IGIHE

Category: Religion

  • Pope Francis makes surprise visit to former prostitutes

    {Pope Francis has surprised 20 former prostitutes by popping in for a visit at their safe house in Rome.}

    The women had been rescued from their pimps and are being given shelter and protection at an apartment run by a Catholic charity in Italy’s capital.

    The pontiff chatted to the women, some trafficked from Africa and elsewhere in Europe, for more than an hour.

    The 79-year-old cleric has repeatedly described human trafficking as a “crime against humanity”.

    The Pope sat down with the women, including seven Nigerians, six Romanians and four Albanians, and listened to their stories of forced prostitution, the Vatican said.

    The other three in the group came from Italy, Tunisia and the Ukraine.

    They were all aged about 30 and had “suffered serious physical abuse” and now lived under protection, the Vatican said.

    Promising women jobs, traffickers bring them to Italy and other western European countries but then force them into prostitution.

    Pope Francis encouraged the former sex workers “to be strong” as they started their new lives with the help of the Pope John XXIII Community.

    The unannounced visit to the prostitutes came under what the Vatican terms the Pope’s “Fridays of Mercy”, focusing on communities that have experienced suffering.

    The women all aged about 30 told the Pope about their lives of forced prostitution

  • Bishop Birindabagabo denies politicking

    {Anglican prelate Bishop Alexis Birindabagabo of Gahini diocese has said that supporting and participating in government programs is not tantamount to politicking.
    }
    Bishop Birindabagaho is involved in the program of fighting drug abuse dubbed ‘the neighbor’s eye’ and another ‘Peace Plan’, an organization working with Christian churches in Rwanda to support peace.

    Such involvement in government programs prompted people to perceive him as a politician which he has refuted.

    “I didn’t know that people perceive me as a politician. I support good deeds and fight evil. It is easy to resist evil when you do not laud good deeds. You can’t always raise the voice of criticism even when there are good achievements. That is my character. Whoever thinks otherwise is out of my concern,” he said on Friday last week in press briefing.

    Bishop Birindabagabo explained that as a Rwandan he has rights to publicly declare if he wanted to become a politician.

    “I am passionate about my activities that I don’t want to do anything else. I praise God when I preach leading to people’s salvation and good health,” he said.

    “I have equal rights like all Rwandans to publicly declare that I have joined politics. However it should be taken as rumors as long as I have not publicly declared so,” he added.

    .

    Bishop Birindabagabo

  • Kabgayi diocese released invitations for celebrating convicted genocide priests, bishop confirms

    {The Bishop of Kabgayi diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege has confirmed his diocese released the list of priests whose silver jubilee was to be celebrated including convicts of genocide crimes. }

    The response follows the recent heated debate on social media circulating the invitation for the celebration of silver jubilee on 16th July 2016 of priests two of whom are genocide convicts. The act saw Ibuka declaring the act to be trivializing genocide as Bishop Mbonyintege denied to have released the invitation.

    The bishop has told IGIHE that the occasion of celebrating of silver jubilee for six priests was to be used as well to apologize on behalf of the two of priests convicted of genocide crimes.

    “We accept that these priests are genocide convicts and jailed. As a family that brought them up, we will apologize for their offenses that frustrated Christians,“ he said.

    {{Kabgayi diocese agrees to have released the invitation }}

    The invitation for jubilee celebration for genocide convicts was circulated at the end of June, 2016. The invitation raised outrage among members of the public and IBUKA, umbrella organization of genocide survivors.

    At the time, Bishop Mbonyintege denied to have released the circulated invitation but today he has confirmed it was published by his diocese.

    “I didn’t know anything about the invitation. You asked me but I didn’t really know what you were talking about. The invitation was released by our priest and I received explanations later. The wrong thing was that the invitation was not clearly explained since it created confusion,” he said.

    {{Was the priest who released the invitation mistaken?}}

    Talking on the release of the invitation Bishop Mbonyintege said; “We can’t call it a mistake but the reality is explaining wrongly .We discussed and I told him that he created ambiguity. He had no bad intention for what he did,” he said adding that the church can’t forget two priests during the celebration as all belong to the Catholic Church.

    “These priests committed offenses but they are ours.They are children of Catholic Church. Celebrating them demonstrating their crimes is not valorization but reminding them what they did. When a priest is convicted of such crime he is deprived of duties. A person ordained priest holds the title of priest forever,” he said.

