In this weekly round up we cover the news stories we missed from the 13th to the 18th September 2021
- Sep 14, 2021 – Pope Francis on Tuesday named a new Catholic archbishop for the capital city of Belarus. The Vatican announced on Sept. 14 that the pope had chosen Bishop Iosif Staneuski, general secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus, to lead the archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev.
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Sep 15, 2021 – Pope Francis has declined the resignation of a German archbishop, the apostolic nunciature in Berlin announced on Wednesday. The nunciature said that the pope had asked Archbishop Stefan Heße to remain as archbishop of Hamburg, northern Germany, following a Vatican investigation into his handling of abuse cases. The nunciature explained that the probe had found organizational deficiencies and procedural errors by Heße, but “the investigation did not show that these were committed with the intention of covering up cases of sexual abuse.”
“I have never participated in any cover-up. Nevertheless, I am willing to bear my share of responsibility for the failure of the system,” Heße said. Responding to the pope’s decision, the 55-year-old archbishop said on Sept. 15: “I thank the Holy Father for his clear decision and the trust he has placed in me.”
- Sep 16, 2021 – Three sex abuse lawsuits, including one naming disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as the alleged abuser, were filed on Thursday, Sept. 16 in a New Jersey court. All three lawsuits also named the Diocese of Metuchen as a defendant. The first lawsuit filed named McCarrick, who served as the first bishop of the diocese from 1981 until 1986, as the abuser in question. According to the lawsuit, McCarrick engaged in “unpermitted sexual contact” with the plaintiff while he was bishop of Metuchen from approximately 1982 to 1985. The plaintiff was between the ages of 19 and 22 during that period.The second lawsuit filed on Thursday named Fr. John Butler, a laicized priest who died in 2016, as the alleged abuser of a minor. Butler, who was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Richmond, served in numerous dioceses throughout his career including in Metuchen. The third lawsuit names Br. Regis Moccia, S.C. of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, who similarly does not appear on the list of credibly-accused priests from the Diocese of Metuchen. Moccia is accused of abusing a young teen at St. Joseph’s High School in Metuchen, in 1981 and 1982. He died in 2000.
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Sep 16, 2021- Carlo Fidanza, the co-chair of the parliament’s Intergroup on Freedom of Religion and Belief, said that the resolution adopted on Sept. 16 showed Europe’s general indifference to Christians. He said: “This resolution demonstrates once again the guilty lack of attention by Europe, not only to Afghan Christians — who are completely ignored by the text — but to Christians in general.”
The Italian politician recalled that the European Parliament rebuffed a proposal in June for an annual observance raising awareness about religious liberty. The resolution, passed in Strasbourg, France, said that the European Parliament was “appalled” by reports of the Taliban’s actions against “women and girls, human rights defenders, LGBTI+ people, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists, writers, academics and artists.”The resolution mentioned the Shia Hazaras as an example of a persecuted minority, but it did not specifically refer to the country’s Christians.
- Sep 16, 2021- Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata warned Argentine president Alberto Fernández Thursday that his priorities, such as abortion, marijuana, euthanasia, and non-binary language, don’t respond to the “profound anguish” of the people.”For the love of this wounded country, many of us hope that the President can revise in time the priorities on his agenda, to avoid a debacle that would end up harming our people even more,” the Argentine prelate wrote in a Sept. 16 column in La Nación, an Argentine daily. Inflation in Argentina is expected to reach 48.2% in 2021, with an economic growth rate of 6.8%.
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