News from around the Catholic world for the week ending 4 April.
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• Queen Elizabeth II visits Pope Francis
• Jesuit priest killed in Syria
• French Catholic churches under threat of destruction
• Catholic schools offer free education to refugees
• Australian Catholic speaker releases resource for women
TRANSCRIPT
LUKE: Queen Elizabeth II has visited Pope Francis at the Vatican last Thursday.
It marked Her Majesty’s first international visit since she visited Australia in back 2011, and the fifth pope she has met, with her first being Pope Pius XII when she was Princess Elizabeth in 1951.
Queen Elizabeth gave Pope France gifts from the Royal Estates, including a dozen eggs and a bottle of whiskey. The Queen also gave Pope Frances a silver-framed signed photograph, jokingly commenting “I’m afraid you will have to have a photograph – it’s inevitable!”
The Pope gave Prince Phillip and the Queen an orb decorated with a silver Cross as a personal gift for their Great-Grandchild Prince George.
They spent 25 minutes talking in private as the heads of the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion, respectively.
The visit was dubbed as a push to improve Catholic and Church of England relations. The Church and The United Kingdom have had mixed historical relations due to a de facto split by King Henry VIII in 1536. Diplomatic relations have been more favourable in more recent times, with visits becoming a regular occurrence, including a visit to the United Kingdom by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2010.
For more information, see the News.va story.
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A 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit priest has been killed by unidentified gunmen in the besieged city of Homs in Syria. Fr Frans van der Lugt was a trained psychotherapist and ministered in Syria since 1966. Fr Van der Lugt refused to leave Syria during the civil war, which began in March 2011, choosing instead to help the poor and homeless in the war torn region.
At his general audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis issued a statement of condolence for his fellow Jesuit, and a plea for peace in Syria. The Holy Father said “From all my heart, I ask you all to join my prayer for peace in Syria and in the region, and I launch my heartfelt appeal to Syrian leaders and to the international community: silence the weapons! Put an end to violence! No more war! No more destruction!”
Jesuit Superior General Fr Adolfo Nicolas also expressed sorrow for the death in a statement, saying “[Fr Van der Lugt] always spoke of peace and reconciliation, and he opened his doors to all those asking help without distinction of race or religion.”
Fr Van der Lugt received international media attention in January this year after he was featured in a video posted to Youtube asking the international community to assist the city of Homs.
For more information, see the Catholic News Service story
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7500 Catholic church buildings across France are still being threatened as local cities do not see reason to keep them.
Currently churches built before 1905 in France, when Churches and State Seperation legislation was passed, are maintained by the local civil authorities. As French dioceses are unable to purchase these churches, some cities are undertaking plans to destroying the historical buildings in favour of smaller ones, or to replace them with other buildings such as mosques. Of the 100,000 Catholic buildings in France, only 5,000 were built after 1905 and belong to the dioceses. These however, are not exempt from the problem either, as it is expected that 25-50% of them will be sold – also due to expenses faced by their respective owners.
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Catholic schools in Sydney have announced that they will be offering free education to refugee children in the Archdiocese. Dr Dan White, executive director of Sydney Catholic Schools, announced the plan last Friday, stating the Catholic schools “stand ready to provide [refugee]children with an education.”
The plan will provide around $4000 to each refugee child, and will be available for any school in the Archdiocese with a vacancy. The money is expected to cover the cost of school fees and equipment for each child.
Dr White stated that he was inspired to make the offer due to his concern for the nation’s controversial treatment of asylum seekers. Dr White said “For some time now, I have been uncomfortable with our national approach to the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers… The measure of a civilised society is how we treat the most vulnerable. It should never be our aim to punish people for seeking asylum.”
“I believe that we all should share the responsibility for supporting those most in need. Anything less than that diminishes us as a nation,” he said.
For more, see the The Australian story and the Sydney Archdiocesan press release.
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Australian speaker Karen Doyle has released a resource for Catholic women entitled “The Genius Project”. The four-part DVD series seeks to explore Bl. John Paul II teachings on femininity, and what it means to say a woman in made in the image and likeness of God.
Cradio recently caught up with Karen to discuss femininity and The Genius Project.
KAREN: It’s been a project that’s probably been ten years in the making, and it’s very much about unpacking Mulerius Dignitatum… and my heart is that all women would be able to access the incredible richness of John Paul II’s teachings on women, because more than any of his predecessors he spoke very publicly – and it was very pastoral toward women.
LUKE: That interview will be steamed next Thursday night at 6:30pm on Cradio. You can also find a link to preview and purchase The Genius Project on the Being Catholic website.
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That’s it from us for this week’s headlines, thanks for listening. For more details of those stories or for more Catholic talks, interviews and programs, visit cradio.org.au.
