IN BRIEF


Call to support Kenya inquiry The Catholic Church in Kenya is calling for cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the court issued six summonses to suspected master minds of the 2007-08 post-election violence. Cardinal John Njue, the chair- man of the Kenya Episcopal Conference, said on 21 December 2010 that the weak and powerless, who were the main victims of the violence, must get justice through a fair, just and transparent process. Cardinal Njue spoke as politicians criti- cised the 15 December summons by the ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno- Ocampo, accusing the ICC of targeting certain individuals and tribes.


Rallies back blasphemy law Hardline Islamic groups demonstrated across Pakistan on 24 December against the release of Asia Bibi, the first woman condemned to death under the country’s blasphemy law. They warned that any amendment to the law would have serious consequences. Thousands turned out in Islamabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Quetta and Karachi, following a recom- mendation by Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs that Ms Bibi be pardoned or released if her pending court appeal is not quickly addressed. On Christmas Day, Christians rallied in support of Ms Bibi in Lahore and asked for support for an online petition calling for Pakistan’s blas- phemy law to be repealed.


Appeal for calm in Ivory Coast Ivory Coast’s papal nuncio has urged that the current political crisis be addressed through dialogue. “We are opposed to solutions that would take the country back towards the way of weapons,” Archbishop Ambrose Madtha said last weekend. He underlined the Holy See’s impartiality towards the two candidates claiming the presidency. Incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo is supported by the Christian South of the country. The international community recognises Alassane Ouattara – whose support base is the Muslim North – as having won November’s presidential election, but Mr Gbagbo refuses to go.


Christmas ploy to pacify rebels The Colombian army has attempted to use Christmas trees to inspire left-wing guerrillas to demobilise. Troops arrived in helicopters to dress a 75-foot-high tree in a rebel-controlled jungle area with 2,000 lights, activated by motion detec- tors. Guerrillas seeing the tree on one of their supply routes in central Colombia were met with a sign reading, “Demobilise. At Christmas, everything is possible”.


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Letter from Rome P


apal aides are pleased as punch about Pope Benedict XVI’s trailblazing initiatives of late, especially his recent


appearance on the BBC’s “Thought for the Day” on Radio 4’s Today programme. One senior official close to the papal throne told me that there were other “big moves” that would be announced in the coming weeks. Other than that, he was keeping mum. However, in Monte Carlo they are placing


bets on whether or not Pope Benedict will be the first Roman pontiff in memory to preside at a royal wedding. It’s the July 2012 ceremony that will see Monaco’s Prince Albert II wed South Africa swimming champion Charlene Wittstock. The rumours that the Pope will preside at the nuptials appear to be far-fetched. They began spreading a few weeks ago after the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Monaco, Mgr René Giuliano, confirmed reports that Benedict XVI would visit the Mediterranean principality in the first half of next year. “It’s more or less sure, unless there’s something major, like the Pope falling ill,” the VG said. But he strenuously denied rumours of the papal-presided royal wedding. Monaco is the only foreign destination on Pope Benedict’s calendar for 2012, so far. But there is still speculation over whether he will go to Ireland this year for the fiftieth International Eucharistic Congress. However, he will travel to at least four foreign countries in 2011: Croatia (4-5 June), Madrid (8-21 August), Germany (22-25 September) and Benin (18-20 November). Remember, this is the same Pope who said when elected in 2005 that he did not expect to travel much. At the end of 2011, at the age of 84, he will have made 22 foreign journeys, 15 within Europe.


ne of the “big moves” to which my mole was referring was Pope Benedict’s appointment of a Chinese priest as archbishop-secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples (see page 32). Fr Savio Hon Tai-Fai SDB was appointed to Propaganda Fide’s no. 2 post just two days before Christmas. He will probably be ordained to the episcopate by the man most responsible for giving him his new job, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The Pope’s Secretary of State and Archbishop-elect Hon have the same three initials at the end of their names. Those letters, SDB, officially stand for “Salesians of Don Bosco”, but many folks in the Vatican claim they really mean sono di Bertone (roughly, “they are Bertone’s men”). The new Hong Kong-born secretary is a member of the International Theological Commission and is considered one of the Vatican’s highest-approved Asian theologians, despite the fact of his obscurity


O


among the theological community and his meagre bibliography. But he has held leadership positions in his religious order, being a former provincial superior of the Salesians in Chinese-speaking countries. He’s not the only Salesian to be promoted in the past few weeks. Pope Benedict on 15 December put one of Archbishop-elect Hon’s confrères in line to become a cardinal when he appointed Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello SDB, 69, to Santiago de Chile. Born in Italy, he moved to Chile at age 17 to enter the Salesian novitiate. He worked as an official at the Congregation for Religious at the Vatican immediately before being made bishop of a Chilean diocese. After about five years he was, rather unusually, made an auxiliary in Santiago. He eventually was made head of another archdiocese where he served less then four years before getting his recent promotion. There are currently five Salesian cardinals.


A


s mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the main thrust of the Benedict XVI pontificate is about to move more decisively towards promoting the new evangelisation, especially in Europe. But part of that strategy is clearly an unabashed push against what many Vatican officials are calling “Christianophobia” or bias against Christians. There is a feeling among a nucleus within the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and other key departments of the Roman Curia – including the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation – that Christians have become the most persecuted of all the world’s religions. Pope Benedict stated this unequivocally in several of the messages he issued over the Christmas season, and especially in his message for the World Day of Peace (see page 31). And the conviction that there is growing prejudice against Christianity is a leitmotif that is running consistently through everything the Pope writes. There are at least two recent papal texts


that have received only inadequate attention. Those who want a better understanding of the newly concentrated direction in which the Pope wishes to move the Church, especially on the Old Continent, should study them. And, laudably, the Vatican made them available immediately in several languages. The first one is Benedict’s annual Christmas message to officials of the Roman Curia, the overarching concern of which is that the West is losing its moral bearings. The other text is the Peace Day message. And in a week from Monday the Pope will give a third major paper – his annual “state of the world” address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See. That, too, should be pondered carefully. Robert Mickens


1 January 2011 | THE TABLET | 35


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