Chilean authorities on Friday seized documents and computers in raids targeting the Catholic Church in the cities of Temuco and Villarrica amid a pedophilia scandal that has gripped the country, judicial sources said.

Local media reported that the investigation began on June 19 following allegations of sexual abuse against five clergy members.

The operations took place after the bishops of the cities refused to hand over information requested by prosecutors.

The raids came after prominent Chilean Catholic priest Oscar Munoz, who was vice-chancellor and then chancellor in the archdiocese of Santiago, was detained Thursday over allegations that he sexually abused and raped seven children between 2002 and 2018.

Munoz, 56, faces a 15-year prison sentence for the alleged abuse, which took place from 2002 in the capital city of Santiago and the southern city of Rancagua.

He was placed in preventative detention on Friday.

The Chilean church has been hit by pedophilia scandals implicating dozens of priests.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignations of five bishops, four of whom were accused of turning a blind eye to abuse or covering it up.

(Source: AFP)

Pope Francis on Friday called for a greater ‘solidarity and mercy’ to be shown towards migrants. The pope was speaking at a special mass at the Vatican called to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his trip to the Italian island of Lampedusa, one of the main entry points into Europe for migrants.

Pope Francis called for countries to treat migrants in a humane manner adding that a just policy is one at the service of the person, of every person involved; a policy that provides for solutions that can ensure security, respect for the rights and dignity of all.

‘‘Before the challenges of contemporary movements of migration, the only reasonable response is one of solidarity and mercy. A response less concerned with calculations, than with the need for an equitable distribution of responsibilities, an honest and sincere assessment of the alternatives and a prudent management. A just policy is one at the service of the person, of every person involved; a policy that provides for solutions that can ensure security, respect for the rights and dignity of all; a policy concerned for the good of one’s own country, while taking into account that of others in an ever more interconnected world’‘, the Pope said.

At the end of the mass Pope Francis shook hands with some 200 migrants that attended the service.

Reuters

A former Vatican diplomat has been handed a five-year prison term for the possession of child pornography.

Carlo Alberto Capella received the sentence from a Vatican court on Saturday.

In addition to serving prison time in the small jail inside the Vatican police force headquarters, Capella is required to pay a fine of $5,800.

Capella’s trial lasted two days, and he admitted at the first hearing on Friday that he had developed a “morbid” desire while working at the Vatican Embassy in Washington DC in 2016.

The priest confessed that when he was in the United States as a diplomat, he had collected dozens of pornographic photos and videos on his mobile phone.

The US State Department notified the Vatican in August 2017 of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington and asked that Capella’s diplomatic immunity be lifted so the priest — who is an Italian — could face charges there.

However, the Vatican refused to do so and recalled Capella from the US that year.

Also, Canadian police had issued an arrest warrant for Capella on suspicion of possessing and distributing child pornography on the internet while visiting a church in the country.

This is the latest scandal to hit the Catholic Church, which has a notorious track record of child sexual abuse carried out by priests and subsequent cover-ups by church authorities.

Catholic Church sexual abuse victims include some as young as three years old, with the majority being between the ages of 11 and 14.

Pope Francis, who was appointed in 2013 with a mandate to overhaul the Vatican, has promised strong action in response to sexual abuse cases and cover-ups.

Pope Francis’ official itinerary for his visit here in August has been revealed.

Among visits on his agenda will be with President Higgins at the Aras, the Capuchin Day Centre and Knock.

He will be in Ireland for just over 36 hours.

His full agenda is:

Saturday 25 August 2018

08:15

Departure by plane from Rome/Fiumicino for Dublin

10:30

Arrival at Dublin International Airport

OFFICIAL WELCOME

10:45

Transfer to Áras an Uachtaráin

© Getty Áras an Uachtaráin, the official residence and principal workplace of the President of Ireland in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland

11:15

Arrival at the Presidential Residence

WELCOME CEREMONY in front of the main entrance of the Residence

11:30

COURTESY VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT in the Presidential Residence

12:00

Transfer to Dublin Castle

© Getty Dublin Monument, Ireland

12:10

Arrival at Dublin Castle

MEETING WITH AUTHORITIES, CIVIL SOCIETY AND DIPLOMATIC CORPS in Dublin Castle

Speech of the Holy Father

15:30

Arrival at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral

VISIT to the CATHEDRAL

16:15

Transfer to the Day Centre of the Capuchin Fathers

16:30

PRIVATE VISIT to the DAY CENTRE FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES of the CAPUCHIN FATHERS

