Posted on 10/8/2024 13:00 PM (CNA Daily News)
St. Elie and St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Catholic Cathedral in Beirut. / Credit: Jari Kurittu, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Oct 8, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The Middle East edged closer to large-scale crisis this week as Iran launched a volley of missile attacks on Israel and Israel continued its bombardment of southern Lebanon.
For a Middle Eastern nation, Lebanon has a large and influential Christian population. The latest figures show that Lebanon remains about 70% Muslim and about 30% Christian, according to a 2022 international religious freedom report by the U.S. Department of State — a far higher percentage of Christians than its neighbors.
Christianity in Lebanon traces its roots to the dawn of Christianity itself — in fact, Christ himself visited Lebanon. The Bible mentions the ancient pagan trading towns of Tyre and Sidon, both of which still exist today as major cities in southern Lebanon, dozens of times.
Just a couple of years ago, Lebanon was one of the most peaceful nations in the Middle East and — despite some serious domestic problems that can’t be overlooked — a model for other countries in the region for how Christians and Muslims can coexist in the same country in relative peace.
Of the Muslims in Lebanon, they are split about evenly between Sunni and Shiites. Hezbollah, the political party and militant group that has been in the news, is Shia and deeply aligned with Iran, which is also majority-Shia.
The majority — over half — of Lebanon’s Christians belong to the Maronite Church, an Eastern Catholic rite in full communion with the pope. There are about 3.5 million Maronites worldwide.
St. Maron, the Church’s namesake, was a Syriac-speaking hermit who is believed to have died in the early fifth century. Later on in the mid-fifth century, Maron’s disciples established a monastery named after him that thrived for many years until the Muslim conquest of the region, which led the Maronites to move their monastery from present-day Syria to the mountains of Lebanon.
Enduring persecution by various groups over the centuries, the Maronites retained a strong relationship with the popes. The Maronite College in Rome was founded by Gregory XIII in 1584.
Gaining influence within Lebanon and abroad, Maronite emigrants began leaving the country in the mid-19th century, bringing their religion with them.
Other Christian groups present in Lebanon, according to the U.S. State Department, include Greek Catholics (Melkites), Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics, Copts, Protestants (including Presbyterians, Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists), and Roman Catholics.
After a long civil war from 1975 to 1990, Lebanon gained a reputation for being one of the most peaceful and prosperous nations in the Middle East. In later years, however, Lebanon’s people began suffering from a nationwide financial crisis.
Then came the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, one of the largest nonnuclear, man-made explosions in human history, which took place at Beirut’s vital port caused by a stockpile of dangerous chemicals that had sat at the port for years amid negligence and corruption.
Most of the neighborhoods of Beirut destroyed in the explosion were majority-Christian, which exacerbated an exodus of Christians from the country.
In addition, the country’s Muslim population has been massively bolstered since 2011 by an influx of mostly-Muslim refugees from neighboring Syria, fleeing that country’s brutal civil war. According to the U.N. refugee agency, Lebanon has taken in at least 1.5 million Syrian refugees — a massive number for such a small country and one of the highest proportions of any country in the world.
St. Charbel is perhaps the best-known Maronite saint, other than St. Maron himself, lending his name to Maronite churches across the world.
He was born Yussef Antoun Makhlouf to a humble Lebanese family in 1828, the youngest of five children. As a boy, he spent a great deal of time outdoors in the fields and pastures near his village, contemplating God amid the inspiring views of Lebanon’s valleys and mountains.
His family wanted him to get married, but the young man had other ideas. He trekked on foot to the Monastery of St. Maron, where he took his monastic vows in 1853. After studying for the priesthood, he was ordained and returned to the monastery where he would humbly serve for the next 19 years. He showed great devotion to the life of prayer, manual work, and contemplative silence.
In 1875, he was granted permission to live in solitude at a nearby hermitage. He spent the next 23 years there, until his death.
St. Charbel was deeply devoted to God’s presence in the Eucharist. On Dec. 16, 1898, Charbel suffered a stroke while celebrating the Maronite Divine Liturgy (the Maronite equivalent of the Mass).
He died on Christmas Eve of that year, and Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1977.
The former monastery and nearby hermitage where St. Charbel lived out his last days is located in Annaya, an hour north of Beirut and in the hills nine miles inland from the coast. It remains a place of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims alike, who come seeking miraculous healings.
