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‘It will be breathtaking,’ Notre Dame’s chief architect says; iconic cathedral reopens Dec. 8

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By Caroline de Sury

PARIS (OSV News) – Philippe Villeneuve, Notre Dame Cathedral’s chief architect, learned about the 2019 fire 300 miles from Paris and rushed to the capital to help firefighters save the iconic monument.

For France’s top architect of historical sites, the evening of April 15, 2019, was especially dark as Notre Dame Cathedral was already his passion when he was a little boy. Since the inferno, he has worked tirelessly to finalize major parts of renovations by Dec. 8 when the cathedral is reopened.

In fact, it was a fascination with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the French architect who restored the cathedral in the 19th century, that inspired Villeneuve to become an architect of historic monuments. A graduate of École Nationale Supérieure D’architecture de Paris Val-de-Seine, Paris’ architecture university, he has been entrusted with the renovation of many iconic monuments, including one of the most well-known castles in the Loire Valley – Chambord.

In 2013, he was asked to renovate part of Notre Dame in Paris – including repairing the stonework of the flying buttresses and the fissures in Viollet-le-Duc’s spire. When the fire broke out, he was working on the spire.

The fire of 2019, the cause of which remains unknown, struck Villeneuve as a personal tragedy.

“Everyone was scared, and it went on for hours, getting worse by the hour,” he told OSV News. He was immediately asked to secure the site, and the Ministry of Culture confirmed him in his mission to repair the damaged cathedral. Since then, he has devoted all his time and passion to the challenge.

Today, the chief architect is confident of meeting the deadlines imposed on him. “Yes, the cathedral will be ready for its official reopening on December 8, 2024. The framework is finished. The roofers are still working,” he told OSV News. “There was a lot of wind at Easter, so we were a little behind schedule. But we will make it up. We have to hurry, but everything will be fine.”

The spire of Notre Dame Cathedral, pictured April 10, 2024, is now back atop the iconic structure with part of the scaffolding removed. Reconstruction work on the spire and roof of the iconic structure entered its last phase as the world prepared to observe the fifth anniversary of the April 15, 2019, blaze that caused the spire to collapse inside the cathedral. Notre Dame is scheduled to reopen Dec. 8, to be followed by six months of celebrations, Masses, pilgrimages, prayers and exhibitions. (OSV News photo/Charlene Yves)

The site of the Notre Dame reconstruction is still sealed off, with tourists patiently watching the front towers of the cathedral from the wooden steps installed in front of it. The steps are placed not far from the place where Villeneuve found the copper rooster perched at the spire’s top that was feared lost on April 15. However, on April 16 at dawn, Villeneuve found the battered rooster lying in the gutter of Rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, a street right next to the cathedral square. The relics of Paris’ patron, St. Genevieve, were found intact inside.

After five years of intense work and installation of a new rooster – one he designed himself – on top of the new spire, Villeneuve told OSV News they are now “preparing the most decisive phase of the project.”

“This involves dismantling the large scaffolding at the transept crossing. Removing it will enable us to rebuild the cross vault, replace the paving and install the altar. We are going to erect a new scaffolding, but this time detached from what is below, to put the finishing touches to the work on the spire’s roof at this point,” he explained.

“This work, above the transept crossing vault,” he said, “is the most delicate part of the project. But everything is going well.”

Villeneuve emphasized that this magnificent project was made possible by the international outpouring of generosity and donations that followed the fire. “I would never have imagined that Notre Dame could have aroused such emotion throughout the world, during and after the fire,” he told OSV News. “It was astonishing.” Those involved in the reconstruction emphasize that many American donors generously supported rebuilding of the icon of Paris and icon of the Catholic Church.

“Notre Dame shows France’s influence in the world, and its extraordinary heritage. But the fire was not just a national issue. Notre Dame is also a (UNESCO) World Heritage site, and during the fire, we really felt that it was humanity that was seeing its heritage disappear.”

Villeneuve added that “the flames and the fall of the spire sent shockwaves around the world” but “fortunately, the firemen did an extraordinary job, and in the end we lost a frame, a roof, a spire, a few pieces of vaulting, but no more. And thanks to all that, in the end, we will have an even more beautiful cathedral than before the fire. This is very stimulating.”

Since the rebuilding work began, all those involved on site have testified to the exceptional quality of the skills and spirit of Notre Dame’s craftsmen. “It is true that there is an extraordinary atmosphere,” Villeneuve confirmed. “If so far we were able to meet the deadlines, it is because the contractors and craftsmen trusted me. And I trusted them. The complicity and commitment were total, for the good of the cathedral, and also for the pleasure and pride of working on this extraordinary monument”.

He said he also has “deep respect and affection for the totally anonymous people on the site, such as those who take care of the daily clean-up,” Villeneuve told OSV News. “It is thanks to them too that this project is progressing so well. I greet everyone in the same warm way.”

Eight months into the reopening, various teams are working on the process of equipping the cathedral with electricity, IT, heating, lighting, among other systems.

Vileneuve said every person working in the reconstruction has a symbolic task of passing on their knowledge and work for future generations. They “will spread out everywhere after the site is finished,” Villeneuve said, “Those who will have benefited from this project to perfect their craft, will pass on all this as (craftsmen did) in the Middle Ages. They will pass on all this know-how.” Villeneuve added, “Life is about transmission. … We are passersby.”

Villeneuve doesn’t treat the cathedral’s reconstruction merely as a work project. In a conversation with OSV News, he described the cathedral as if it were a human being. “We are giving the cathedral all the elements that will bring it to life,” he said. “I would like to give people something that will touch them. I would like to help Notre Dame Cathedral speak to people, as best as it can.”

He said, “Notre Dame speaks to me. … Notre-Dame means a lot to me,” adding that this cathedral “is no ordinary monument. Everything we do has a strong mystical and religious significance. We cannot forget that. There is a mystical and religious dimension in our work.”

Villeneuve also confessed that he is already dreaming of seeing people’s amazement when they enter the cathedral. “It will be breathtaking,” he said. “On the outside, it is now exactly as we knew it. But on the inside, it is more beautiful than we have ever seen it.

“Even us. Even I, who knew it by heart, am amazed to finally see what this cathedral was really like inside (in the further past), in terms of architecture, light, care and quality. It is extraordinary. You will not recognize it.”

