IGIHE

Category: Religion

  • Who will be Next Pope?

    {{Latin America is home to the world’s largest Roman Catholic population, but hopes that the next pope will come from the region appear faint, experts said Monday.}}

    The predominance of Europeans on the College of Cardinals means that the odds are stacked against a Latin American pope, even though the names of a number of high-ranking churchmen from the region have been bandied about, analysts said.

    The 118-member college, with 62 European members and only 19 from Latin America, will elect a successor for Pope Benedict XVI, who announced Monday he will resign due to age.

    Still, hope springs eternal.

    “Since Latin America is a fortress for Christianity during these rough times, it would be healthy for us to get a Latin American pope,” said Fernando Reyes, 57, a professional violinist, who prays daily at the La Merced church in Santiago, Chile.

    Crossing himself before leaving the church, Reyes noted, “I would be proud. We’ve had Italian, Polish, German. It’s time for a Latin American.”

    Brazilian Cardinals Joao Braz de Aviz, a 65-year-old who has earned praise as head of the Vatican’s office for religious congregations, and Odilo Pedro Scherer, the 63-year-old archbishop of Sao Paulo, have been mentioned as possibilities.

    Other Latin Americans posited as possible popes include Argentina’s Leonardo Sandri and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Sandri is head of the Vatican’s office for Eastern rite churches.

    He earned fame as the “voice” of Pope John Paul II when the pontiff lost the ability to speak because of his Parkinson’s disease.

    Also mentioned in 2005, when Benedict was chosen, was Honduran Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga.

    But it is unclear whether any one of them could gain traction.

    Agencies

  • Pope Benedict Has Resigned

    {{Pope Benedict at 85 years has suprised the world by announcing on Monday that he will resign on February 28.

    The diehard traditionalist said he doesnt have strength to fulfill the duties of his office, becoming the first pontiff since the Middle Ages to take such a step.

    “We should have a new pope for Easter,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters, saying a conclave could be held within 15 or 20 days of the resignation.}}

    FULL RESIGNATION STATEMENT

    “Dear Brothers,

    I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church.

    After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

    I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

    However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.

    For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

    “Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.

    And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff.

    With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”

  • South Sudan Bishop Wins UN Peace Award

    {{When Bishop Emeritus Paride Taban started his Holy Trinity Peace Village in Kuron, South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria state in 1999, little did he know it would bare fruits several years later.}}

    The project, which initially started as a demonstration farm at the height of the north-south Sudan civil war, later expanded in 2004, becoming a village where people from different tribes, nations and religions live and work together to promote peace and development in surrounding villages.

    It thus not surprising that the United Nations, this week, named the South Sudanese bishop winner of the 2013 Sergio Vieira de Mello Prize in recognition for his efforts in promoting peace in communities within the young nation.

    Vieira de Mello, a former UN’s former human rights chief, died in a bombing in Iraq 10 years ago.

    The award recognises an individual, community or institution seen as having made an exceptional contribution to reconciliation of communities or groups in conflict, and whose example can be duplicated elsewhere.

    “The fact that this village [Kuron] is now seen as an example of reconciliation and peace will encourage other communities to follow a similar approach in other areas of conflict in South Sudan and beyond,” Laurent Vieira de Mello, president of the prize foundation said in a statement.

    The jury for the award, given annually, includes the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and human rights chiefs.

    Meanwhile, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon is due to present Bishop Taban with his the award at a ceremony scheduled for 1 March in Geneva, Switzerland.

    He will receive 5,000 Swiss francs (about $5,500) in prize money.

    A native of Opari, in Eastern Equatoria, Bishop Taban was born in 1936. He was reportedly ordained a priest in 1964, and in January 1980, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Juba.

    Three year later, Taban became the first Bishop of the then newly erected Diocese of Torit, the provincial capital of Eastern Equatoria state.

    He retired from archdiocesan administration in February 2004, and became Bishop Emeritus.

    (ST).

  • John Mahama will die this year unless… Rev Owusu Bempah

    {{In Ghana, the founder and leader of Glorious Word Ministry International, Rev.Isaac Owusu Bempah has predicted that Ghana’s current President, John Dramani Mahama, will die this year unless the President and his advisers take steps to reverse it.}}

    According to Rev Bempah, the earth-shattering prophesy was revealed to him on the night of December 31, 2012 and he announced it at the Church’s end of year service.