Since 1950, when St. Charbel’s tomb was first opened, the shrine has archived some 29,000 medically-verified healings.
ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner in the Middle East, has been reporting on the plight of Christians in Lebanon. In late September, it reported that the Keserwan district of Mount Lebanon, known as the heart of the Christian community due to its large Maronite population and the presence of important religious sites like the Maronite Patriarchate and the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, has been subject to Israeli airstrikes targeting a Hezbollah official.
Aid to the Church in Need reported in December that about 90% of those living in southern Lebanon’s Christian villages have fled their homes amid the rocket strikes between Israel and Hezbollah.
The situation in Lebanon is evolving and changing every day. A Sept. 26 report from the agency noted that amid the Israeli attacks, “Christian towns remain far from direct bombardment, even if they have their share of shrapnel.”
However, Christian cities and towns across Lebanon are now crowded with people displaced from the southern villages. Beirut and its suburbs are seeing some Christian families move to their summer homes in rural areas.
A Maronite priest, Father Marwan Ghanem, personally witnessed the recent Israeli pager attack that killed and wounded hundreds of Hezbollah operatives and told ACI Mena about the experience.
Ghanem said after the coordinated explosions happened he stopped to help three wounded people. He said he did not consider whether they were Muslim or Christian but rather recognized “the face of the wounded Christ on the road.” In such dire circumstances, he said, there is no distinction between a Christian and a Muslim but rather everyone is human, created in the image of God.
Posted on 10/8/2024 12:00 PM (CNA Daily News)
Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, speaks at the “Responding to Changing Realities at the U.S. Border and Beyond” conference, hosted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Catholic University of America. / Credit: Photo courtesy of The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 8, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The U.S. bishops issued a statement praising the Biden administration’s decision last week to expand the U.S. refugee resettlement program and commended the role of Catholic organizations in partnering with the government to resettle refugees.
President Joe Biden signed the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2025 on Sept. 30, setting the refugee admissions target at 125,000. This comes after the administration has made several changes and expansions to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and resettled over 100,000 refugees into the U.S. in 2023, the highest number since 1994.
A “refugee” is defined under U.S. law as a person who is “unable or unwilling” to return to his or her country because of “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is one of 10 “national resettlement agencies” that partner with USRAP to take in and assist these refugees.
The bishops said that dioceses and local Catholic Charities agencies “play an essential role in helping refugees to integrate successfully into their new communities.”
Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Migration Committee, applauded Catholic organizations’ contributions to the refugee resettlement program, saying that “from lifesaving protection for refugee families to the economic renewal they offer receiving communities, this is part of what it means to ‘love thy neighbor.’”
“My brother bishops and I could not be more grateful for the witness of faithful Catholics across our country who have, for many decades now, committed themselves to accompanying refugees as a visible sign of Christ’s love in the world.”
Seitz thanked the Biden administration for its efforts to “reassert and grow our nation’s proud tradition of welcoming refugees” as well as the “bipartisan support of Congress,” which he said “has played a vital role in the success of the resettlement program since its inception.”
“Resettling 100,000 refugees is a significant achievement, given the all-time low number seen in 2021 and some of the challenges facing American communities at this time, including a nationwide shortage of affordable housing,” Seitz said. “Guided by the Gospel and faithful to our national values, the U.S. Catholic community will continue doing its part to carry this endeavor forward.”
After being established through the bipartisan Refugee Act of 1980, USRAP has generally enjoyed wide support across the political spectrum.
While he has been sharply critical of many of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, told CNA that “of all the things that the Biden-Harris administration is doing to facilitate the entry of people who don’t have visas to come to the United States, this is far and away the least objectionable.”
He said that though 125,000 is “high compared to prior years” it is still “well within” the limits set by the law.
Arthur emphasized that the refugee resettlement program differs greatly from the U.S. asylum system.
“We know from past experience that individuals who make asylum claims generally never follow through on them,” he said. “But when you’re talking about refugees, those are individuals who have already been adjudicated. They’ve already been determined to be refugees before they’re brought here. They’ve already been vetted abroad before they come here. So, the danger that they pose to national security is lower; it’s not zero, but it is lower.”