For Notre Dame’s chief architect, this “project of a lifetime” will not end at the end of the year. “There will still be the restoration of the chevet,” or apse, he said. “And we are going to use the rest of the donations to restore the sacristy, the presbytery, maybe even the transepts. We will not stop work after December 8. I will be here on a daily basis until 2028.”

He said for him the most important thing in life “is doing useful things for others,” Villeneuve added. “I am happy to be able to contribute something to the world.”

(Caroline de Sury writes for OSV News from Paris.)

Parish priests are lifeline to church’s mission, cardinal says

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By Carol Glatz
ROME (CNS) –The success of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will much depend on also including parish priests in the process, said Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington.

Of the more than 360 bishops, religious and laypeople who participated in the first assembly at the Vatican last October, the small number who were ordained priests “were scholars, missionaries (or) they were engaged in leadership in religious communities,” he said.

“Not that those other participants weren’t generous and insightful,” he said, but in his 40 years as a bishop, his experience has been that “a number of people may know who the bishop is, they all know who the pastor is.”

The parish priest is the church’s “point of contact and if we lose contact with our people through their priests, it disables the mission of the church,” he told Catholic News Service April 10 at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he was to receive the annual Rector’s Award April 11.

Cardinal Gregory had served as an auxiliary bishop of Chicago before leading the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, and then the Archdiocese of Atlanta; he was named archbishop of Washington in 2019 and then elevated to the College of Cardinals the next year.

Pope Francis personally invited the 76-year-old native of Chicago to attend the synod on synodality in Rome.

“There was a lack of parish priests present” at the first assembly, Cardinal Gregory said, noting the importance of the upcoming gathering of 300 parish priests from all over the world to make their contribution to the ongoing synod process by sharing their experiences of parish life.

Parish priests are the ones who “serve the folks in the pew, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday,” he said. The gathering of parish priests, which will be held April 28-May 2 outside of Rome, was needed “because if the synod is going to be a success, it really needs to keep its roots in the Sunday pew.”

The priests, selected by bishops’ conferences and Eastern Catholic churches, also will have the chance to dialogue with Pope Francis as part of responding to the first assembly’s report requesting more active involvement of deacons, priests and bishops in the synodal process.

Because there will only be one to four priests representing each bishops’ conference and Eastern-rite Catholic church, Cardinal Gregory said it would be important for the priest delegates to “use media to pass on what they did, what they heard, what they said.”

“After all, 300 priests is a good delegation, but it’s a small representation of the total number of priests who are engaged directly in pastoral ministry,” he said.

Just as priests are being asked to “follow up more effectively with their parishioners and learn how to listen to and to learn from criticism and also support” as part of the synodal process, he said, bishops, too, should be showing their support of their priests, even in the simplest of ways.

“Long before the synod and in every diocese that I’ve served in,” he said, he has always shared messages and comments he receives complimenting one of his priests for something they did.

“I always send that complimentary letter to the priest himself, along with my letter of thanks to the individual who thought enough of a pastor to say something nice,” he said.

“That builds a relationship with the priest and the bishop that says, ‘you know, he contacts me not necessarily because I’ve done something wrong, but because I’ve done something right.’ And that’s very important. Our guys need to know that the bishop is grateful,” he said.

The success of the synod, Cardinal Gregory said, will be seen with “an increase in the contact that people, ordinary people, the faithful of God, have with their priests,” their bishop and with the pope. Success will be recognizing that the pope “is not an individual who governs the church simply from the desk of the papal apartment” and that the bishop and pastor are not leaders who simply manage or direct activities from afar.

“To have a successful synod outcome, it has to tighten the bonds that unite us, even going into those areas where most people had not been before. And unfortunately, sometimes where bishops haven’t been before, that is, in the midst of their flock,” he said.

“Isn’t that one of Pope Francis’ favorite early terms, the smell of the sheep?” the cardinal asked. “You’ve got to have the smell of the sheep.”

Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington speaks with Catholic News Service Senior Correspondent Carol Glatz during an interview at the Pontifical North American College in Rome April 10, 2024. (CNS photo/Justin McLellan)

Briefs

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Jesuit Father William J. Byron, a former president of The Catholic University of America in Washington and University of Scranton, Pa., and known for his writings on the relationship between business practices and Catholic spirituality, died at age 96 April 9, 2024. He is pictured in a file photo. (OSV News photo, CNS file)

NATION
PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – Jesuit Father William J. Byron, known for his leadership of Jesuit institutions of higher learning and his many years of lecturing, teaching and writing on the relationship between business practices and Catholic spirituality, died April 9 at Manresa Hall, the health center of the Jesuit community at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He was 96. Byron was a former president of the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, 1975-1982, and The Catholic University of America in Washington, 1982-1992. He spent a year as acting president of Loyola University New Orleans, 2003-2004, and served as president at his high school alma mater, St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, 2006-2008. His other leadership roles for the Society of Jesus included rector of the Jesuit community at Georgetown University in Washington, 1994-2000. A funeral Mass for Father Byron was celebrated April 20 at St. Matthias Church in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. In an April 9 message to the university community, Jesuit Father Joseph Marina, Scranton’s current president, said that during one of their last visits together, Father Byron managed to ask him if he was “the president at Scranton now. When I nodded yes, he said, ‘Take good care of it.’”

GRASS VALLEY, Calif. (OSV News) – By any measure, Louis Anthony “Lou” Conter, a Catholic hero of World War II who died April 1 at his home in Grass Valley, California, at age 102, led a celebrated life. Conter’s funeral Mass will be celebrated April 23 at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Grass Valley, followed by burial with full military honors. Born in Ojibwa, Wisconsin, on Sept. 13, 1921, Conter graduated from high school in Colorado. He escaped a hardscrabble life – at age 7, he hunted rabbits in Kansas, where his family was living, in order to provide dinner – and a job in a Hormel meatpacking plant by enlisting in the Navy in 1939. As a quartermaster on the battleship USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Conter was one of only 335 crewmen and officers aboard to survive the assault by Japanese fighter pilots, bombers and torpedo planes that sank it on Dec. 7, 1941, launching the United States into World War II. The sailors and Marines killed aboard numbered 1,177. The Arizona casualties amounted to nearly half of the 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, who died that day. Conter served for 28 years, retiring at the rank of lieutenant commander, the highest rank possible for someone with a high school diploma.