    Rev Owusu Bempah confirmed the prophesy about the President, as well as other revelations in an interview on Adom TV’s Pampaso Thursday night, and on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem morning show on Friday February 8, 2013.

    He bemoaned his inability to meet the President and inform him about the dark cloud hanging over his head and the necessary steps to be taken to avert the looming disaster.

    “I have not been able to meet the President and inform him. A similar thing happened when I prophesied about the late President Mills, but they turned me away.”

    He was at pains to stress, however, that the impending calamity could be averted if the entire nation but especially the President sought God’s help through prayer. Members of the Glorious Word Ministry International had already embarked on a fasting and prayer session.

    The well-known man of God, who had earlier prophesied the death in 2012 of the late President John Atta Mills and former Vice President Aliu Mahama as well as a plane crash on December 31, 2011, also revealed the previous day on Adom TV’s Pampaso programme that the NPP was set to win its petition at the Supreme Court challenging the 2012 election results.

    Not too long after Nana Akufo-Addo is sworn in as President, however, a senior member of the NPP who had held a national leadership position would pass away, the Prophet revealed.

    It was not a done deal however, Rev Owusu Bempah added, and called on the 9 Supreme court judges presiding over the NPP’s petition to be bold and be true to the facts and evidence provided by the petitioners and respondents.

    “I am pleading with the judges to be bold and speak the truth in their ruling; they hold the destiny of Ghana in their hands. They should remember they will also be judged by the Almighty when they die and if they give a false ruling they will account for it before their maker.

    “If we are not careful, there will be trouble in Ghana after the judgment, unless we pray.”

    Myjoyonline

  • S. Sudan Church Calls for Separation of Religion & State

    {{The church in South Sudan has called on the government to review the current policy and constitutional provision which stipulates the separation of the state from religion and introduce a better new approach.}}

    In the resolutions passed on Sunday in Juba during a meeting called by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan, Rev. Peter Gai Lual, with all the constitutional post-holders in Juba who are Presbyterians, the church criticized the policy which it said should not hold after the independence from the former Sudan.

    The participants in the meeting included the Vice-President, ministers, deputy ministers, members of parliament and pastors.

    The ruling SPLM called for a secular state during the war and that was provided for in the 2005 peace deal with Khartoum and consequently enshrined in the interim constitution of the country before and after the split in July 2011.

    The church however argued that the idea of “separating the state from religion” was based on the fear that Khartoum wanted to make Islam the religion of the state as well as make Shariah law the basis for legislation in the whole country.

    Now that South Sudan is an independent state from Khartoum, the church feels that the policy should be reviewed and the constitutional provision amended.

    The resolutions acknowledge that “there is no state religion” but to “separate the state from religion” is not the best policy.

    The Vice-President, Riek Machar, who is also member of the Presbyterian Church and attended the church meeting also shared the new idea and consented to the need for dialogue in order to review the policy.

    Machar said the government through its relevant institutions including the constitutional review commission would dialogue with the church in general including representatives from other church denominations in South Sudan to look into the policy and come up with a better policy expression.

    He further explained that the main concern of the SPLM-led government was to make sure that no religion shall be imposed on the people as the state religion, adding that this can however be addressed without necessarily separating the state from religion.

    Hence, the expression that “there is no state religion” would address the concern, he said.

    The general church in South Sudan is concerned that the government doesn’t support its programs or even assist in rebuilding the church’s infrastructures such as hospitals and schools which were destroyed during the war simply because the policy separates it from religion.

    The country’s Vice-President acknowledged the difficulty the policy presents when the government tries to assist activities of the religious groups.

    Three months ago the government however facilitated the movement of hundreds of South Sudanese Muslim pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to visit the Islamic holy land.

    (ST)

  • Chrisitians in Libya Forced out of the Country

    {{Christians are being driven out of eastern Libya by Muslim fundamentalists, the Catholic Church’s main clergyman in the country told the Vatican missionary news agency Fides.}}

    The situation was “critical” and the “atmosphere very tense” in the Cyrenaica region, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli said in the interview Thursday.

    He said two religious communities are leaving “after being pressured by fundamentalists”, adding that the Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi was cautioned to take shelter ahead of a large-scale demonstration on February 20.

    “In past days, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Spoleto who had been there for nearly 100 years were forced to abandon Derna, east of the main eastern city of Benghazi,” he said.

