Fr Adolf Kajpr Sainthood cause of priest imprisoned by Nazis and communists advances
The sainthood cause of a Catholic priest who was imprisoned by both the Nazis and the communists has advanced with the conclusion of the initial diocesan phase of the cause January 4.
Fr Adolf Kajpr was a Jesuit priest and journalist who was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp after publishing Catholic magazines critical of the Nazis. Five years after his liberation from Dachau in 1945, Kajpr was arrested by the communist authorities in Prague and sentenced to 12 years in a gulag for writing “seditious” articles.
The diocesan phase of Kajpr’s cause was completed on January 4. As a journalist and a priest, Kajpr was committed to the idea that “the Gospel should be proclaimed on the pages of newspapers,” VojtěchNovotný, vice postulator of Kajpr’s cause, said. “He consciously asked, ‘How can we bring the whole, unadulterated message of Christ to the people of today?’”
Brazilian archbishop faces accusations of abuse of seminarians
Archbishop Alberto TaveiraCorrêa of Belém, an archdiocese with more than 2 million residents in the Amazon region in Brazil, faces criminal and ecclesial investigations after being accused of sexual harassment and abuse by four former seminarians.
The accusations were disclosed by the Brazilian edition of the Spanish newspaper El País at the end of December and became a high-profile scandal on January 3, when TV Globo’s weekly news show Fantástico aired a report on the story.
The names of the former seminarians have not been revealed. All of them studied at the Saint Pius X seminary in Ananindeua, in Belém’s metropolitan area, and were between 15 and 20 years old when the alleged abuse happened.
Croatia’s Catholic bishops give $1 million in relief to earthquake victims
The Croatian bishops’ conference is donating over $1 million in emergency aid to victims of the country’s December earthquake.
The money will go to help the most in need in the Diocese of Sisak and the Archdiocese of Zagreb, after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck eastern Central Croatia on December 29.
According to the conference’s secretary general, Fr. Krunoslav Novak, the bishops will approve further monetary assistance at an upcoming meeting. The bishops are also setting up temporary housing for those whose homes were destroyed, in partnership with Caritas Croatia and the Order of Malta.
“The church will not leave its faithful, even when the spotlight goes out, when new worries come,” Novak told Croatian Catholic radio station HKR.
Sweden’s pandemic reality check a ‘time of conversion,’ cardinal says
Sweden’s about-face in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic can give way to much-needed reflection and conversion in the country, said Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm.
“I think this is a time of conversion for Sweden,” Cardinal Arborelius told Catholic News Service January 8. “If we compare with the other Nordic countries, we must realize that we have not been able to do what we were supposed to do.” At the start of the pandemic, while countries around the world enforced lockdowns and social distancing measures, the Swedish government took a more relaxed approach. However, as of January 8, an estimated 9,262 people have died of the coronavirus, the highest of the Nordic countries, compared with 1,487 people in Denmark, 584 in Finland and 467 in Norway.