Lesbos, Greece, Apr 15, 2016 / 03:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ visit with refugees and migrants in Greece this Saturday could be a moment of leadership at a time when political concerns overshadow the world’s attention, said a relief agency leader in the country. “The Pope’s trip to the frontlines of the European refugee crisis comes at a critical time. The continent of Europe is currently experiencing a vacuum of leadership with the politics of the crisis oftentimes overshadowing the plight of those on the move,” Josh Kyller of Catholic Relief Services told CNA. Kyller is the U.S.-based relief agency’s emergency coordinator for the refugee and migrant response in the region. He said the Pope is “making the ultimate statement by avoiding the politics.” “Instead, he draws our attention to the tens of thousands of those who are suffering.” Kyller spoke to CNA from Athens on April 13, shortly before Pope Francis’ one-day visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, a major transit point for refugees and migrants seeking entry to Europe. He will be accompanied by the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, and Orthodox Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, Ieronymos II. The Pope said April 13 he would go with them “to express my closeness and solidarity to the refugees and citizens of Lesbos and to all the Greek people (who are) so generous in their welcoming.” Most of the refugees arriving in Greece are from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq. More than 80 percent of the new Syrian arrivals are Muslim. Kyller said the Pope has shown that he welcomes everyone regardless of religious difference. Upon arriving in Lesbos, Kyller said, Pope Francis will find a detention camp for migrants. But he will also find much more than that. “He’ll find a community of vacationers and retirees, and a lot of incredible volunteers. There are police and fences – and a lot of boats still coming and leaving. He’ll encounter people with hopes, fears, anxiety, and confusion right next to people filled with good will, compassion and mercy.” “He’ll see the best and the worst sides of people and politics. He will be welcomed, of course, and he will find a lot of despair that he will want to find a way to offer hope through grace.” Most of the refugees have traveled for weeks to arrive in Greece. They would rather have stayed in their homelands, but feared the violence there. Since March 2011, over 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war. Millions more have been displaced. “Refugees arriving in Europe have recounted in horrific detail the atrocities they witnessed within their homeland,” Kyller said. “As one mother told a CRS staffer, ‘You wouldn't put a child on this boat unless it’s safer than your home’.” “Many risk their lives for this new start,” he added. Many are targeted by traffickers and suffer exploitation and abuse. Some have spent all their savings or go into major debt to reach Europe. Most of the refugees seek to reunite with their relatives in countries like Germany or Sweden. Kyller said that Catholic Relief Services’ guiding principles includes solidarity. This is the idea that “loving (and helping) our neighbor has global dimensions.” “The Pope is the very embodiment of that principle,” he said. Before other European countries closed their borders to migrants, Greece had been struggling to keep up due to its fragile economy. Over 150,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Greece by sea so far in 2016. At the village of Idomeni, over 10,000 people who aim to move deeper into Europe are stranded near the Macedonian border. “Following the closures, the situation has gotten even more severe,” Kyller said. Conditions there “deteriorate by the day.” While the migrant crisis has caused security fears in parts of Europe, Kyller said that Greece is more focused on concerns related to the economy and the employment crisis. Catholic Relief Services and its local partners like Caritas have helped over 300,000 people in Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Albania and Bulgaria. “We continue to adapt our priorities to the evolving situation. The Caritas network is vast and well-integrated into each of the countries where we work. This fact helps us reach the least-served groups as well as the countries that support them,” Kyller said. Support for migrants and refugees includes food, winter clothing, sanitation, temporary shelter, legal aid and assistance in language translation. There have been immigrant protests and clashes with police in Idomeni in recent days. On Sunday about 300 migrants, including women and children, were injured when they tried to break through the border fence on the Macedonian border. Police fired tear gas and bullets at them. Police have arrested 14 pro-refugee activists from Britain, Germany and other European countries. They accused them of encouraging hundreds of migrants to storm the fence, the New York Times reports. The activists allegedly thought the action would generate sympathy and help re-open borders.     Read more

Paris, France, Apr 14, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, has reportedly discussed several positive aspects of his meeting with Pope Francis at the beginning of the month. Bishop Fellay had visited the Vatican April 1-2, meeting with the Pope and with Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei – the Vatican office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responsible for doctrinal discussions with the estranged group. The French-language blog Le Salon Beige reported April 10 that Bishop Fellay had spoken that day to some 4,000 pilgrims and “revealed some good news” from his encounter at the Vatican. The blog post reported that Bishop Fellay indicated that: the Pope confirmed that the SSPX is Catholic in his eyes; the Pope said he would never condemn the SSPX; and that the Pope wants to extend the faculties of the priest of the SSPX, beginning with Confession. Le Salon Beige also said that “in the course of his meetings in Rome, Bishop Fellay was encouraged to found a seminary in Italy.” The website of the U.S. district of the SSPX also reported on Bishop Fellay's comments April 10, linking to Le Salon Beige. The SSPX had earlier stated that Bishop Fellay's meeting with Pope Francis had been cordial and lasted 40 minutes. “After the meeting, it was decided that the current exchanges would continue. The canonical status of the Society was not directly addressed, Pope Francis and Bishop Fellay having determined that these exchanges ought to continue without haste,” the statement added. Pope Francis has already declared that during the current Jubilee Year of Mercy, the faithful can validly and licitly receive absolution of their sins from priests of the SSPX. The Society currently operates six seminaries, and its Italian district includes four priories, 16 chapels, and a retreat center. The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church following the Second Vatican Council. Its relations with the Holy See became strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II. The illicit consecration resulted in the excommunication of the five bishops; the excommunications were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI, and since then, negotiations between the Society and the Vatican have continued, “to rediscover full communion with the Church.” In remitting the excommunications, Benedict also noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.” The biggest obstacle for the society's reconciliation has been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II's declaration Dignitatis humanae, which it claims contradicts previous Catholic teaching. Doctrinal discussions between the SSPX and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith broke down in the summer of 2012, when the society's superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, would not sign a doctrinal preamble presented by Rome. Talks between the CDF and the society resumed, however, in 2014. Since then several moves have suggested a warming in relations between the Vatican and the SSPX. In 2015 the Holy See delegated a cardinal and three bishops to visit the seminaries of the SSPX. They were sent to become better acquainted with the society, and to discuss doctrinal and theological topics in a less formal context. And Pope Francis announced in a September 2015 letter on the Jubilee Year of Mercy that during the jubilee year the faithful can validly and licitly receive absolution of their sins from priests of the SSPX. “I trust that in the near future solutions may be found to recover full communion with the priests and superiors of the Fraternity,” he wrote. Read more