    {{Protests }}

    IBUKA rejected the circulated invitation requesting to remove genocide priests from the list.

    “IBUKA and genocide survivors would not be sunk into chagrin if they understood what is supposed to be done. When a person misconceives what he/she hears you don’t blame him rather provide explanations,” said the bishop.

    Rukundo Emmanuel, a former Kabgayi priest, was convicted of genocide crimes by Arusha International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced for 23 years.

    Raping Tutsi women, conspiracy with Interahamwe to kill Tutsi and getting his fellow priest Mbuguje Alphonse killed are some of the crimes.

    Another Kabgayi priest ,Joseph Ndagijimana who was the chief priest of Byimana parish in 1994 was in 2008 convicted of genocide crimes by Byimana Gacaca court.

    http://en.igihe.com/spip.php?page=mv2_article&id_article=26410

    http://en.igihe.com/news/ibuka-plans-court-action-over-celebrating.html

    The Bishop of Kabgayi diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege

  • I didn’t author convicted priests invitation cards—Bishop Mbonyintege

    {The Bishop of Kabgayi Diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege has denied to have released an announcement that recognizes good deeds of two disgraced priests convicted of genocide whose silver jubilee of priesthood will be celebrated next month on 16th July 2016.}

    Talking to IGIHE, Bishop Mbonyintege has said that he doesn’t know who contemplated, drafted and authored the list of priests to celebrate silver jubilee including genicidaires.

    “I didn’t make the list…It was done by people who want to cast other people’s image in negativity. The Jubilee of a jailed priest in never celebrated,” he said.

    He explained that the released list creates confusion, most likely to have been publicized by people with bad intentions to smear and sabotage.

    “The invitation list indicated all those ordained priests in 1991.There might be a person behind the conspiracy who wants the event to comply with the released list. It is not true that we released it,” he said.

    He explained that even those who are not jailed but are not serving from Kabgayi will not have their Jubilee celebrated at the event.

    “The jubilee will be organized for the serving priests we are currently working with. . The jubilee of priests convicted of genocide crimes will not be celebrated. Even those who didn’t commit genocide but living abroad in unknown locations will not have their jubilee celebrated,” he said.

    In an interview with IGIHE, the executive secretary of the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG) , Dr Bizimana Jean Damascene said that he saw the announcement of the Jubilee circulating on WhatsApp even though he had not yet got much details about it.

    He said that if the announcement is real, it is not fair for the church to celebrate the deeds of people ‘who deviated from the social pact’.

    “A genocide convict should not get his jubilee celebrated. Jubilee is a celebration for appreciating someone for having perfectly accomplished his/her duties.We don’t understand how a genocide convict can be lauded. A person convicted of a crime heavier than others? We will discuss with Catholic Church about the issue as we usually hold talks on other concerns,” he said.

    Related article: http://en.igihe.com/news/fury-as-catholic-church-celebrates-priesthood-of.html

    The Bishop of Kabgayi Diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege

  • Pope Francis calls on Armenia and Turkey to reconcile

    {Leader of the Catholic Church calls for Armenia and Turkey to lay aside their differences and strive to be peacemakers.}

    Pope Francis called on neighbours Armenia and Turkey to lay aside their differences and also expressed his hopes for peace in the Caucasus region during an ecumenical prayer service in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

    “May God bless your future and grant that the people of Armenia and Turkey take up again the path of reconciliation, and may peace also spring forth in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the pope said on Saturday.

    Addressing the younger generation, Francis said: “Cherish the great wisdom of your elders and strive to be peacemakers: not content with the status quo, but actively engaged in building the culture of encounter and reconciliation.”

    The people gathered for the services applauded the words of the 79-year-old pontiff.

    Earlier Saturday, Francis paid his respects to Armenian massacre victims during a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan.

    At the start of his three-day trip to Armenia on Friday, Francis condemned the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Turkish Ottoman troops as “genocide,” a term strongly denied by Turkey, which says the number is inflated.

    Ankara agrees that many Armenians died in ethnic fighting and the deportation process between 1915 and 1917 during World War I, putting its estimate at 300,000 casualties. Armenia says 1.5 million died in the process in what it calls a “genocide”.