    “In Barce (located between Benghazi and Derna) the Franciscan Sisters of the Child Jesus will leave their home in coming days.”

    On Friday, Martinelli told Vatican Radio that for some time now fundamentalism has governed decisions in Libya.

    Christians have voiced fear of a rise in sectarian sentiment in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation following the 2011 revolt that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi and in which hardline Islamists played a major part.

    Before the uprising, three per cent of Libya’s population of around 6.3 million were Christian. Now only a couple thousand of them remain, with the majority of them expatriates.

    In December, two Egyptians died in a blast at a Christian Coptic church in the Libyan town of Dafniya, and two others were wounded.

    NMG

  • Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese Releases Priest Abuse Files

    {{The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, after years of legal battles, released files on Thursday of priests accused of molesting children and removed a top clergyman who had been linked to efforts to conceal the abuse.}}

    Archbishop Jose Gomez said he had stripped his predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties.

    Mahony’s former top aide, Thomas Curry, stepped down as bishop of Santa Barbara.

    “I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil,” Gomez said in a statement released by the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese.

    “There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed,” he said.

    A spokesman for a victims’ support group said that the removal of Mahony and Curry was long overdue and a small step after the church spent years fighting to protect them.

    “Hand-slapping Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture,” said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

    “When he had real power, and abused it horribly, he should have been demoted or disciplined by the church hierarchy, in Rome and in the U.S. But not a single Catholic cleric anywhere had the courage to even denounce him. Shame on them,” he said.

    The 12,000 pages of files were made public more than a week after church records relating to 14 priests were unsealed as part of a separate civil suit, showing that church officials plotted to conceal the molestation from law enforcement as late as 1987.

    Those documents showed that Mahony, 76, and Curry, 70, his top adviser, both worked to send priests accused of abuse out of state to shield known molesters in the clergy from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s.

    {Reuters}

  • Pastor Bugembe to Perform in Kigali

    {{Pastor Wilson Bugembe of Uganda also popular for his gospel songs is expected to perform in Rwanda this Friday at the Healing Centre Crusade in Remera.}}

    This will be his first time to perform in Rwanda where his music has a sizeable market share.

    Other artists expected to brace the even include;Theophile Dudu Ndizihiwe from Burundi and local gospel artistes, Patient Bizimana, Nelson Mucyo and The Blessing Family.

    Gato Damien is the event organiser.

  • Voodoo Religious Festival in Benin

    {{The deified residents of the Temple of Pythons, when released to find food, sometimes slither across the road into a Catholic church that once hosted Pope Benedict XVI. }}

    The local priest, the snake handlers say, is always good enough to call or bring the gorging reptiles back to their own spiritual home.

    This is life in Ouidah, a mecca of spirits and gods worshipped by practitioners of Voodoo, a recognized religion in this former French colony in West Africa that is home to 9 million people.

    The religion has its own pope — or two, depending on who you ask — whose reign dates back to the 1400s and can be seen about town in his SUV.

    This past Thursday, local banks and the post office closed as the town celebrated its annual Voodoo Festival, an event increasingly drawing curious foreigners.

    With its mix of beliefs and traditions, the Voodoo practiced here shows both a clash of cultures and the ability for ancient traditional beliefs to adapt to modern life.

    “It is like we are sending all the evil in the country, on the continent, away,” said Djabassi Manonwomin, a Voodoo priestess who leads others in the worship of a mermaid deity. “The people today are corrupt, we can see that. It is from the old days, but now more open.

    “More people are hungry (for corruption). They put their bellies in front of themselves.”

    Voodoo, also called “vodoun” here, can be seen throughout the streets of Ouidah. One local school proudly identifies itself by the religion.

    Down the dusty street on a recent day one could see the decapitated head of a monkey, wrapped around a stick, a curse someone had placed near a shrine of a three-head man wrapped by pythons.

    While the curse was grotesque, Voodoo generally does not follow the images from movies and novels from the West, of zombies and possessions.

    It borrows heavily from the mythology of Yoruba people of Nigeria’s southwest. Gods and spirits of neighboring Togo and nearby Ghana also can be openly worshipped — and others much farther afield.

    At Manonwomin’s own shrine, the walls bear images of the Hindu god Ganesh, as well as the image of an Indian woman praying. Outside, a small offering of bananas and biscuits, doused in perfume, could be seen by her gate outlined in chalk.

