Geneva, Switzerland, Aug 31, 2014 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The continuing spread of the Ebola outbreak in Africa is putting more lives at risk, while containment efforts and the flight of vital workers have endangered food supplies and medical care... Read more

Rome, Italy, Aug 29, 2014 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church called for peace amid escalating conflict with pro-Russian separatists, stating that the Church there is facing increased persecution as fighting goes on. “Even if it's not announced – it seems like a war against Ukraine,” Monsignor Dionisio Lachovicz told CNA Aug. 28. “I believe that the only hope is in the Lord, therefore we call the whole world to pray for peace.” Msgr. Lachovicz, apostolic visitor for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Italy and in Spain, explained that in the midst of rising tensions between the Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists “a new persecution is being waged against the Greek Catholics located in the territories in Russian hands.” These are, he clarified, the areas of “Crimea and in the territories where the Russia-friendly 'separatists' are seeking to impose their power.” In Donetsk, a large city in Eastern Ukraine, “the bishop's residence has been sacked and sealed. The cathedral's land has been struck by separatist rockets. The bishops and almost all of the Greek-Catholics priests have been forced to leave the area of Donetsk,” the bishop explained. “The Church has been desecrated by the rebels who blackmail the clergy, threatening reprisals on the parishioners. And only some days ago the monastery of the Servants of God was occupied by separatists.” According to BBC News, nearly 2,600 people have been killed since April, when Russia's annexation of Crimea prompted rebels to take over large parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Heavy fighting continues near Ukraine's strategic Mariupol port, which lays off the Azov Sea. Rebel forces are currently attempting to capture the city, but Ukrainian government troops are holding ground. Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko met Aug. 26 to discuss the ongoing crisis, shaking hands and leaving with Poroshenko’s assurance that a new “roadmap” to peace would be laid out. However tensions skyrocketed when at least 1,000 Russian troops entered Ukraine two days later, BBC reports, prompting an Aug. 29 emergency U.N. Security Council meeting to address the situation. “If the Russian Orthodox Church together with all of the Churches in the Ukraine joined together in the name of love in the prayer of Jesus 'that all may be one' to dialogue, then they would reach a much more realistic 'roadmap,'” Msgr. Lachovicz explained. He lamented the fact that rather than unifying the churches after past quarrels, the current situation is being used to cause greater division, stating that during the 4th European forum for Orthodox-Catholic dialogue last June, the metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for external ecclesiastical relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, “without any documented confirmed accused the Greek Catholic Church 'in the destructive role in the Ukraine crisis.'” Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church has sent a letter “to all of the heads of the Orthodox Churches and to different European political organisms with similar accusations.” If all sides to the conflict could truly reach an agreement, they “would confirm the simple determination of Pope Francis” that “Nothing is lost with peace,” the bishop observed. “The attention of Pope Francis to the situation in the Ukraine has always been very great and his messages and prayers, I believe, that soon they will overcome every evil that oppresses the Ukrainian land.” Explaining how the Ukrainian people as a whole are grateful to Pope Francis, Msgr. Lachovicz also offered special thanks to Mons. Thomas E. Gullickson, apostolic nuncio in Ukraine, who's “messages and appeals are very present and concrete.” “I would like to invite everyone to pray for peace along with the Holy Father,” the bishop said, “because to make peace requires courage, much more so than to make war.” “Courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict; yes to dialogue and no to violence; yes to negotiation and no to hostility, yes to the observance of pacts and no to provocations; yes to sincerity and no to duplicity.” “This is the heartfelt appeal that Pope Francis has addressed to all the Churches of the world.” Read more

Madrid, Spain, Aug 29, 2014 / 04:27 pm (CNA).- The appointment of Carlos Osoro Sierra as the new Archbishop of Madrid is another step forward in the renewal of the ranks of the Spanish bishops that at the same time raises expectations for Curia reform.... Read more