19:30

© Getty Dublin , Ireland – 10 June 2018; A general view of Croke Park 

Arrival at Croke Park Stadium

19:45

FEAST OF FAMILIES in Croke Park Stadium

Speech of the Holy Father

Sunday 26 August 2018

08:40

Departure by plane for Knock

09:20

Arrival at the Airport in Knock

Immediate transfer to the Shrine

© Getty Ireland, County Mayo, Knock Shrine, Apparition Chapel, Altar with white marble statues on the wall where the apparition of the Blessed Virgin took place on August 21st 1879. (Photo by: Eye Ubiquitous/UIG via Getty Images)

09:45

Arrival at Knock Shrine

VISIT to the CHAPEL of Knock Shrine

ANGELUS on the square in front of the Shrine

Angelus of the Holy Father

10:45

Transfer to the airport in Knock

11:10

Arrival at the airport in Knock

11:15

Departure by plane for Dublin

11:50

Arrival at Dublin International Airport

Lunch with the Papal Delegation

14:30

Arrival at Phoenix Park

15:00

HOLY MASS in Phoenix Park

© Getty A tree at sunrise in the grounds of Phoenix Park in Dublin.

Homily of the Holy Father

MEETING WITH THE BISHOPS in the Convent of the Dominican Sisters

Speech of the Holy Father

18:30

Arrival at Dublin International Airport

FAREWELL CEREMONY

18:45

Departure by plane for Roma/Ciampino

23:00

Arrival at the Airport of Roma/Ciampino

It will be the first visit of a Pope to Ireland since Pope John Paul II visited here in 1979.

Source:MSN.Com

Three men armed with guns and knives slit the throats of three worshipers at a mosque near Durban in South Africa and a person was killed, an emergency service official said on Thursday.

One victim jumped from a side window of the building, which had been set ablaze sending smoke billowing, said Prem Balram, a spokesman for Reaction Unit SA, a private emergency service, who was among the first on the scene.

“One of the three has just died on his way to hospital. The other two are in critical condition,” said Balram, adding that the suspects fled in a white car. “The suspects were Egyptian males. The local people here identified them.”

South African police said the motive of the attack at a mosque on the Old Main Road in Ottawa in the KwaZulu-Natal province was unknown and they were investigating.

Africa’s most industrialized country has a large expatriate community and attracts many tourists but has seldom been associated with Takfiri militancy.

Balram said police had cordoned off the scene of the attack.

“There is a knife that was recovered at the scene, we believe the knife is suspected to have been used in the crime,” the KwaZulu-Natal police spokeswoman Captain Nqobile Ngwala said at the scene.

Police said in a statement that three unknown men entered a mosque after the midday prayer and attacked three people.

The suspects also set certain rooms in the mosque alight before fleeing in their getaway vehicle, police said.

“The motive of the attack on the three men is unknown at this stage,” police said, adding that no arrests have been made.

(Source: Reuters)

Top Pope aide Cardinal George Pell could face two separate trials as he fights to clear his name over historic sexual offence allegations, an Australian court heard Wednesday.

A Melbourne judge on Tuesday ordered the Vatican finance chief, 76, to stand trial on multiple charges, making him the highest-ranked Catholic to face such allegations.

Pell pleaded not guilty, and half of the charges initially filed against him were thrown out.

The exact details and nature of the alleged offenses remain confidential, other than they involve “multiple charges and multiple complainants,” dating from the 1970s and 1990s.

Some of the alleged offences were at a swimming pool in the town of Ballarat in Victoria state where Pell was a priest in the 1970s, and a second set of alleged actions were at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s.

At Wednesday’s brief directions hearing in the Victoria County Court, Pell’s barrister Robert Richter argued that because the charges related to different locations and were 20 years apart, they should be split and heard in two trials.

Another court hearing was set for May 16 when final decisions and trial dates are expected to be set.

Pell, who entered the court surrounded by a police cordon, is on bail and has had his passport confiscated.

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop has been on leave from the Vatican, returning to Australia to fight the allegations, the most serious of which have been dismissed due to inconsistencies in the evidence.