    The chanting prayers include cries of “Power! Power!” Similar chants can be heard in evangelical Christian churches across Nigeria, including pastors’ repeatedly shouting that enemies should be consumed by “fire!”

    Though Benin appears to be where slaves brought to America and the Caribbean learned about Voodoo, the nation itself has a mixed history with the religion.

    Mathieu Kerekou, a one-time Marxist dictator turned elected president, banned Voodoo practices during the Cold War.

    However, he himself was said to have been so angry about losing a popular election for the nation’s highest office that he put a Voodoo curse on it himself.

    Now, the religion has its own national day Jan. 10. It coexists peacefully with Islam and Catholicism, the other major religions in the country.

    As men prepared to slaughter goats as an offering at a shrine, foreigners raised their own cameras up to catch the moment when worshippers slit the goat’s throat.

    Others giggled or looked uncomfortable as they let guides at the python temple place the snakes around their shoulders or atop their head as a reptilian scarf.

    “You conjure up all kinds of images that Hollywood has sent us, but I did read up about it and learn that’s not what it is,” said Greg Fry, a tourist from Kamloops, Canada. “It made me interested to see how this functions, what part it plays in their society.”

    Material interests have entered the equation now as well. Peddlers selling African masks and other items surrounded those attending the festival.

    Daagbo Hanoun, the Voodoo pope, and his entourage also demanded payments from foreign journalists, despite their protests that the Vatican doesn’t charge to cover Mass.

    Some believe the fight over money launched a years-long insurrection by another man who claims he’s the Voodoo pope by birth.

    That man celebrated his own Voodoo festival at a sports stadium in the city.

    AP

  • Ghana Pastor in Romance With Someones Wife Arrested

    {{News from Ghana shows that the founder and Head Pastor of Zoe Power Ministries, Pastor Philip Azumah, who allegedly attempted to poison the husband of a woman he is flirting with has been arrested by the Adenta Police.}}

    Pastor Azumah, 54, is alleged to have been in an amorous relationship with the married woman for the past six years.

    In an attempt to get rid of the woman’s husband, so that he will have unimpeded access to her, Pastor Azumah is said to have given his lover a bottle containing a substance to lace her husband’s food.

    According to the Adenta District Police Commander, DSP Stephen Ahiatafu, the complainant, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, accompanied by her husband, went to the police station on January 2, 2013 to report the incident.

    The woman was said to have reported the case to the police and presented the bottle containing the substance believed to be poison to them.

    She claimed that Pastor Azumah had given it to her to mix it with the food that her husband would eat to end his life.

    He said the complainant told the police that she had been a member of the church for the past seven years and that some time in 2006 Pastor Azumah had proposed love to her but she had declined, with the explanation that she was a married woman with children.

    But her explanation could not deter the pastor from continuing to put pressure on her.

    Some time in 2006, the pastor invited her to accompany him to a prayer camp at Darkuman, a request she obliged.

    According to the police, the woman said on the way to the prayer camp, she and the pastor decided to stop for some short rest at a guest house.

    DSP Ahiatafu said the woman claimed that after taking a drink, she became drowsy, and when she came back to her senses, she found herself naked lying in bed with the pastor.

    She claimed the pastor warned her not to divulge what had happened between them that day to anybody, otherwise she would die.

    Based on the threat, the police said, the woman failed to divulge what had happened but continued to sleep with the pastor for six years from 2006 to 2012.

    The district commander indicated that some time in September 2012, the pastor, after the usual sexual encounter with the woman, told her that he loved her so much that he wanted to do away with her husband, so that he and the woman could get married.

    The pastor, consequently, gave her a black substance in a bottle and asked her to mix it with food for her husband.

    DSP Ahiatafu said the woman claimed she never had the chance to carry out the act, as her husband suddenly started behaving abnormally.

    For fear that the pastor had used some charm on him, just before the New Year she decided to confess her relationship with the pastor to her husband and even showed the bottle the pastor had given to her to him.

    The husband then accompanied the woman to the police station where they lodged a complaint, leading to the pastor’s arrest.

    Upon interrogation, Pastor Azumah admitted sleeping with the married woman several times and pleaded for forgiveness.

    He is expected to be put before court soon after investigations.

    {Myjoyonline}