The Catholic Weekly 21 June 2020

15 21, June, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au WORLD In brief Diocese believes victims Chinese Bishop installed A US lawyer’s decision not to pursue crimi- nal charges against re- tired Bishop Joseph Hart of Cheyenne over sexu- al abuse claims does not mean “the victims are not credible,” said Bishop Steven Biegler, who has headed the statewide di- ocese since 2017. “Once again, I com- mend the victims who have spoken courageous- ly about their abuse,” he said in an 11 June state- ment. “I also stand be- hind the determination made by the Diocese of Cheyenne that alle- gations of sexual abuse against former Bishop Hart are credible.” - CNS AN 83-YEAR-OLD Chi- nese bishop was in- stalled in a state-sanc- tioned church ceremony on 9 June, the third bish- op to be recognised by the communist regime since the Vatican and China signed an agreement in 2018 on the appointment of bishops. Bishop Peter Lin Ji- ashan was officially in- stalled as head of the Fu- zhou Diocese in Fujian province, reported ucan- ews.com . Since 1997, Bishop Lin had refused to register with the govern- ment, and thus had not been recognised by Chi- nese authorities. TOP US State Department of- ficials singled out China as one of the world’s worst of- fenders of religious freedom because it had subjected reli- gious minorities to imprison- ment and forced labour. Sam Brownback, ambassa- dor-at-large for religious free- dom, told reporters during a news conference on 10 June that the Department had no evidence that MuslimUighurs had been released from pris- on or detention. The comments from Brownback and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the release of the annual Re- port on International Religious Freedom covering 2019 con- tinued the US government’s months long campaign of strong criticismof the Chinese government’s actions on a number of fronts. The report follows the sign- ing of an executive order on 2 June by President Donald Trump prioritising US support for religious freedom in diplo- macy worldwide. China has been designated a “country of particular con- cern” in annual reports dating to 1999. “China continues its dec- ades-long war on faith,” Pom- peo told reporters. “The Chinese Communist Party is now ordering reli- gious organisations to obey CCP leadership and infuse communist dogma into their teachings and practice of their faith,” he added. “The mass detentions of Uighurs in Xinjiang contin- ues. So does the repression of Tibetans and Buddhists and Falun Gong and Christians.” The section on China was the largest in the report. It cit- ed widespread discrimination Report slams China Nation named as one of the world’s most extensive persecutors of religious faith An anti-government protester reacts during a demonstration in Hong Kong on China’s National Day on 1 October 2019. PHOTO: CNS, JORGE SILVER, REUTERS of Uighur Muslims as a cause for particular concern. The Chinese government recognises five official reli- gions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Ca- tholicism. Members of each of these religious groups must register before they can partic- ipate in religious services. Many faith practitioners have reported they are subject to surveillance and persecu- tion, however. The report said the Chinese government continued to jus- tify restrictions on religious practices of Muslims in Xin- jiang because of what it called the “three evils” of “ethnic sep- aratism, religious extremism and violent terrorism.” More than 1 million Ui- ghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Hui and members of other Mus- lim groups as well as Uighur Christians have been held in internment camps in Xinjiang, the report said. Those being held have been subjected to “forced disap- pearance, political indoctrina- tion, torture, physical and psy- chological abuse, including forced sterilisation and sexual abuse, forced labour, and pro- longed detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity,” it said. The report also identified other countries for infringe- ments on religious freedom. In Nigeria, “terrorist groups,” including Boko Har- am and Islamic State-West Af- rica “attacked population cen- tres and religious targets and maintained a growing ability to stage forces in rural areas and launch attacks against civilian and military targets across the North East, accord- ing to observers.” The report repeated ear- lier findings that in Vietnam “members of religious groups said some local and provin- cial authorities used the local and national regulatory sys- tems to slow, delegitimise, and suppress religious activities of groups that resisted close gov- ernment management of their leadership, training programs, assemblies, and other activi- ties.” The report said religious groups without official gov- ernment recognition “report- ed various forms of govern- ment harassment” including assaults, arrests, prosecutions, surveillance, travel restrictions and property seizure or de- struction as well as denials of requests for registration or no response to such requests. In India, a close US ally, increased reports of violence against religious and ethnic minorities and critics of the government and the govern- ment’s inability to prevent such incidents were cited in the report. “Some officials of Hin- du-majority parties, includ- ing from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made inflamma- tory public remarks or social media posts against minority communities,” the report said. Brownback noted as well that ally Saudi Arabia is the only country to prohibit all churches. Since 2004, Saudi Arabia has been designated a “coun- try of particular concern” un- der the US International Reli- gious Freedom Act of 1998 “for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” “Most recently, on 18 De- cember, the secretary of state redesignated Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular Concern and announced a waiver of the sanctions that accompany designation,” the report add- ed. - CNS Vatican tells diocese to shelve plan relegating priests to obscurity THE GERMANDiocese of Tri- er must change its plan for re- form after Vatican officials ob- jected to some of its aspects, including plans for the future role of priests, reported the German Catholic news agen- cy KNA. The reformenvisaged some priests being an equal mem- ber of a leadership team with laypeople; the vast majority of the diocese’s clergy would have lost any leadreship role in the plan. KNA reported that on 5 June Trier Bishop Stephan Ackermann outlined his po- sition to the Vatican Congre- gation for the Clergy and the Pontifical Council for Legisla- tive Texts. He pointed out the weak- ening ties of Catholics to the church, declining financial possibilities and the lack of priests. He said the situa- tion required changes to give church life a “reliable frame- work.” Vatican officials regarded that plan as questionable in terms of canon law. Rome also had misgivings about the planned size and structure of parishes. Some large parishes would have had up to 100,000 members under the plan and, Ebola returns in Congo AS CONGO battles the COVID-19 pandemic, a new Ebola outbreak has resurfaced in the north- west, just as authorities were prepared to declare the end of Ebola in three eastern provinces. The cases were con- firmed in Mbandaka, a port city on River Con- go on 31 May. By 8 June there were 12 cases, nine of which had been con- firmed and three consid- ered probable. Eight people have since died, including a 15-year-old girl. Congo is currently facing a COV- ID-19 epidemic and a measles epidemic affect- ing all 26 provinces. in some rural areas, the dis- tance to the nearest parish church would have been 50 miles or more. Bishop Ackermann now plans to work with diocesan leaders to change the parish reform and to take the Vati- can’s objections into account as well as the initial goals of his reforms, KNA reported. The planned reform aims to change structures and set new priorities for pastoral care and the church. The diocese regards the reform as a model for the restructuring of parishes as other dioceses in Europe face similar challenges. Diocesan officials said the next steps will be closely coor- dinated with the Vatican. The Trier Diocese currently has 887 mostly very small par- ishes. A 2016 diocesan synod recommended the creation of “further pastoral spaces.” The plan was to merge the 887 parishes into 35 large ones led by a team of one priest and two laypeople. Other priests were to have no leadership functions. The Vatican suspended the implementation of the reform in November. The [Trier ] diocese regards the reform as a model for the restructuring of parishes as other dioceses in Europe face similar changes.” Trier diocesan official Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier. PHOTO: CNS/MICHAEL MERTEN, KNA The mass detentions of Uighurs in Xin- jiang continues. So does the repression of Tibetans and Buddhists and Falun Gong and Christians.” Mike Pompeo