The Catholic Weekly 2 August 2020

15 2, August, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au WORLD In brief Catholic leader dies, 81 Milingo successor FORMER TANZANIAN President Benjamin Wil- liam Mkapa, a Catholic who led several regional peace mediation efforts, died on 24 July. He was 81. Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli said Mkapa had been un- dergoing treatment at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, where he died. Mkapa was Tanzania’s third president. He was born in Ndanda in 1938. He was educated in Catholic schools, graduating from high school at St Francis College in 1956. After he graduated from Makerere University in Kampala, he earned a master’s degree in international studies at Columbia University in New York. EMMANUEL MILIN- GO, the former Catholic archbishop excommu- nicated in 2006, has ap- pointed an African to suc- ceed him as head of the International Married Priest Prelature of St Pe- ter and Paul. Milingo, for- mer archbishop of Luka- sa, Zambia, scandalised the Catholic Church in 2001 after he marriedMa- ria Sung, an acupunctur- ist linked to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unifica- tion Church. The Vatican excommunicated Milin- go in 2006 after he conse- crated four men as bish- ops. He has picked Peter Joseph Kaloki Ndam- buki, 78, a former Ken- yan Catholic priest, as the group’s new leader. CHINA HAS announced that Bishop Paul Ma Cunguo of Shuozhou, a Vatican-recog- nised bishop, has joined the official state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. It is the third such conces- sion made by Chinese author- ities inside a month as it pre- pares for a new round of talks with the Vatican in Rome by the end of July. The talks are aimed at refreshing the provisional two-year September 2018 agreement on bishop’s ap- pointments, reported ucan- ews.com . The talks will be the first between the two sides since November 2019, most likely due to travel restrictions and health concerns linked to the COVID-19 coronavirus. Bishop Ma was installed at a public ceremony in Shanxi province on 9 July, reported ucanews.com . He became the sixth bishop from the unoffi- cial church to join the Patriot- ic Association since the 2018 agreement. A participant seeking ano- nymity told ucanews.com that the ceremony was attended by about 20 priests and 100 faith- ful from Shuozhou Diocese, representatives the Patriot- ic Association and govern- ment-approved Bishops’ Con- ference of the Catholic Church inChina; leaders fromcity and district departments; provin- cial groups and plainclothes police. The reduced number of participants was attributed ¾ ¾ Michael Sainsbury China policy divides Church opinion differs sharply on Sino-Vatican agreement A woman prays at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Beijing. PHOTO:CNS/DAMIRSAGOLJ,REUTERS to restrictions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only those who tested negative for the virus the day before the liturgy could attend, the par- ticipant said. But Beijing is still lagging behind in giving concessions compared with those made ahead of the deal by the Vati- can. Pope Francis lifted the excommunications of eight bishops consecrated without Rome’s authority. There are reportedly 21 bishops who have not regis- tered with the government – sometimes referred to as un- derground bishops – who still are not recognised by Chinese authorities, leaving them at the mercy of often harsh local security forces. But some bish- ops will not want to join the official church, a choice that Pope Francis has made clear is theirs to make. The deal has divided the church inside and outside China. Cardinals Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, 88, retired bishop of Hong Kong, and Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, Myan- mar, president of the Feder- ation of Asian Bishops’ Con- ferences, have criticised the current situation. “Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, is the one who has in his hands the Chi- nese dossier. He clearly be- lieves that such a position is necessary to open a new way for evangelisation of the im- mense Chinese nation. I have strong doubts,” Cardinal Zen wrote in The Washington Post in December. He questioned why the agreement was secret and added, “Obviously, because it was a bad agreement.” In February, Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, said the Vatican had “got it badly wrong about China” with regard to the deal, calling the timing “bizarre.’’ “How can you have a rap- prochement on religious is- sues with China when there are a million or more Uighur Muslims locked up in Xin- jiang,” Lord Patten told British Catholic magazine The Tablet. “I find myself sympathising hugely with Cardinal Zen.’’ But the view of the Vatican and many other Catholics fa- miliar with China is that dia- logue is the only choice. “Two years ago, some be- lieved that no results would come out of the deal,” said Francesco Sisci, veteran Bei- jing-based Italian journalist and scholar, adding that the whole Catholic Church in Chi- na is in unity with Rome for the first time in decades. “For the first time China, under no duress, is in a dia- logue with the Holy See, some- thing that didn’t happen even with the Jesuits” when they were at the Emperor’s Court in the 17th century. - CNS Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vat- ican’s secretary of state, is the one who has in his hands the Chi- nese dossier. He clearly believes that such a position is necessary to open a newway for evangelisation of the immense Chinese nation.” Cardinal Zen Women, feminism, focus for course CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES in Latin America concluded a two-week online course that studied the role of women and feminism through the lens of the social doctrineof theCatho- lic Church. The11-25Julycourse,“Wom- en in Public Life: Feminismand Catholic Identity in the 21st Century,” was sponsored by the Latin American Academy of Catholic Leaders, a network of Latin American educational institutions in seven countries based inSantiago, Chile. The academy’s website said its mission “is to form leaders from a Catholic perspective, rooted in the faithof thechurch, to transform the social, political andeconomicworld in the light of the church’s social doctrine.” The inaugural session of the ¾ ¾ Junno Arocho Esteves Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, at The Catholic University of America in 2019. PHOTO:CNS/TYLER ORSBURN online course featured a doc- toral thesis on Mary as “icon of women in the church” pre- sented by Father Alexandre Awi Mello, secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life. Among the guest profes- sors invited to teach during the course were Flaminia Gio- vanelli, former undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Marta Rodriguez, former head of the women’s section of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life; Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami; and Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City. The objective of the course was to analyse “the philosoph- ical and historical roots of fem- inism and the view of the social thought of thechurch”aswell as study the “contributionofwom- en in the church and in public life,” the coursewebsite stated. “The approach to the theme is made from an evangelical point of view that discerns the positive and negative aspects of the different feminisms, the recognition of legitimate de- nunciations of unjust situations that violate human dignity, as well as the danger of ideological exploitation that has sometimes occurred,” thewebsite said. 13 sisters die THIRTEEN MEMBERS of a women’s’ religious con- gregation died in the US from coronavirus, with 12 of them dying in one month. The first 12 deaths oc- curred between 10 April and 10 May. Eighteen other sisters at the convent in Livonia had the illness as well, with one passing away from the illness’s conse- quences to bring the total to 13. The Felicians in Livo- niamay have experienced the worst loss of life for a community of women re- ligious since the 1918 in- fluenza pandemic. Before coronavirus the commu- nity had 65 members. The approach to the theme is made from an evangelical point of view that discerns the ... different feminisms” Course website