AMARILLO, Texas (OSV News) – An assault on a Texas priest highlights the need for parishes to implement more robust security measures, experts told OSV News. On April 10, Father Tony Neusch, rector of St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral in Amarillo, was pepper-sprayed while hearing confessions. The priest advised in a Facebook post that he was uninjured and that police had been notified, but that walk-in confessions would be suspended pending security upgrades. The assault comes in the wake of Catholic churches and shrines throughout the U.S. and Canada having seen a number of security incidents in the past few months, from protesters to mentally-ill individuals. Preserving both pastoral welcome and commonsense security in places of prayer can be a delicate balance, said Craig Gundry of Critical Intervention Services, a Tampa, Florida-based security consulting firm with extensive experience in church security. Having a parish security team is valuable, he added – and the Catholic Community of St. Thomas More in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, established such a team in 2017. The St. Michael the Defender Ministry, according to its leader and security professional Jeff Malkovsky, has now been applied to parishes and schools throughout the Diocese of Raleigh. But keeping priests and penitents safe during the sacrament of reconciliation, which is bound by anonymity and the seal of confession, requires extra consideration, admitted St. Thomas More pastor Father Scott McCue. The attack on Father Neusch, he said, is “a good conversation starter” for additional discussions on parish security.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Hundreds of parish priests from around the world will spend three days praying and talking about experiences of synodality and discernment in parishes and dioceses before having a two-hour dialogue with Pope Francis May 2. The priests, chosen by their national bishops’ conference or Eastern Catholic church synod, will meet outside of Rome April 29-May 1 to reflect on the theme “How to be a synodal local Church in mission.” The results of their discussions will be used, along with contributions from bishops’ conferences, in preparing the working document for the second session of the Synod of Bishops on synodality in October. Publishing a detailed schedule of the priests’ meeting April 16, the synod secretariat listed the questions the priests will be asked to pray about and discuss during their time at Sacrofano, outside of Rome. The priests will be asked what “experiences of a synodal church” have they had in their parishes and “which ones have been happy and which ones less so?” They also will be asked how they have experienced the participation of “different charisms, vocations, ministries in the life of the parish and diocese/eparchy” and what questions those experiences raised.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Peace can spread and grow from “small seeds” like including someone who is left out of an activity, showing concern for someone who is struggling, picking up some litter and praying for God’s help, Pope Francis told Italian schoolchildren. “At a time still marked by war, I ask you to be artisans of peace,” the pope told some 6,000 Italian schoolchildren involved in the National Network of Schools of Peace, a civic education program designed to teach the children to care for themselves, their friends, their communities, the world and the environment. During the gathering April 19 in the Vatican audience hall, Pope Francis led the children in a moment of silent prayer for their peers in Ukraine and in Gaza. “In a society still prisoner of a throwaway culture,” he told them, “I ask you to be protagonists of inclusion; in a world torn by global crises, I ask you to be builders of the future, so that our common home may become a place of fraternity.”

WORLD
MOHNYIN, Myanmar (OSV News) – Unknown assailants gunned down and seriously injured a priest while celebrating morning Mass in Myanmar’s conflict-stricken northern Kachin state on April 12. Two men opened fire at 6:30 a.m. on Father Paul Khwi Shane Aung, 40, parish priest of St. Patrick’s Church in Mohnyin town, within the Myitkyina Diocese, according to church sources. “They were wearing black clothes and masks and entered the church on a motorcycle to shoot the priest three times,” U Zaw, a local catechist, told UCA News, an independent Catholic news service covering East, South and Southeast Asia. The motive behind the attack is not yet known. Zaw said the injured priest was rushed to a Mohnyin hospital and was later moved to a hospital in Myitkyina, the state capital. An activist based in Kachin state said anti-social elements are fomenting religious and ethnic conflict as the civil war in military-ruled Myanmar has entered a critical phase. Clergy, pastors and church-run institutions are being targeted by the military, which toppled the civilian government in February 2021, for supporting the rebels. Kachin state’s 1.7 million people are mainly Christians, some 116,000 of whom are Catholics.

LAGOS, Nigeria (OSV News) – For decades, Nigeria has remained a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa, with her citizens making up 6% of immigrants in Libya, where they are commonly traded in open markets, according to a 2021 report from the International Organization for Migration. But a network of Catholic Sisters of St. Louis at the Bakhita Empowerment center, a safehouse in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, is determined to change this by providing shelter to survivors and conducting education campaigns to prevent others from being victimized. At the transit shelter, women and girls receive rehabilitation and counseling to restart their lives. The shelter is named after St. Josephine Bakhita, the patron saint of human trafficking survivors. Kidnapped at age 7 in Sudan and sold into slavery, Josephine was taken to Italy in 1885 by her last owner. A court ruled she was free because slavery was illegal in Italy. The Catholic Sisters of St. Louis offer assistance, counseling and vocational training at the shelter to help trafficking survivors reintegrate into society. They also do prevention and sensitization campaigns, to raise awareness on the causes of human traffickers. The shelter accommodates about 30 survivors whom Sister Patricia Ebegbulem, project coordinator of the safehouse calls “treasures.” Human trafficking is a global plague that generates billions of dollars in profits; over 40 million people are exploited and trafficked each year.

Briefs

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NATION
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Multiple states will have measures to expand access to abortion on their ballots in November, a key challenge for pro-life groups in the fall after their losses on similar contests in post-Dobbs elections. The Florida Supreme Court on April 1 simultaneously ruled that the state’s Constitution does not protect abortion access and allowed a proposed amendment seeking to do so to qualify for the state’s November ballot. Kelsey Pritchard, state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said that while her group celebrates that the Florida Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in that state, “at the same time, we recognize that Florida is in real jeopardy of losing those protections through the ballot measure that they also upheld and said would be on the ballot in November.” Maryland and New York also will have efforts to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions on the ballot, while efforts for similar amendments to qualify for the ballot are still underway in several states including Arizona and Montana, where closely-watched races for the U.S. Senate will also take place. Ballot measures on abortion proved elusive for the pro-life movement in 2022 and 2023, despite achieving their long-held goal of reversing Roe v. Wade when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision.

CHICAGO (OSV News) – A new video series featuring several U.S. Catholic bishops will offer what organizers call a “deep dive into the sacred mysteries of the Mass.” “Beautiful Light: A Paschal Mystagogy,” produced by the National Eucharistic Revival, will be livestreamed on seven consecutive Thursdays from April 4–May 16 at 8 p.m. ET on the revival’s Facebook, YouTube and Instagram channels. Launched in June 2022, the revival is a three-year grassroots initiative sponsored by the nation’s Catholic bishops to enkindle devotion to the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The various events and programs of the revival will be capped by the National Eucharistic Congress, which will take place July 17-21 in Indianapolis. The upcoming video series will be hosted by Sister Alicia Torres, a member of the Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago and part of the revival’s executive team; and National Eucharistic Revival missionary Tanner Kalina. The episodes, led by various bishops, will survey the central aspects of the Mass as part of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1075) calls “liturgical catechesis,” or “mystagogy.”