    The remark was the second time the Pope has referred to the killings as genocide, following a similar statement in 2015 which angered Turkey.

    Turkey reacted furiously last year when Francis, during a mass St Peter’s basilica, said that the massacres were “widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century”.

    Ankara withdrew its ambassador from the Vatican in protest and relations remain deep frozen at a time when the Catholic Church is preoccupied by the plight of Christians in the Middle East, an issue in which Turkey is a key player.

    In silent prayer, the pope laid a wreath and a yellow rose at the memorial before planting a tree nearby, ahead of a meeting with a dozen people whose relatives escaped the killings and were given shelter by Pope Benedict XV during World War I.

    As well as with Ankara, Armenia has difficult relations with Azerbaijan, another neighbour.

    The two nations have rival claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azeri territory where violence broke out in April, killing at least 120 people.

    Armenia has a special place in Christianity because it was the first nation to adopt it as a state religion, in 301 AD.

    John Paul II was the last pope to visit it in 2001, to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the country’s conversion.

    On Sunday the pope will join a pilgrimage to the Khor Virap monastery, which overlooks the biblical Mount Ararat across a closed border with Turkey.

    Earlier Saturday, Francis paid his respects to Armenian massacre victims during a visit to the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan.

  • Uganda:Martyrs Day: Police issue traffic guidelines

    {With barely a day to Martyrs Day celebrations, police have issued strict traffic guidelines.}

    Mr Norman Musinga, the director of traffic in Kampala Metropolitan Area, said public and private vehicles, as well motorists, will not go beyond Kireka Town with effect from the night of June 2.

    “It is only vehicles carrying Very Very Important Persons (VVIPs) and Very Important Persons (VIPs) that will access the Catholic and Anglican shrines on Martyrs Day,” Mr Musinga said while addressing the media at Central Police Station (CPS) yesterday.

    According to Mr Musinga, VVIPs and VIPs going to Catholic shrines will be given red and blue stickers and would access the venue through Kyaliwajala and will park at Namugongo Primary School playground.

    Pilgrims with yellow stickers will park at Little Sisters of St Francis and will access the venue via Kyaliwala-Kira or Ssemambo Road.

    VVIPs and VIPs going to Nakiyanja Anglican Shrine will pass via Seeta –Bweyogerere and will park at the Protestant playground, whereas those using buses will be dropped at Kyaliwajala and their buses parked at Namboole stadium parking lot.

    Catholic pilgrims using Northern Bypass will park at St Peters Nalya Seconday School, whereas those using the eastern route will park at Namboole stadium parking lot.

    Other Protestant pilgrims will park at the church farm that will be accessed through Seeta-Sonde.

    Mr Musinga said the route from Kyaliwajala to Catholic and Anglican shrines will strictly be used by only pedestrians.

    “There will be no U-turns at Kyaliwajala junction. We ask pilgrims using buses to have coordinators who will mobilise them in one place after the events,” Mr Musinga said.

    He said the organisers of the two events had issued 300 VVIPs tickets, 50VIPs and 100 other invited guests. He added that the police will tow all vehicles that will be found parked by the roadsides.

    Mr Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson, on Monday said the police were expecting more than two million pilgrims. He asked parents and relatives of elderly persons to keep a close eye on them for their safety.

    Asked why the police have made it a norm to divert traffic flow whenever there is a visiting foreign dignitary, Mr Musing said: “Most of our drivers are very indisciplined. They can easily cross over a VIP convoy.”

    Eighty-year-old Rose Kiconco (with grey hair) with other pilgrims from Kasese Diocese walk past the Northern By-pass roundabout in Busega as they headed to Namugongo for Martyrs Day celebrations yesterday.

  • 95,890 baptized as evangelistic meetings end in Rwanda

    {A Belgian citizen visiting relatives in a corner of Rwanda. A 19-year-old woman who will lose her job. A police officer assigned to protect Seventh-day Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson.}

    These are among the record-breaking 95,890 people who accepted Christ in baptism during a two-week evangelistic series that wrapped up this weekend, church leaders said Sunday.