Rome, Italy, Aug 29, 2014 / 12:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Following the agreement of an indefinite ceasefire in Gaza earlier this week, a key priest in Jerusalem says the only way for it to last is if both sides overcome dehumanizing prejudices of the other. “Until there is a real dialogue that starts where the two sides see the other side in its full human reality, we can't really talk about the beginning of a process that will lead us to peace,” Father Neuhaus told CNA Aug. 28. One of the patriarchal vicars of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Fr. Neuhaus is also responsible for Hebrew speaking Catholics in his diocese and a large population of migrant workers and asylum seekers in the country. The long-term ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip was negotiated by Egypt, and took effect at 7 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT) Tuesday, ending seven weeks of fighting which has left more than 2,200 people dead, most of them Palestinians. According BBC News, Palestinian officials stated that the ceasefire proposal called for an indefinite end to hostilities, an immediate opening of Gaza's access to Israel and Egypt, and an extension of the area's Mediterranean fishing zone. The agency reports that immediately Israel was to end its blockade of Gaza in order to allow aid and building materials in. Further discussion on issues of greater tension, such as Israel's call for a disarming of militant groups in Gaza, and the release of Hamas prisoners in the West Bank, are set to begin in Cairo within a month. Despite the great feeling of relief on both sides to have an end to the last 50 days of intense fighting in Gaza – which he expects will take roughly 15 years to fully repair – Fr. Neuhaus said that now begins the great task of Israelis and Palestinians in learning to view each other as neighbors rather than enemies. The question of putting themselves in each other's shoes is “a very, very difficult question and perhaps the most difficult question we face,” he said. In order to come to a position in which Israelis and Palestinians can really speak to one another, we “need a real lesson in language where we will cease to use with such ease the terms that confine the other in an almost satanic role.” Drawing attention to rapid resolution to past conflicts in South Africa, Fr. Neuhaus stated that although there is still a long way to go for Israel and Palestine, it doesn’t necessarily mean a “long distance to travel in time.” “What we need – and this we need desperately – are leaders who are creative enough to propose meaningful discourse to those people who are living in these situations so that they can open their eyes and open their ears and take in the reality of the other.” However, currently “We live in a society based on the building of walls: the walls that you see and the walls that cannot be seen, which are probably even higher in the hearts of the people who live there,” he said, noting that “Behind those walls is 'another' that I don't want to see.” Pope Francis' visit to the Holy Land in May “was a moment of great triumph of this discourse” of humanization, Fr. Neuhaus observed, and pointed to the June invocation for peace held in the Vatican with the Pope, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and the Israeli and Palestinian presidents as a further step forward. Holding this prayer inside the Vatican was as if the Pope were saying to the presidents, “Please, put yourselves before God. Put yourselves before God as you speak, as you act towards the other and see that as God’s children God has no favorites,” he continued. “God loves all of God's children. And it is God who has planted these children right in this land, so they need to find ways to relate to one another.” As for the length of this latest ceasefire, Fr. Neuhaus explained that although he is not “not a prophet so I cannot tell how long it will last,” his is “a person of prayer and I pray that it lasts.” “I pray that it lasts so that people can put their lives together. I pray that it lasts so that people can get some critical perspective on the behavior of their governments on both sides that led us into the escalated violence we've just been through. I hope it lasts long enough so that children can get enough sleep and start slowly to get back to the normal life of a child.” “I think it's very, very important that we also begin to speak a language of hope,” the priest reflected. Drawing attention to the important role of the Church in fostering this dialogue, he stated that she “does speak and needs to speak even louder a language of possibilities and alternatives.” She needs to speak “of a prophetic vision for what the Holy Land could be if Jews, Christians and Muslims, if Palestinians and Israelis really could live together and build up that land as a blessing for one and all.” Read more

Rome, Italy, Aug 29, 2014 / 11:55 am (CNA).- Those who are in irregular marital situations cannot receive Holy Communion but are still Christian faithful and “must feel at home” in Catholic churches, a leading Italian bishop has said. Bishop Nunzio Galantino of Cassano all’Jonio told a national liturgical gathering of the Center of Liturgical Action Aug. 27 in Orvieto, Italy that Holy Communion is “the sacramental act that excellently expresses the union with Christ and the Church.” The bishop, who serves as secretary general of the Italian bishops' conference, noted Catholic teaching that those in “an irregular marital situation” cannot receive Holy Communion “because of their condition.” He discussed how people in irregular relationships can feel this discipline as “very severe, not inclusive” and even “punitive” towards “the difficulties of marital life” or towards their choice to break up a relationship. “Often many people perceive the Church’s attitude as more severe than what it actually is, since they feel the fact they are not admitted to Sacraments as an exclusion from ecclesiastical life,” the bishop said. He said that Catholics should recognize that some of the faithful are excessively harsh towards those in irregular relationships and they erroneously see the Church’s discipline “as an exclusion of their brothers and sisters.” He said that some of the faithful sometimes look at people in irregular relationships “with a glance full of prejudice, as if their faith and their belonging to the Church was compromised.” “In addition to the burden of their non-admission to the sacraments, there is an unjustified de facto discrimination towards them, as an added price to pay.” “Even these people are Christian faithful, so they are part of the Church and in the Eucharistic assembly they are and they must feel at home,” the bishop said. One page of the bishop's 16-page speech addressed those in irregular marital relationships who cannot receive Communion. His broader remarks dealt with nurturing “a culture of mercy” in many areas for immigrants, the disabled, and the poor. Bishop Galantino said that current pastoral guidelines do not put in discussion Church doctrine and discipline that instruct those in irregular marital relationships to refrain from Holy Communion. Rather, they reaffirm the church membership of those in irregular relationships and suggest for them “paths of ecclesial life” and liturgical participation even though they cannot receive Holy Communion. Bishop Galantino has caused controversy with some of his previous remarks. In a May interview he appeared to denigrate pro-life witness outside of abortion clinics, saying “I don’t identify with the expressionless person who stands outside the abortion clinic reciting their rosary, but with young people, who are still against this practice, but are instead fighting for quality of life, their health, their right to work.” The bishop was criticized for his claim that Catholics “have concentrated too much on abortion and euthanasia.” He also attracted criticism for his statement that he hoped the Catholic Church in Italy will be “able to listen without any taboo to the arguments in favor of married priests, the Eucharist for the divorced, and homosexuality.” Read more