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (OSV News) – A group of Catholic bishops recently traveled to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama in what trip organizers called a “powerful encounter” amid the nation’s long-running reckoning with racism. Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre of Louisville, former chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, and current committee chair Retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago hosted a March 18-20 “Bishops’ Lenten Experience” in the two cities, which were the endpoints of a five-day, 54-mile nonviolent march led by civil rights leader and pastor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in support of voting rights for Black Americans. The bishops’ visit to the sites had been coordinated by the committee on racism and the Washington-based Catholic Mobilizing Network, which works closely with the U.S. bishops to end the death penalty, promote restorative justice and advance racial equity. Touring the numerous historical sites commemorating the nation’s legacy of slavery, racism and mass incarceration was a profoundly moving experience, participants told OSV News. “I don’t think anyone can journey through the exhibits without registering great emotion in the face of the human devastation involved in our American history,” said Bishop Perry. In a Facebook post, Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia said that “slavery, racism and the marginalization of Native North American peoples and African Americans represent the original sin of our nation.”

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The protection and preservation of human dignity must extend into the digital realm, the Vatican said in a new document on human dignity. While the advancement of digital technologies “may offer many possibilities for promoting human dignity, it also increasingly tends toward the creation of a world in which exploitation, exclusion, and violence grow, extending even to the point of harming the dignity of the human person,” read a declaration approved by Pope Francis and published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith April 8. “If technology is to serve human dignity and not harm it, and if it is to promote peace rather than violence, then the human community must be proactive in addressing these trends,” it read. The document, a declaration on human dignity titled “Dignitas Infinita” (“Infinite Dignity”), reflects on Catholic teaching about human dignity and addresses “some grave violations of human dignity” today, among them “digital violence.” In his introduction to the declaration, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the doctrinal dicastery, wrote that “although not comprehensive,” the contemporary issues touched upon in the document were selected to “illuminate different facets of human dignity that might be obscured in many people’s consciousness.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While giving each person his or her due is fundamental for justice, the virtue of justice is not concentrated on the individual in isolation but on ensuring the common good of all, Pope Francis said. Justice “is represented allegorically by scales, because it aims to ‘even the score’ between people, especially when they risk being distorted by some imbalance,” the pope said April 3 at his weekly general audience. In St. Peter’s Square, still decorated with thousands of flowers from Easter, Pope Francis continued his series of audience talks about virtues and vices. Justice is related to law, which should seek “to regulate relations between people equitably” and to ensure the dignity of each person is respected, he said.

WORLD
BARCELONA, Spain (OSV News) – After more than a century, construction of Spain’s Basilica of the Holy Family in Barcelona, known as Sagrada Familía for its Spanish name, will be completed in 2026, the foundation overseeing the project announced. During a March 20 press conference announcing the publication of the Sagrada Familía Foundation’s 2023 annual report, Esteve Camps, the foundation’s executive chairman, said construction of the basilica’s Chapel of the Assumption will be completed in 2025, while the tower of Jesus Christ is set to be finished in 2026. The completion of the basilica in 2026 will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of its designer, Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Construction of the sacred edifice began in 1882, and it is considered the masterpiece of Gaudí, a Catholic whose cause for sainthood is underway. After construction was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, work on the basilica resumed two years later. At the press conference, Camps said that the basilica welcomed more than 4.7 million pilgrims in 2023. The majority of the pilgrims who visited came from the United States, accounting for 19% of the total number, he noted. While the main building will be finally completed in 2026, work will continue until 2034 on statues and other areas of the basilica.

CUERNAVACA, Mexico (OSV News) – Catholics turned out in large numbers to celebrate Holy Week in Nicaragua. But the ruling Sandinista regime prohibited public exhibitions of faith – such as processions and reenactments of the passion of Christ – as it continued exercising control over religious activities in what’s becoming an increasingly totalitarian country. Processions occurred within church atriums and sanctuaries as police and paramilitaries monitored activities outside and even were captured filming events, according to social media accounts. Some 30 police officers corralled attendees at the Managua cathedral on Good Friday, March 29, independent news outlet Confidencial reported, ensuring that nothing occurred outside of church property. Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer in exile who documents church repression, calculated some 4,000 police were deployed during Holy Week and an estimated 4,800 processions were canceled. She posted a video on X of three students being arrested for simply carrying the image of a saint. “Palm Sunday with police and paramilitaries inside and outside of parishes. They’re filming and photographing laity. A Sunday under extreme siege,” she posted March 24. Holy Week marked the second consecutive year the regime has prohibited processions and limited activities to church premises. A source in Nicaragua told OSV News that priests watch their words during Mass and report being spied upon by police and paramilitaries.
PARIS (OSV News) – For some, the Notre Dame fire was a sign of devastation of faith and Christian values. But for many more in France, it meant awakening of faith on an unprecedented scale. “The fire gave us all a boost,” Father Henry de Villefranche told OSV News, speaking of a “renewed vitality” encouraged by the Notre Dame worksite. “The church was asleep. Some people were behaving badly. In that respect, the fire was providential. It pushed us all to move forward and give our best.” Few know it better than the chaplains of the iconic cathedral and Father de Villefranche is one of them, but the only one remaining from before the fire. A few yards from Notre Dame, on Ile de la Cité, he works on ensuring continuity of Notre Dame’s heritage with the new team, responsible for the liturgical life of the renovated cathedral, in which “culture and worship should not be separated, but rather linked,” he said. “We hope that visitors who enter as tourists leave as pilgrims.” Father de Villefranche told OSV News that he is “not very interested in the official ceremonies” to reopen the cathedral. He said he is “signing up to celebrate the first ordinary Mass of the week that follows.

