Amy Coney Barrett Catholic Coney Barrett sworn in as US Supreme Court justice
US President Donald Trump has sworn in his latest nominee to the Supreme Court. The White House ceremony took place on Monday night after Amy Coney Barrett’s [pictured] nomination was approved by congress.
She will be the 115th justice in US history and the fifth woman to serve on the high court.
At 48, she would be the youngest.
A committed Catholic, Justice Coney Barrett won praise for her appearance before the judiciary committee after some lawmakers tried to make an issue of her religious faith.
JRS reports successful fundraising campaign for refugee education
Hundreds of thousands of refugees and forcibly displaced people received support, education and training last year through Jesuit Refugee Service’s (JRS) on-the-ground initiatives and programs, its international director has said.
With the generous help of many donors, JRS also was able to reach fundraising goals one year early and help an additional 100,000 people through the JRS Global Education Initiative, Jesuit Fr Thomas Smolich said in the organisation’s 2019 annual report, distributed in mid-October.
“Through your assistance, we developed innovative solutions to the realities of forced displacement, from training refugees for online employment to girls’ clubs that keep young women in school,” he said in the report.
Indian opposition parties, UN official protest elderly Jesuit’s arrest
Major opposition parties in India and a United Nations (UN)official backed an octogenarian Jesuit priest who was jailed for alleged charges of sedition and links with Maoist rebels and demanded his immediate release.
The leaders of the opposition Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam criticised the arrest of 83-year-old activist Fr Stan Swamy.
The party leaders also expressed solidarity with the “genuine” work the priest had done among tribal people and other marginalised groups.
The ailing priest was arrested at his residence in Ranchi, capital of eastern Jharkhand state, the night of October 8. Authorities said he was connected to a conspiracy that led to violence at Bhima Koregaon in the western state of Maharashtra on January 1, 2018, in which one person was killed and several others injured. The priest denied the allegation and said he never has visited Bhima Koregaon.
Brazilian archdiocese joins plastic recycling program to reduce waste
The Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro has launched a partnership with a Canadian company to reduce plastic disposal into the oceans. Church officials said the venture with Plastic Bank offers a more sustainable way to rid the oceans of dangerous plastic waste and falls in line with Pope Francis’ plea to protect the earth in his encyclical, Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.
“This year in which we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si’, we are happy to announce this partnership, which is yet another concrete gesture from our archdiocese that engages in the care of the common home,” said Cardinal Orani Joao Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro.
Cardinal Dolan calls for ‘the shield of faith’ to protect Armenian Christians
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York called for “the shield of faith” to protect Armenian Christians caught in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Speaking at an evening prayer service on October 21 at St Vartan Armenian Cathedral, Cardinal Dolan referenced a recent New York Times article in which Manushak Titanyan, an architect, spoke of her fears for her three sons at the front lines. She said of war: “All the most horrible things that man ever created rear their heads in their most horrible manifestation.
“Your Faith and your lamentation are marked on our hearts. Sometimes we believers are dismissed as naive and idealistic and unrealistic dreamers. Nonsense,” Cardinal Dolan said.
“The shield of Faith. The artillery of the spirit. That’s our strategy. Jesus whispers to us this evening, ‘Take courage. I conquered the world’,” the cardinal added during the service, which was livestreamed.
St Jude Thaddeus draws devotion from Mexico’s downtrodden
Arturo Rodríguez has asked St Jude Thaddeus “for a big favour”. A chauffeur in Mexico City, Mr Rodríguez said a relative was robbed and slashed with a knife almost a decade ago, but made a miraculous recovery after the chauffeur prayed to St Jude Thaddeus, whom he learned about through friends.
Mr Rodríguez, 31, confessed he does not attend his local parish all that often.
“But I’m here every 28th,” he said from the St Hippolytus Church in central Mexico City, where St Jude is celebrated on the 28th of every month, not just on his official feast day of October 28.
St Jude is known as the patron saint of difficult and desperate causes. It’s a devotion that’s found fertile ground in Mexico, where millions confront seemingly difficult and desperate problems in their daily lives.
Latin American bishops express solidarity with Chile after church burnings
Following recent attacks on three churches in Chile, the bishops of Paraguay, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina expressed their closeness to and support of the Church in Chile.
The Church of the Assumption and St Francis Borgia church in Santiago were destroyed by arson on October 18. Vandals smashed windows, tagged, and tried to burn down Saint Francis of Assisi Church in La Serena on October 19.
The attacks came as demonstrators across the country marked the one-year anniversary of large anti-government protests that took place across Chile last year.
CRS fires Sudan country rep. after allegations of verbal abuse, racism
Catholic Relief Services fired its country representative in Sudan after allegations of verbal abuse and racism.
The New Humanitarian, an independent, nonprofit news agency, detailed the allegations October 22 in the main story on its website, thenewhumanitarian.org.
The agency said the former country representative, Driss Moumane, had complaints against him dating back to 2018. The country representative leads the CRS team in a country. In a statement released to Catholic News Service, CRS, the US bishops’ international relief and development agency, said it “conducted a thorough investigation of the claims levelled against the leadership in Sudan, and as a result, terminated employment with the former Sudan country representative on October 18, 2020.
“CRS is in the process of transitioning to new leadership.”