Pell was one of the Pope Francis’ most trusted aides, handpicked by him in 2014 to make the Church’s finances more transparent.

It cemented a meteoric rise by the Australian, who was Archbishop of Melbourne and then Sydney before being named to the Vatican’s powerful College of Cardinals at the behest of Pope John Paul II in 2003.

In a brief statement Tuesday, the Vatican said it had “taken note of the decision issued by judicial authorities in Australia” and that Pell would remain on the leave of absence granted by the pope to defend himself.

(Source: AFP)

At least nine people, including a priest, have been killed in an attack on a church in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Pastor Moses Aliou said on Tuesday that dozens had also been wounded in the attack, which was carried out during the morning service in the Notre Dame de Fatima church.

Witnesses said assailants attacked the church, shooting and using grenades. The church-goers were trapped inside the compound. Police later opened a hole in a wall of the church building to allow people to escape, witnesses said.

“Filled with panic, some Christians began to flee until bullets and grenades begin to fall in the parish grounds, trapping those who remained in the compound,” said Aliou.

The wounded were taken to Bangui’s Community Hospital but it was not clear how many people died in the hospital and how many in the church attack itself.

Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Bangui Walter Brad Mazangue said the priest killed in the attack died as a result of shooting in the church. The priest was identified as Albert Toungoumale Baba. Thousands of Christians gathered near the church to protest the attack when Baba’s body was being carried to the presidential palace.

The attack came near the site of clashes between United Nations peacekeepers and security forces of the Central African Republic on one side and criminal gangs on the other in the PK 5 neighborhood. A total of 21 people were killed during the fighting which came after UN and local forces tried to disarm the gangs.

The Central African Republic has experienced rounds of inter-faith violence in the past, especially in 2013 when “anti-balaka” Christian militants killed many from the Muslim Seleka after a Seleka uprising led to the ouster of President Francois Bozize.

Source: Presstv

The Roman Catholic church should mediate in the crisis in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, where separatists and security forces are embroiled in a dangerous conflict, a thinktank urged Thursday.

“The Catholic Church could help break this dangerous stalemate,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report.

“Other than the Catholic clergy, there are few prospective peacemakers,” it said. “If no-one fills that role, the separatist sentiment already voiced by many anglophones will continue to grow, fuelling further violence and exacerbating the ongoing insurgency in the anglophone regions, with elections in late 2018 a flashpoint.”

The crisis began in 2016, when activists in Cameroon’s anglophone minority stepped up a campaign for greater autonomy.

Their demands were rejected by President Paul Biya, prompting radicals to make a full-blown declaration of independence last October.

Since then, 31 members of the security forces have been killed by separatists, according to an AFP toll based on official figures. The number of armed separatists or civilians killed by police and troops is unknown.

At the same time, humanitarian needs in the anglophone regions have grown. According to UN estimates, tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting.

The ICG said the church could help by stating “its impartiality” on the big question facing anglophone regions — federalism versus decentralisation.

“A clergy able to project a position of neutrality could work with other trusted actors to mediate between anglophone leaders and the state and stem a dangerous and growing crisis,” it said.

The church is one of Cameroon’s strongest institutions, as it is present in all of the country’s 10 regions and nearly a third of the population is Catholic, the report said.

It cautioned though that the church also had to overcome its own divisions between French- and English-speaking clergy.

Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions are home to most of the country’s anglophones — a minority of about 20 percent in the predominantly French-speaking country of 23.4 million.

Within the minority, a perception of injustice has grown that anglophones suffer discrimination in the economy, education and the judicial system at the hands of the francophone majority.

The anglophone presence is a legacy of the colonial period in Africa.

France and Britain divided up the former German colony under League of Nations mandates after World War I.

A year after the French-ruled territory became independent in 1961, the southern part of British Cameroons was integrated into a federal system.

Federalism was then scrapped 11 years later for a “united republic” — a centralised system that 85-year-old Biya, in power for more than 35 years, has said will not be changed.

The ICG warned last October that “murderous repression” by the authorities would only feed secessionism — a warning that the government lashed as an attempt to destabilise the country.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

On Sunday, Pope Francis ordained 16 men to the priesthood, reminding them to be like Jesus the Good Shepherd in the way they serve the members of their spiritual flock and minister to those who are lost and searching for God.