Mundo en Fotos

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En una canasta de Pascua se ven huevos decorados a mano. (Foto de OSV News/Nancy Wiechec)
El Domingo de Ramos marca el comienzo de la Semana Santa. Miembros de la Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Paz en Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, participan en una procesión al aire libre alrededor de la iglesia el Domingo de Ramos, 24 de marzo de 2024. (Foto de noticias OSV/Sam Lucero)
Una mujer religiosa hace gestos hacia un contramanifestante frente a la Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos en Washington el 26 de marzo de 2024, mientras los jueces escuchaban argumentos orales en un caso presentado por grupos provida que desafiaban las restricciones relajadas de la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos de los Estados Unidos sobre la mifepristona, la primera de dos medicamentos utilizados en un aborto químico. (Foto de OSV News/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)
Niño reza frente a una imagen de Cristo crucificado en una image compartida en un webinar organizado por la la Asociación Católica de Vida Familiar y Catholic Relief Services. Durante el evento del 21 de marzo, 2024, William Becerra, asesor bilingüe de la Oficina de Participación Hispana de CRS, habló de la importancia de vivir los días de Cuaresma en familia y el papel de los padres en la fe de sus hijos. (Foto OSV News/cortesía de William Becerra)
La gente camina cerca de la Basílica de la Sagrada Familia en Barcelona, España, el 11 de octubre de 2017. Después de más de un siglo, la construcción de la basílica se completará en 2026, anunció la fundación que supervisa el proyecto el 20 de marzo. 2024. (Foto de OSV News/Iván Alvarado, Reuters)

Papa Francisco: Selva del Darien, Via Crucis de Migrantes

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Por Manuel Rueda
(OSV News) – Mientras obispos de Colombia, Costa Rica y Panamá visitaban dos campamentos de migrantes en el extremo norte de la selva del Darién, el Papa Francisco calificó el traicionero viaje hacia una vida mejor del migrante como un vía crucis.

La “caravana humana pasa por el Tapón del Darién, una selva que es triunfo de la naturaleza pero que hoy se convierte en un verdadero ‘viacrucis’”, escribió el pontífice en un mensaje del 19 de marzo a los obispos reunidos en Panamá del 19 al 22 de marzo.

Un grupo de migrantes venezolanos comienza la caminata a través del Tapón del Darién el 30 de abril de 2023, al salir del pueblo colombiano de Capurganá. El Tapón del Darién está en la frontera entre Colombia y Panamá y consta de más de 60 millas de denso bosque tropical, montañas escarpadas y vastos pantanos. (Foto de OSV News/Manuel Rueda, Informe Global Sisters)


El Papa Francisco advirtió que la crisis en el Tapón del Darién “no sólo pone en evidencia los límites de la gobernanza migratoria en el hemisferio occidental, sino alimenta un próspero negocio que permite acumular ganancias ilícitas del tráfico humano”.

La visita a los campamentos de migrantes fue una iniciativa denominada “Pascua con nuestros hermanos migrantes” durante el encuentro de los obispos fronterizos de Colombia y Costa Rica y los obispos de Panamá. Los prelados llamaron a los gobiernos de América Latina a respetar los derechos fundamentales de los migrantes y refugiados que transitan por sus territorios rumbo a Estados Unidos.

En una declaración emitida el 22 de marzo, los líderes de la Iglesia también dijeron que intentarán encontrar formas para que sus diócesis estén más cerca de los migrantes y llamaron a las naciones a donde se dirigen los migrantes a idear políticas públicas que faciliten su desarrollo económico, social e integración cultural y derribar los muros legales físicos y simbólicos que enfrentan millones de migrantes y refugiados.

La declaración de los obispos culminó una reunión en Panamá, donde miembros del clero y funcionarios de Caritas se reunieron para analizar la crisis humanitaria que se está desarrollando en el Tapón del Darién, la densa y sin carreteras jungla que separa América del Sur de Centroamérica.

En 2023, el número de migrantes que cruzan el Darién en su camino hacia Estados Unidos se duplicó: 520.000 personas realizaron el peligroso viaje a través de la selva.

Si bien esta ruta se ha vuelto cada vez más popular para los migrantes de América del Sur, África y Asia, sigue siendo peligrosa y los migrantes que cruzan el Darién están expuestos regularmente a enfermedades tropicales, robos y agresiones sexuales a lo largo de la caminata de tres a cinco días. Decenas de migrantes también se ahogan cada año mientras intentan cruzar los traicioneros ríos de la selva.

La hermana Margaret Pericles, miembro de la Congregación de San Juan Evangelista, sirve comidas para migrantes en el centro comunitario de Necoclí, Colombia, el 27 de abril de 2023. (Foto de OSV News/Manuel Rueda, Global Sisters Report)


A pesar de estos peligros, Panamá redujo recientemente el apoyo médico a los migrantes que sobreviven la ruta, al suspender las operaciones del grupo médico Médicos Sin Fronteras, conocido por las siglas francesas MSF.

La organización había estado atendiendo hasta 5.000 migrantes por mes en sus puestos de salud en el extremo norte de la selva de Darién, pero perdió el favor del gobierno de Panamá después de emitir un comunicado de prensa en el que afirmaba que los funcionarios estaban permitiendo que grupos criminales entraran por esa región del país para operar “con impunidad”.

“Algunas personas nos dijeron que estaban recibiendo medicinas de la Cruz Roja”, dijo a OSV News Margaret Cargioli, una abogada de derechos humanos que visitó el campamento de Lajas Blancas a principios de marzo. “ Pero lo que parece estar sucediendo es que ha menos apoyo médico”.

En su declaración del 22 de marzo, los obispos de Panamá, Costa Rica y Colombia dijeron que la iglesia necesita aumentar su influencia sobre las políticas que los gobiernos están adoptando hacia los inmigrantes.

“Como Iglesia tenemos un compromiso de incidir políticamente”, dijo el obispo Mario de Jesús Álvarez Gómez de Istmina-Tadó, Colombia. “¿Cómo vamos a hacer eso? Con el Evangelio y la constitución en las manos”.

Los líderes de la Iglesia dijeron que, durante su reunión del 19 al 22 de marzo, también discutieron la posibilidad de crear ministerios para la movilidad humana dentro de sus diócesis, y también consideraron la necesidad de capacitar a los miembros de Cáritas para abordar temas relacionadas con la migración.

“La iglesia tiene como vocación y como esencia acompañar a todo aquel que sufre”, dijo el obispo Daniel Francisco Blanco Méndez de San José, Costa Rica, durante la conferencia de prensa posterior a la visita al Tapón del Darién. “Por eso es necesario que reflexionemos sobre cómo podemos ser más cercanos en medio de estas situaciones de dolor (de migración forzada)” que tantos hermanos y hermanas experimentan.

