The Catholic Weekly 10 May 2020

14 10, May, 2020 W orld catholicweekly.com.au Christians vital to Iraq, says lawyer ANAMERICAN lawyer instru- mental in aiding Iraqi Chris- tians suffering from attacks by the Islamic State group said Christians remain a vital part of Iraq’s diverse society, de- spite their diminishing num- bers. Stephen Rasche is a rec- ognised international expert on persecuted Christians and has served as counsel to the Chaldean Catholic Archdio- cese of Irbil, in northern Iraq, since 2010. He has been key in assist- ing Chaldean Catholic Arch- bishop Bashar Warda of Irbil establish anchor institutions such as a hospital and univer- sity to help Christians remain in their ancestral homeland following the Islamic State takeover of their towns from 2014 to 2017 and the subse- quent liberation. “As ArchbishopWarda says, Christians have survived, and now it’s their time to show a reason for them to be needed and not just needy. They sur- vived ISIS,” Rasche told an on- line audience April 28 while speaking to the Washington, D.C.-based Religious Free- dom Institute on his recent book, “The Disappearing Peo- ple: The Tragic Fate of Chris- tians in the Middle East.” Rasche said it was difficult for Westerners to understand the deep trauma Christians in Iraq have experienced. “If there is going to be any hope for these people to stay, we have to give them lives that at least approach dignity,” he said of the fight to shelter peo- ple, while trying to stabilize and rebuild their communities. The lawyer recounted how he worked with Catho- lic priests and nuns as well as U.S. and international or- ganisations to help the tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities who were brutally displaced from their homes by the Islamic State militants. - CNS Workers inspect an ossuary at theTeutonic Cemetery at theVatican in 2019. PHOTO: CNS/VATICAN MEDIA BECAUSE ALL of the human bones found in a Vatican cem- etery last summer were at least 100 years old, the Vatican City State court officially closed its investigation into the possi- bility that some belonged to a teenage woman missing for more than 30 years. However, a statement from the Vatican press office on 30 April said that the judge’s deci- ¾ ¾ Cindy Wooden Case closed, says Vatican Father Benedict warns on the rise of ideologies which turns humans into slaves IN A newly published biog- raphy, Retired Pope Benedict XVI said the Catholic Church is threatened by a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly hu- manist ideologies.” He cited same-sex marriage, abortion and the “creation of humans in the laboratory” as examples. The retired pope, 93, said: “Modern society is in the process of formulating an an- ti-Christian creed, and resist- ing this creed is punished by social excommunication.” Commenting on the state of the church in the 21st cen- tury, he said, “Events have shown by now that the crisis of faith has above all led to a crisis of Christian existence.” The German Catholic news agency, KNA, reported the re- marks were published in the final chapter of a biography of the retired pope by best- selling author Peter Seewald. The book was published in German on 4 May; the author said Pope Benedict made the comments in autumn 2018, more than five years after he resigned. In the interview, which had not been published before, the former pope said he had written a spiritual testament. This will presumably not be revealed until after his death, KNA reported. The pope did not comment on its contents. He also explained the reasons for his resignation as pope in 2013. He denied that it was be- cause of corruption in theVati- can or the “Vatileaks” scandal. Instead, he said it had become increasingly clear to him that, in addition to possible demen- tia, “other forms of insufficient ability to hold office properly are also possible.” In this context, Pope Ben- edict revealed that he, like Sts Paul VI and John Paul II, had signed a conditional decla- ration of resignation “in the event of illness that rendered the proper performance of duties impossible.” He did this “relatively early” in his pontif- icate, he told Seewald. He commented at length on criticism of his resigna- tion. The office of a “pope emeritus” that he had created should be compared to that of a bishop who had retired for age reasons, he said. This legal status could also be applied to the bishop of Rome. It prevented “any no- tion of a coexistence of two popes: a diocese can have only ONE incumbent. At the same time, it expresses a spiritual bond that can never be taken away.” The former pope also lik- ened his situation to that of an old farmer in Bavaria who has passed his farm to his son, lives in a small house next to it and has ceded his fatherly and commanding rights. Pope Benedict vehemently rejected accusations that he had interfered in church de- bates since then. This, he said, was a “malicious distortion of the truth.” KNA reported that he hinted there were “rea- sons why people just want to switch off my voice.” Referring to his relation- ship with his successor, he said he thanked God that the “warm-hearted devotion of Pope Francis” enabled him to implement the idea of a pope emeritus. Since their meeting in Castel Gandolfo in 2013, he said, there has been a personal friendship that has “not only remained but grown.” - CNS ¾ ¾ Dale Gavlak sion still would allow the family of the young woman, Emanue- la Orlandi, “to proceed pri- vately with possible additional tests on some of the fragments already found and preserved in sealed containers” at the Vati- can police office. Orlandi, a Vatican City resi- dent and the daughter of a Vat- ican employee, disappeared in Rome on 22 June 1983, when she was 15. In March 2019, the family’s lawyer said the family had been sent a letter with a photo of an angel above a tomb in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cem- etery, which is reservedmainly for German-speaking priests and religious. The letter said, “Look where the angel is pointing,” according to Laura Sgro, the lawyer. The Vatican City State court ordered the opening of two tombs near the angel sculpture. No human remains were found in either tomb during a search on 11 July, so the in- vestigators moved to two os- suaries – vaults containing the bones of multiple people. Giovanni Arcudi, a forensic anthropologist, led the inves- tigation of the bones found in the ossuaries, but said he “did not find any bone structure dating back to the period after the end of the 1800s,” the Vat- ican said. The forensic team concluded its study of the bones on 28 July. - CNS He commented at length on criticism of his resignation. The office of a ‘pope emeritus’ that he had created should be compared to that of a bishop who had retired for age reasons, he said.” Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI reads his resignation in Latin at the Vatican in 2013. PHOTO: CNS/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO A new dictatorship