In this news roundup we cover the news articles that we could not from the 4th to the 9th July 2021

• The Filipino bishops’ conference on Thursday elected Bishop Pablo Virgilio Siongco David of Kalookan, a staunch critic of the government’s war on drugs, as its president. The conference elected Bishop David July 8 during its biannual plenary assembly. He had been vice president of the conference since 2017.
• On July 8, The Holy See’s delegation at the United Nations in Geneva told the Human Rights Council last week that children conceived due to sexual violence should not be made “collateral victims” through abortion. “The Holy See wishes to reaffirm the rights and dignity of children conceived as a result of sexual violence, beginning with their right to life,” the delegation’s statement said.
• In a message for Sea Sunday, Cardinal Peter Turkson, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, said that since September 2020, an estimated 400,000 seafarers have been stranded at sea because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also said that the coronavirus had worsened working and living conditions for thousands who have been forced to work for months longer than usual while separated for long periods from their families. “We appeal to ship owners, management companies, agents, and recruiters to regard crew members as more than ‘labor force’ and remember that they are human beings,” he said.
• Pope Francis has written a letter to leaders of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church urging the implementation of a more uniform offering of their liturgy. In the letter published by the Vatican on July 6, Pope Francis exhorted “all the clergy, religious and lay faithful to proceed to a prompt implementation of the uniform mode of celebrating the Holy Qurbana, for the greater good and unity of your Church.” “I strongly urge the Syro-Malabar Bishops to persevere, and I confirm their ecclesial ‘walking together’ with God’s people, trusting that ‘time is greater than space’ and that ‘unity prevails over conflict,’” Francis wrote in the letter dated July 3, the day before the pope underwent a surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.