La tumba de un haitiano de 19 años que murió intentando cruzar la selva tropical del Tapón del Darién se muestra en Capurganá, Colombia, el 7 de agosto de 2021, cerca de la frontera con Panamá. Decenas de migrantes han muerto al intentar cruzar la selva. (Foto OSV Noticias/Archivo CNS, Manuel Rueda)


El padre Rafael Castillo Torres, director de Cáritas Colombia, dijo que, si bien los trabajadores de Cáritas en su país tenían “compasión y buena voluntad”, necesitaban una mejor capacitación sobre cómo brindar apoyo legal y humanitario a los migrantes.

El arzobispo José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta de la ciudad de Panamá dijo que establecer servicios de apoyo a los inmigrantes sería un “gran desafío” para las parroquias de su país. Pero los animó a emprender esta tarea.

“Hablar de migrantes también es hablar de nuestra espiritualidad”, afirmó el arzobispo. “Acogiendo a los migrantes estamos ya construyendo la ciudad de Dios y la ciudad del hombre con la justicia y la solidaridad”.

Los obispos también dijeron que el Papa Francisco les había enviado un mensaje a los migrantes y que el nuncio apostólico en Panamá, el arzobispo Dagoberto Campos Salas, lo había leído en el campo de refugiados.

“No se olviden nunca de su dignidad humana”, decía el mensaje. “No tengan miedo de mirar a los demás a los ojos porque no son un descarte, sino que también forman parte de la familia humana y de la familia de los hijos de Dios”.

Los obispos y agentes pastorales, dijo el Papa, son como “la Verónica, con cariño brinda alivio y esperanza en el viacrucis de la migración”, y “el rostro de una madre Iglesia, que marcha con sus hijos e hijas”.

(Manuel Rueda escribe para OSV News desde Bogotá, Colombia.)

Border pilgrimage like Stations of the Cross for sisters as they learn of migrants’ hardships

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By Rhina Guidos
SAN DIEGO (OSV News) – Congress’s latest attempt at immigration reform in early February was going down in flames.

The sisters were keeping tabs on it. But their focus Feb. 5-9 was the road from San Diego via the cold desert toward Mexico, to see what the landscape, migrants and the Holy Spirit had to say to them during a five-day “border pilgrimage.”

“This wasn’t just nuns crossing the border and feeling good,” said Sister Suzanne Cooke, provincial of the U.S.-Canada province of the Society of the Sacred Heart, who was one of about two dozen sisters from various congregations who participated.

It was an opportunity to contemplate “What is God saying? What’s my responsibility?” she told Global Sisters Report Feb. 9 about the pilgrimage.

What spoke to her and others were the stories from those they met on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, including a family of 10 from Afghanistan running from the Taliban’s treatment of women; a Peruvian family of seven who left after threats from criminal elements; and a young Chechen escaping Russia.

A group of women religious, along with a priest and a Franciscan friar, stop by an abandoned camp in the desert, near Jacumba Hot Springs, south of San Diego, Feb. 7, 2024. Some prayed near the shoes, tattered tents and wet sleeping bags left behind where migrants sought shelter from the cold rain and snowstorms affecting the San Diego region this winter. (OSV News photo/Rhina Guidos, Global Sisters Report)

Though silent, landmarks that sisters visited in the desert also told of the tragedies and ignominy people on the move are increasingly facing, such as “a potter’s field with a fence,” as one sister said of a dirt plot where unidentified remains – believed to be of migrants – are buried and kept behind a chain link fence in a cemetery. Or a group of feeble tents, the only shelter that protected recent border crossers from the winter’s cold rain and snow that have pummeled the desert south of San Diego this season.

“We were talking ‘pilgrimage,’ but it seems almost like the Stations of the Cross,” Sister Suzanne Jabro, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, said of the tales of hardship along the way.

Sister Suzanne, along with Sacred Heart Sister Lisa Buscher, Mercy Sister Mary Waskowiak, and Franciscan Friar Keith Warner – all from California’s San Diego and Palm Desert area – organized the pilgrimage. It began and ended with a reflection at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego.

The organizers billed this on the theology school’s website as an opportunity for congregations to think about “next steps in ministry to migrants, whether direct service, pastoral care, education or advocacy.” But the pilgrimage also provided the opportunity to network and discern, as religious, what is happening at the border beyond the headlines and how to respond, Sister Suzanne said.
The pilgrimage sought to go beyond a border immersion experience, Sister Lisa said, and attempted to engage sisters in looking at the situation “with the eyes of the heart.”

At times, it was an exercise that produced pain and tears.

Sister Clara Malo Castrillón, provincial of Mexico’s Society of the Sacred Heart, wept as she rested her head against a fence that separated the migrant remains buried at Terrace Park Cemetery in Holtville, California, during a Feb. 7 pilgrimage stop.

Unable to enter the area, which has a locked gate, she and other sisters threw flowers over the fence that landed near the bricks marked “John Doe” that serve as tombstones for the unknown. They prayed for those buried there, some who drowned or died of exposure. They also prayed for the families who may never know what happened to their loved ones.

Sister Phyllis Sellner, of the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester, Minnesota, said she couldn’t help but think of the Holy Family as she looked at the cold landscape of another pilgrimage stop, an abandoned camp near Jacumba Hot Springs, an unincorporated community south of San Diego.

The spot, until recently, served as an unofficial outdoor detention site for migrants turning themselves in to border authorities. Volunteers had been taking water, food and other necessities to those at the desolate spot in the wilderness after crossing the nearby border to the U.S. side.

Some sisters in the group prayed, others looked inside the tents and at the objects left behind: wet sleeping bags, shoes, a small cooking pot with a large piece of wood that looked as if it had been used to stir food.

“It was very disheartening for me. I kept thinking about Mary and Joseph traveling over the rocks and the desert, probably meeting with people who didn’t want them there. It came flooding over in my mind,” Sister Phyllis said in a reflection at the end of the pilgrimage.

But sisters also shared smiles, candy and helped crack open Valentine’s-Day-themed piñatas with children and adults at the Cobina Posada del Migrante shelter in Mexicali, Mexico, Feb. 8. In return, the women at the shelter made pozole, a popular Mexican soup of hominy, to share with the sisters.
Still, the enormity of the humanitarian plight was never far behind. During the celebration, a Honduran woman, whose husband, a diabetic, was facing renal failure, entered the shelter with a wound on the man’s leg.

