Welcome to The Weekly Round-Up! In this news roundup we cover the news articles that we could not from Juky11th to July 17th, 2021.
- Rafael Cruz Dévora, a seminarian who was arrested on Monday after participating in protests of Cuba’s communist government, was released Thursday. Cruz, 26, was arrested at his parents’ home in Matanzas July 12. He was released July 15, having been fined for the crime of public disorder.
- Kidnappers have freed a Catholic nun seized on her way to a market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a Catholic charity reported on July 16. Sr. Francine was seized on July 8 in Goma, the capital of the eastern North Kivu province, on her way to the market to shop for her community.
- July 16, 2021. The Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil says more must be done to ensure the ISIS genocide is not repeated. “The help was there, and that’s really made a big difference,” Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Erbil told CNA this week in an interview. He credited international Catholic aid groups, including the Knights of Columbus, Aid to the Church in Need, and the U.S. bishops’ conference, with helping Christian survivors of ISIS genocide recover and rebuild in Northern Iraq in recent years.
- In a letter addressed Monday to the president of Sri Lanka, Catholic leaders criticized the “lethargic pace” of a government inquiry into coordinated terrorist attacks on churches that took place on Easter Sunday 2019, and questioned why recommendations brought by an official inquiry into the attacks have not yet been acted upon. The July 12 letter was signed by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, as well as several other bishops and nearly 30 priests. The signers gave the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, one month to respond to the letter.
- Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi said on July 12 that the Tokyo archdiocese had made a “commitment that we will not be infected nor will we allow others to be infected.” The Catholic archbishop of Tokyo has asked visiting Olympic athletes and coaches to refrain from attending local Catholic churches to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
- Pope Francis paid tribute on Tuesday to the late Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, describing him as “a man of justice, peace, and unity.” Monsengwo led the archdiocese of Kinshasa from 2008 until his retirement in 2018 at the age of 79. The archdiocese, which serves more than seven million Catholics, is based in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).The death of the Congolese cardinal was confirmed by his successor as archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu via a tweet which stated “It is with profound sorrow that I announce to the community of Catholic Christians and all people of goodwill the death of Laurent Cardinal Monsengwo this Sunday, July 11 at Versailles in France.”
(Via CNA)