Posted on 10/8/2024 11:42 AM ()
The press briefing on day 6 of the Synod General Assembly sees the participation of three of the 21 newly elected cardinals and reveals that participants in the assembly have donated the sum of 62,000 euros for the Catholic parish of the Holy Family in Gaza.
Posted on 10/8/2024 11:00 AM (CNA Daily News)
A painting depicts 10 members of the Order of the Immaculate Conception who were martyred in Spain in 1936. / Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Madrid, Spain, Oct 8, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Spain has 3,500 beatified martyrs from the religious persecution of the 20th century and another 4,000 could also be beatified in the coming years, according to Father José Carlos Martín de la Hoz, a priest who is an expert in these processes.
“A few months ago, at the request of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, a survey was taken, speaking with all the delegates of the Causes of Saints of all the dioceses, and a list of another 4,000 possible blesseds was made,” he said.
“When this work is finished, which we will finish in four years, there will be 7,500 martyrs, blesseds on our altars,” explained Martín de la Hoz, director of the Office of the Causes of Saints for Opus Dei.
The priest made the prediction during the presentation in Madrid of the book “Hogares de amor y perdón II” (“Homes of Love and Forgiveness II”), published by the Enraizados en Cristo Association (“Rooted in Christ”), which contains the testimony of 23 families who were noted for the dedication and fidelity of their members to the point of giving their lives.
Martín de la Hoz emphasized that “what is most impressive is that those 7,500 martyrs, blesseds, their martyrdom is documented, that is, they died out of hatred for the faith and it is documented that they died forgiving.”
In his talk, the expert also explained that “the first dicastery to be opened in Christianity, in the Church, is the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints,” as can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is stated that “the first decision taken by the Church is to preserve the memory of the martyrs.” Not without reason, during the time of the first Christians, “Mass was celebrated on the tombs of the martyrs,” he added.
Martín de la Hoz explained how studying the causes of the martyrs of the 20th century leads to considering that “it all began in the Cortes of Cadiz” in 1812, whose constitution begins by saying “‘in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,’ but then what is established and delineated is what was called liberalism.”
During the 19th century, “the progressive liberals and the conservative liberals alternated being in power, but in the end what unites them is a very violent persecution against the Church. It’s as if all the Enlightenment and the French Revolution that had happened in central Europe suddenly appeared in Spain.”
“This hatred that is present, that is spreading, that is constant and continuous, is penetrating” the strata of intellectuals, of workers, in the countryside, all the way up to the times of the Second Republic (1931–1936), he said.
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was, in the expert’s opinion, “the emergence of something that was already in motion, because it had been unfolding for a century. That is why it is very important to return to the memory of the martyrs, because they are the ones who are going to help us rebuild a united society.”
Among the testimonies of forgiveness compiled in “Hogares de amor y perdón II,” there is one offered by Luis García Chillón, who remembers his uncle, Hermenegildo Chillón Cabrera, martyred in the town of Talavera de la Reina in Toledo province, Spain.
Mere, as he was known in the area, was a town watchman and at the age of 29 he was dismissed by the mayor, Francisco Cancho, a member of the Popular Front. One night in February 1936, 20 men beat him up and left him half dead.
He spent 12 days in the hospital and when he was released, he tried to recover in Tarancón in Cuenca province. After the start of the war in July 1936, they went looking for him to imprison him in the convent of the nuns known as “Ildefonsas.” It was Aug. 22.
After a summary trial by the so-called “people’s committee,” he was taken out of the place in handcuffs and a cowbell was hung around his neck while they deliberated whether to burn him or shoot him. Finally, they took him to the place of his martyrdom. Before dying, he asked his executioners to give his wallet to his mother with these words: “Give her a hug and another one for yourself, so that you [the executioner] may forgive me if I failed you in any way.”
His nephew Luis believes that “at the moment of truth, when these words are said, they are felt deeply and imply a tremendous greatness of spirit.” From these words he deduces, despite not knowing his uncle, “that this man forgave those who were martyring him.”
For him, “this shows a unique greatness of heart” and makes it clear that, regardless of the religious practice that his uncle had, “the blood of the martyrs cleanses everything, heals everything.”