Sister Clara reflected the following day that it was hard to see the difficulties those they came into contact with found themselves in, including many fleeing “a violence that no one can stop,” such as corruption and other ailments.

“Life could be good for most of these people” if governments made an effort to solve problems, she said, and it was sad that “the only answer they (migrants) can think of is ‘Let’s go to the United States,'” because they see no solutions at home.

Sister Anne Carrabino, a member of the Sisters of Social Service, said she thought of how U.S. Cold War policy and its past interference in Latin America had much to do with creating “push factors” that have led people to leave their native countries. And yet leaving homelands in turbulence isn’t always the cure-all, given the difficulties and sometimes hostility that people on the move encounter even if they’re successful entering a more stable country – legally or otherwise.

“I was thinking, they have no idea what awaits them,” she said.

For Sister Mary Grace Ramos, the week’s visits and stops presented a “rewind” of her life, as she remembered how her mother had left the family home in the Philippines to find work in Hong Kong and later Canada. It was the only way to provide her and her siblings with an education, said the Sister of St. Joseph of Orange, California.

“It’s not just here that it’s happening,” Sister Mary Grace said, struggling to contain tears. “It happens in Asia. … All of this struggle … it’s happening all around the world.”

Sister Catherine Murray, of the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, California, said that, in the good and difficult things they encountered, “pilgrimage is a holy journey.”

“The attitude with which I come is, this is not a tour,” said Sister Catherine, chairperson for Region 14 of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Like Carrabino, she said it was important to share the pilgrimage experience with other communities and discern what steps to take going forward.

In the middle of the border journey, on Feb. 7, Republicans in the Senate rejected a rare bipartisan bill on immigration, which the sisters had been paying attention to. Regardless of what happens – or doesn’t – in Congress, the sisters seemed to be buoyed by their experience.

“We need to tell the story, we need services, we need everything,” Sister Anne said. “We’ve got ideas and energy.”

Sister Mary Waskowiak told GSR that the happenings at the border are increasingly becoming of interest to communities of women religious.

“I know a lot of women religious feel this is a new calling,” she told GSR. “Before, it was teaching. Now, it’s the border. This is the time.”

(Rhina Guidos is the Latin America regional correspondent for Global Sisters Report.)

Briefs

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This image is part of the promotional material for “Follow That Bishop,” a 28-minute documentary reporting on the FBI file kept on Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. (OSV News photo/courtesy Rome Reports)

NATION
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Nearly 75 years after he stopped teaching at The Catholic University of America in Washington, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) can still fill a campus auditorium. The occasion was a March 7 screening of “Follow That Bishop!” a half-hour documentary made last year in support of Archbishop Sheen’s sainthood cause and produced by Rome Reports, a TV news agency that covers Pope Francis and the Vatican. Co-directed by Antonio Olivié, CEO of Rome Reports, and Sean Patrick Lovett, director of the news agency’s international department, “Follow That Bishop!” focuses on the oddities of a file the FBI kept on the prelate and a miracle attributed to his intercession that involved the sudden recovery of James Engstrom of Washington, Illinois, who was initially considered stillborn when he was delivered during a planned home birth Sept. 16, 2010. The file begins in 1943 with an anonymous complaint about a speech the then-monsignor made in which he criticized communism and the Soviet Union, then an American ally in World War II. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover concluded that not only was the bishop not prone to sedition, he was instead a powerful and respected ally in the Cold War against communism. He added him to the bureau’s mailing list, and later invited him to a swearing-in of new agents, and even to the annual agent retreat in Maryland.

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – A special “baptism-in-a-day” celebration in the Archdiocese of Baltimore earlier this year welcomed unbaptized children into the faith. Twenty children ranging in age from approximately 1 to 6 were baptized. Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori came up with the idea for the event, a first-of-its-kind liturgy inspired by a priest friend in Connecticut who has had success with similar group baptisms in the Diocese of Bridgeport. The event at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen was designed to be welcoming to families that had not had their children baptized for varying reasons. It included sacramental preparation, lunch, an invitation to become involved in parish life at the cathedral and the conferral of baptism during the 5 p.m. Mass. The cathedral made godparents available for those families that needed them. Stacy Golden, director of the Office of Family, Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the archdiocesan Institute for Evangelization, noted that the number of families receiving baptism and other sacraments has declined steadily in the archdiocese over recent decades – even prior to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, there were more than 1.2 million infant baptisms in 1965 in the United States. That number declined to just over 996,000 in 2000 and to 437,942 in 2022 – even as the general population grew.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The saints are not unreachable “exceptions of humanity” but ordinary people who worked diligently to grow in virtue, Pope Francis said. It is wrong to think of the saints as “a kind of small circle of champions who live beyond the limits of our species,” the pope wrote in the catechesis for his general audience March 13 in St. Peter’s Square. Instead, they are “those who fully become themselves, who realize the vocation of every person.” Just like at his general audience March 6, Pope Francis told visitors in the square that due to a mild cold an aide, Msgr. Pierluigi Giroli, would read his speech. Continuing his series of catechesis on virtues and vices, the pope wrote that a virtuous person is not one who allows him- or herself to become distorted but “is faithful to his or her own vocation and fully realizes his or herself.” Reflecting on the nature of virtue, which has been discussed and analyzed since ancient times, the pope said that “virtue is a ‘habitus’ (expression) of freedom.” He added, “If we are free in every act, and each time we are called to choose between good and evil, virtue is that which allows us to have a habit toward the right choice.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has decided that some of the most controversial issues raised at the first assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will be examined by study groups that will work beyond the synod’s final assembly in October. The possible revision of guidelines for the training of priests and deacons, “the role of women in the church and their participation in decision-making/taking processes and community leadership,” a possible revision of the way bishops are chosen and a revision of norms for the relationship between bishops and the religious orders working in their dioceses all will be the subject of study groups. That Pope Francis did not wait until the end of the second assembly to convoke the study groups, “shows that he has a heart that listens; he listened and is acting,” Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, told reporters March 14. Pope Francis approved the 10 groups and their topics; he asked the groups, coordinated by different offices of the Roman Curia, to make a preliminary report to the synod’s second assembly in October and to give him a final report on their work by June 2025.