“Always have before your eyes the example of the Good Shepherd, who did not come to be served, but to serve and to seek and save what was lost,” the pope said in a homily before the ordination of 16 priests during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica April 22.

“Conscious of having been chosen among men and elected in their favor to attend to the things of God, exercise in gladness and sincere charity the priestly work of Christ,” he continued, “solely intent on pleasing God and not yourselves or human beings, [or] other interests.”

The priestly ordination coincided with “Good Shepherd Sunday” and the 55th World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

The new priests, who have been studying for the priesthood at different seminaries in the diocese of Rome, come from countries around the world, including Madagascar, Vietnam, Myanmar, Colombia, and El Salvador.

As in the past, for his homily Francis used the “ritual homily” from the Italian edition of the “Pontificale Romano,” the Catholic liturgical book containing rites performed by bishops, including the ordination of priests, adding a few of his own thoughts to the text.

Reflecting on the Sacrament of Penance in particular, Francis urged the men about to be ordained to “not get tired of being merciful. Think of your sins, your miseries that Jesus forgives. Be merciful.”

It is “through your ministry the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect,” he noted, “because it is joined to the sacrifice of Christ, which for your hands, in the name of the whole Church, is offered bloodlessly on the altar in the celebration of the Holy Mysteries.”

He pointed out to the 16 men that in their priestly ministries they will be participants “in the mission of Christ, the only Master,” and advised them to read and meditate tirelessly on the Word of God “to teach what you have learned in faith, to live what you have taught.”

“[May] your teaching, joy and support to the faithful of Christ be the fragrance of your life,” he continued, “that with word and example you can build the House of God which is the Church.”

Following Mass, Pope Francis led pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square in praying the Regina Coeli, the traditional prayer for Easter.

Francis reflected briefly on the day’s Gospel, where Jesus says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep,” stating that the words of Jesus in this passage cannot be reduced to an emotional suggestion.

Noting that Jesus also says, “I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me,” the pope said shows us that Jesus desires a personal relationship with each person, one which reflects “the same intimate relationship of love between Him and the Father.”

“He is attentive to each of us, knows our heart deeply: He knows our strengths and our faults, the projects we have achieved and the hopes that have been disappointed. But he accepts us as we are, he leads us with love,” he said, and in turn, “we are called to know Jesus.”

Culled from Crux

Pope Francis, in his traditional Easter message, has lamented the killing of well over a dozen “defenseless” Palestinian protesters by Israeli troopers’ live fire near the Israeli-Gaza border, pleading for peace in the Holy Land.

The Pontiff, 81, on Sunday made the comments and appeal in his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and the World) message from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to tens of thousands of people in the flower-bedecked square below where he earlier celebrated a Mass.

In an apparent reference to the massacre in the besieged Gaza Strip on Friday, when Israeli soldiers and snipers shot dead 17 Palestinian demonstrators, the head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics also called for “a reconciliation for the Holy Land”, which “also experiencing in these days the wounds of ongoing conflict that do not spare the defenseless”.

During Friday’s bloody protest, around 30,000 Gazans marched on the fence with the occupied territories at the start of a six-week protest, dubbed “The Great March of Return,” demanding the right to return to their homeland.

The rallies coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Land Day, which commemorates the murder of six Palestinians by Israeli forces in 1976.

The demonstrations turned violent after Israeli forces used tear gas and live fire to force back demonstrators who had approached within a few hundred meters of the heavily-fortified fence, further wounding more than 1,400 other Palestinians.

Multiple Muslim nations around the world voiced their outrage over the Israeli military’s response to the mass demonstration in Gaza.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has declared Saturday a national day of mourning and urged a general strike in honor of the victims. He also said that Israel was “fully responsible” for the tragic killings of peaceful Palestinian protesters. The strike, which affected universities, schools, government organizations, was called for in the occupied West Bank in solidarity with Gaza.

Israeli military forces have shot and killed 16 Palestinians during massive anti-Israeli rallies staged by thousands along Gaza-Israel borders.

While the Muslim nations were outraged by the carnage, the deadliest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2014 Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the troops via his official Twitter account late on Saturday for their actions which he claimed were aimed at guarding Israel.

On Friday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting over the situation in Gaza, but the US blocked a draft statement which urged restraint and called for an “independent and transparent investigation” into Friday’s violence.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also called for “an independent and transparent investigation” into the incident.

Culled from Presstv