house of formation of an institute of consecrated life,” said the memo. Listecki is the chairman of the USCCB’s canonical affairs committee. In one case, said Listecki, “the individual’s sacramental records had been fraudulently obtained to reflect her new identity.”

• Oct 1, 2021 –  Cardinal Alexandre José Maria dos Santos, the first cardinal born in Mozambique, has died at the age of 97. The Catholic leader is remembered for promoting peace amid Mozambique’s bloody civil war from 1977 to 1992, during which he aided refugees and victims of violence as the founding president of Caritas Mozambique. Pope Francis paid tribute to the cardinal in a condolence telegram sent to Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, O.F.M. Cap, archbishop of Maputo since 2003.

• Oct 1, 2021 – Participants in the German Catholic Church’s “Synodal Way” approved a proposal on Thursday to emphasize the importance of evangelization amid confusion over voting procedures. The call to “emphasize more strongly … the intention of evangelization” was passed by a majority, but organizers initially said that the measure had failed to win approval, reported CNA Deutsch.

  The plenary session of the Synodal Way is taking place in Frankfurt, southwestern Germany, on Sept. 30-Oct. 2. The event is the second meeting of the Synodal Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the Synodal Way.

• Oct 1, 2021 – A New Jersey federal judge ruled this week that the Archdiocese of Newark can be held financially responsible for the abuse committed by Theodore McCarrick, a disgraced former cardinal, according to one media report.  According to a report from the New York Post, District Court Judge Madeline Arleo found that the Newark archdiocese is “vicariously liable” for McCarrick’s actions. “Vicarious liability” according to the Legal Information Institute, refers to liability that a supervisory party, such as an employer, bears for the actionable conduct of a subordinate or associate, such as an employee, based on the relationship between the two parties.

• Oct 2, 2021- Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco has been hospitalized with COVID-19 after traveling to the International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest. The cardinal, 78, had been fully vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine last May. He tested positive for COVID-19 upon his return to Italy from Hungary and was hospitalized on Sept. 28. Cardinal Bagnasco is currently being treated in the infectious diseases ward of the Galliera Hospital in Genoa, the northern Italian city where he served as archbishop from 2006 until his retirement last year.

• Oct 2, 2021  – The Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christopher Pierre, asked the governor of Missouri on Monday to spare the life of Ernest Johnson, a man sentenced with the death penalty for murdering three people in the 1990s. “In the Holy Father’s name,” Archbishop Pierre wrote to Governor Michael Parson, “I sincerely request the you halt the planned execution of the Mr. Johnson and grant him some appropriate form of clemency.” Archbishop Pierre wrote that the Holy Father’s request is not based on “the facts and circumstances of his crimes; who could not argue that grave crimes such as this deserve grave punishments?” “Rather, His Holiness wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life,” the nuncio wrote. Citing Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti, Archbishop Pierre wrote: “Do not let the atrocity of their sins feed a desire for vengeance, but desire instead to heal the wounds which those deeds have inflicted.”