WORLD
KURIGA, Nigeria (OSV News) – Recent kidnappings of hundreds of people in Nigeria, including almost 300 schoolchildren March 7 in Kuriga in central part of the country, have left church leaders and parents, including Catholics, speechless in the face of another wave of senseless violence. As kidnappings become a horrific new normal in Nigeria, church leaders have strongly urged the government to act. In broad daylight gunmen raided a government primary school and kidnapped at least 287 pupils in the biggest mass abduction from a school in a decade. The incident is the second mass kidnapping in the West African nation of more than 200 million in less than a week. “This is heartbreaking to all of us, and it’s now time for the authorities to act fast to stop the killings and abductions,” lamented Emmanuel Ayeni Nwogu, catechist from the Archdiocese of Kaduna, where the March 7 abduction happened. “We continue to pray for the children who have been kidnapped, and we hope they are still alive and under the mighty hand of God.” Africa’s most populous nation has faced an array of security challenges since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its Islamic uprising to overthrow Nigeria’s secular government and create an Islamic state. The primary target of the militants are Christians, although the terror groups target government schools as well as they lack fighters and abduct boys for military purposes.

JERUSALEM (OSV News) – A bishop in Jerusalem appealed for Christians to start returning to the Holy Land on pilgrimage to visit holy places located within Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Auxiliary Bishop William Shomali of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, made the comments after Israel’s tourism minister appealed to Christian leaders during a visit to the U.S. to recommence pilgrimages “to strengthen yourselves and to strengthen us.” Bishop Shomali also said he is hopeful church leaders in the Holy Land will issue an invitation for Christian pilgrims to return. Tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims had to leave the Holy Land on emergency flights following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of the attacks, and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza, many airlines canceled flights to Tel Aviv. The absence of pilgrims has had a dramatic effect on the region’s tiny Christian minority in particular, given that many Christians have job working with pilgrims. Bishop Shomali said, “There are difficulties because of security, but still Jericho and Bethlehem can be visited.” Encouraging people to visit Palestinian Territories is crucial today so that those barred from entering Israel can still make money to support their families. Sources close to the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need said conditions for the small Christian community that remains in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated over the last four months.

Mundo en Fotos

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Una persona disfrazada sostiene un cartel el 9 de marzo de 2024, oponiéndose a un referéndum del 8 de marzo para eliminar la redacción sobre las madres amas de casa en la Constitución irlandesa. El titular del cartel y otras personas asistían al Festival Amigos de Ted, o TedFest, una convención anual para fanáticos de la querida comedia “Father Ted”. La propuesta de cambiar la redacción sobre las madres y una segunda para redefinir la familia fueron rechazadas rotundamente por los votantes. (Foto de OSV News/Reuters, Clodagh Kilcoyne)
El cardenal nicaragüense Leopoldo Brenes ora durante la Misa de ordenación de nuevos diáconos en la Catedral Metropolitana de Managua el 7 de marzo de 2024. (Foto de OSV News/Maynor Valenzuela, Reuters)
En esta foto del 24 de febrero de 2018, el Coliseo de Roma está iluminado en rojo para llamar la atención sobre la persecución de los cristianos en todo el mundo. La fundación pontificia Ayuda a la Iglesia Necesitada proporciona asistencia espiritual y material a católicos y otros cristianos que enfrentan persecución religiosa, dificultades económicas y otras dificultades. (Foto de OSV News/Remo Casilli, Reuters)
(izq.) Carl Bohman, de 78 años, aparece el 24 de enero de 2024, de pie en su granja en Brookville, Indiana. Bohman capacita a jóvenes de su parroquia rural del sureste de Indiana, St. Peter en el condado de Franklin, sobre cómo asistir a misa como monaguillos. Pero no sólo los instruye: sirve en la misa junto a ellos y en el proceso les muestra su profundo amor por la Eucaristía. (Foto de OSV News/Sean Gallagher, The Criterion)
A stained-glass window at St. Mary Church in Glenmore-Stark, Wis., depicts St. Isidore the Farmer, whose feast day is May 15. Born in Madrid, he was canonized March 12, 1622, by Pope Gregory XV. St. Isidore is patron saint of farmers and rural communities. (OSV News photo/Sam Lucero)

Pope praises those assisting victims, clearing anti-personnel minefields

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By Carol Glatz , Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Anti-personnel mines are “devious” weapons that continue to kill innocent civilians and children long after a conflict has ended, Pope Francis said.

“I thank all those who offer their help to assist victims and clean up contaminated areas,” he said at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall Feb. 28.

“Their work is a concrete response to the universal call to be peacemakers, taking care of our brothers and sisters,” he said.

A graphic, entitled “The Persistent Scourge of Landmines,” shows the global number of mine/explosive remnants of war casualties per year. Copyrighted work created by Statista available under Creative Commons attribution only license CC by 4.0 (CNS photo/Statista, CC by 4.0)

The pope, who was still dealing with a cold, read aloud his remarks about landmines after having aides read his lengthier catechesis and greetings during the audience.

March 1 marks the 25th anniversary of the entry into force of the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and mandates assisting victims, clearing minefields and destroying stockpiles.

Anti-personnel mines, the pope said, “continue to target innocent civilians, particularly children, even many years after the end of hostilities.”

“I express my closeness to the many victims of these devious devices, which remind us of the dramatic cruelty of war and the price civilian populations are forced to pay,” he said.

At least 4,710 casualties of mines and explosive remnants of war were recorded in 2022, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said in its 2023 report. Civilians made up 85% of all recorded casualties in places where the military or civilian status was known, and children accounted for half of all civilian casualties, where ages were recorded.

Anti-personnel landmines were used by Ukraine, Myanmar and Russia during 2022 and the first half of 2023, the report by the global coalition of non-governmental organizations said.

“Russia has used anti-personnel mines extensively in Ukraine since invading the country in February 2022, resulting in an unprecedented situation in which a country that is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty is using the weapon on the territory of a state party,” it wrote.

Non-state armed groups used anti-personnel mines in at least five countries in 2022: Colombia, India, Myanmar, Thailand and Tunisia and countries in or bordering the Sahel region of Africa, it added.

At least 60 countries and other areas are contaminated by anti-personnel mines.

Eighty percent of the world’s nations have joined the mine ban treaty, and while 33 states remain outside of the treaty, most of them do not use or produce antipersonnel mines, it said.

A small number of countries are actively producing anti-personnel landmines and they are likely to include India, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan and Russia, The biggest stockpiles are held by Russia, Pakistan, India, China and the United States.

A graphic, entitled “Where are the Landmines?”, shows global landmine contamination statuses as of 2022. Copyrighted work created by Statista available under Creative Commons attribution only license CC by 4.0 (CNS photo/Statista, CC by 4.0)