He also noted that “in my Uncle Hermenegildo’s family there was never any talk of hatred or resentment” and that today the relatives of the martyrs “have no desire to settle any score or any desire for revenge or anything like that. But we cannot allow them to be forgotten either.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 10/8/2024 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News)
Nuns from the Missionaries of Charity hold candles in recognition of the May 3 annivesary of ethnic violence in Manipur, India. / Credit: Anto Akkara
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 8, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
More than 160 violent attacks against Christians were reported in India this past year as laws passed by the country’s reigning Hindu nationalist government added to the threat to religious freedom in the nation.
According to a recent report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Christians in India are facing increasingly hostile threats of violence and religious discrimination.
USCIRF is now calling for India to be added to the U.S. government’s list of international religious freedom violators as a country of particular concern (CPC) — a move that has provoked outrage from the country’s government.
A spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry spoke out against USCIRF on Thursday, describing the U.S. agency as “a biased organization with a political agenda,” according to news reports.
“We reject this malicious report,” the spokesperson said, “which only serves to discredit the USCIRF further.”
The spokesperson called on USCIRF to “desist from such agenda-driven efforts” and to instead focus its attention on human rights issues within its own country.
Incidents of religious freedom violations listed in the USCIRF report include physical attacks on individuals, places of worship, and schools; restrictions on public prayer; and false accusations of “forced conversion” for which the punishment ranges from hefty fines in some states to life in prison in others.
According to the USCIRF report, “from January to March, 161 incidents of violence against Christians in India were reported — 47 of which occurred in the state of Chhattisgarh.”
“Such incidents ranged from violent attacks on churches and prayer meetings to physical assaults, harassment, and false allegations of forced conversion,” the report said.
In the northeast Indian state of Assam, government authorities have repeatedly targeted Christians throughout the past year, passing laws such as the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, banning prayer over the sick. According to USCIRF, Assam’s chief minister stated his intention to “restrict Christian evangelism and conversion in the state with the bill.”
A Catholic school in the state was targeted by several Hindu organizations that entered the school and “demanded instructors cease using Christian images and symbols.”
In the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, Christians have been denied access to community water sources and, in some cases, according to sources cited by USCIRF, deceased Christians have been denied burial by local Hindu villagers.
Authorities have arrested dozens of Christians on accusations of “conducting or participating in forced conversion” since 2021. Under “anti-conversion” laws currently present in 12 of India’s 28 states, authorities can prosecute religious minorities for alleged attempts at forced conversions. Many of these laws, according to the USCIRF, “far exceed cases of coercion.”
For example, the report cites an incident that took place in Uttar Pradesh where 13 Christians, including four pastors, were arrested after participating in a house prayer meeting after local villagers had reported them to the police on suspicion of “conversion activities.”
In Uttar Pradesh, a recently passed law allows anyone, not just a victim or blood relative, to file a First Instance Report (FIR) against any purported suspect of “forced conversion.” Those arrested and charged with the crime in the north Indian state face life in prison without the possibility of applying for bail.
Ahead of the country’s most recent elections in June, politicians including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of the Bharatiya Janata Party adopted Hindu-nationalist slogans for their campaigns. These politicians promoted “increasingly wielded hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric” against minority religious communities such as Christians and Muslims, according to the report.
USCIRF noted the prime minister in particular accused his opposition of intending to “wipe out [the] Hindu faith from the country” and make Hindus “second-class citizens in their own country.” Modi specifically directed many of his comments against Muslims, whom he referred to as “infiltrators.”
Posted on 10/8/2024 08:03 AM ()
South Sudan’s Archbishop of Juba, Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, says the local Church leadership has no problem with the postponed general elections as long as politicians use the two-year extension to prepare conditions for peaceful elections
Posted on 10/8/2024 07:29 AM ()
After 8 months under scaffolding, Pope Francis will inaugurate the newly refurbished baldacchino with a Mass—also signaling the end of the Synod.
Posted on 10/8/2024 06:54 AM ()
The Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations calls for renewed international cooperation to contrast the proliferation of illicit drugs and human organs trafficking, while reiterating the Holy See’s opposition to death penalty to stem crime.
Posted on 10/8/2024 05:20 AM ()
The Church marks 30 years since the first World Meeting of Families with a mini-documentary celebrating the gatherings under three Popes and looking forward to the next event in 2028.
Posted on 10/8/2024 03:57 AM ()
Rosary Church Dockyard in Mumbai celebrates its parish feast with special festivities dedicated to exploring the Pope’s call to become a more synodal Church.