    Additional baptisms connected to the meetings at 2,227 sites across the African country are expected to take place over the next few weeks, bringing the total to more than 100,000 and making the May 13-28 event the largest of its kind in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

    “You are an example for the entire world. We praise God for that,” Wilson told a crowd of 6,000 people at a final Sabbath worship service in the resort city of Gisenyi. Among those in attendance were 1,971 people baptized in nearby Lake Kivu in the morning.
    Local church leaders credited the Holy Spirit and Total Member Involvement for the unprecedented number of baptisms.

    “When each member is involved, there will be a big harvest,” said Sophonie Setako, president of the Adventist Church’s North-West Rwanda Field, which includes Gisenyi and had 10,778 baptisms. “By visiting people and assisting people in need, we have gained many members.”

    Total Member Involvement is the name of a world church initiative that encourages each of the church’s 19.1 million members worldwide to find ways to share Jesus with friends and communities. The previous record was 30,000 baptisms after a two-week evangelistic series in Zimbabwe in May 2015.

    In Rwanda, church’s 720,000 members took Total Member Involvement to heart. Many studied the Bible with neighbors and went door-to-door, inviting people to the evangelistic meetings. Members also donated money for food, cows, and health insurance policies aimed at improving the lives of impoverished people in their communities. Medical clinics at three locations provided free services to nearly 6,000 people over the course of a week

  • Pope Francis to issue guide to love, sex and marriage

    {Influential German cardinal Walter Kasper has predicted that the exhortation will mark a “turning of the page” for the Church.}

    Pope Francis will on Friday issue new guidelines on the Church’s approach to love, sex and marriage in what is being billed as one of the defining moments of his tenure.

    Is he gay-friendly and relaxed about divorce and cohabitation? Or is the pontiff a conservative who understands the need to sidestep issues that put the Church at odds with how many believers live in the 21st Century?

    The verdict on the 79-year-old Argentine’s legacy will in large part be framed by the contents of the document on the family that will be published on the stroke of noon.

    Officially referred to as an “apostolic exhortation”, the 200-page text is effectively a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics that lays down revised foundations for Church teaching and pastoral practice on a host of issues related to family life.

    The hopes of Catholic radicals for significant changes to official doctrine were quashed during the 2014 and 2015 synods of bishops, the conclusions of which will inform without dictating the content of Francis’s missive.

    But the document will also inevitably reflect the current pontiff’s instinctive tendency to try to make the Church seem a more merciful, less judgmental body in relation to those faithful who find themselves in “irregular” situations.

    Influential German cardinal Walter Kasper has predicted that the exhortation will mark a “turning of the page” for the Church.

    AMORIS LAETITIA

    “Who am I to judge?” Francis said early in his papacy when asked about how the Church should deal with gay believers who, some Catholic theologians now think, have no choice about their sexuality.

    That comment and the radical language contained in an early draft of conclusions from the first synod on the family raised progressive hopes of a great leap forward in Catholic teaching on vexed questions such as whether divorced and civilly remarried believers should be allowed to take communion.

    But the strength of conservative opposition — led by bishops from the developing world — to a substantial relaxation of the Church’s model of what the ideal family looks like has made it unlikely that will happen.

    Francis, say those who know him best, is nothing if not a pragmatist and the last thing he wants on his watch is a schism over what he once called “below the belt issues” which he regards as having assumed far too much importance in the life of the Church.

    The exhortation, entitled “Amoris Laetitia”, is to be presented at the Vatican by Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna who is seen as a moderniser and is himself the son of divorced parents.

    It will also be unveiled in dioceses around the world with local bishops having already been sent guidelines on how to explain the changes to their congregations.

    Pope Francis greets worshippers as he delivers his Easter message at St Peter's Square in Vatican on March 27, 2016.

  • Pope plans visit to refugees on Greek’s Lesbos island

    {Greek church has accepted proposal for an informal symbolic meeting.}

    Pope Francis has asked to visit Greece to show support for refugees there, and Greek church authorities have approved plans for a papal trip to Lesbos, officials said on Tuesday.

    The Greek Orthodox church added that it had invited Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, “so that he can honour Lesbos with his presence the day of Pope Francis’s visit”.

    The Vatican did not confirm that the pope would be visiting the Greek island but spokesman Federico Lombardi did not deny that contact had been made on the possibility.

    A Greek church statement, published on the specialist website Dogma.gr, gave no dates for the visits, but the site itself gave it as April 15.

    Head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos II, has been informed “of the wish of Pope Francis to visit Greece,” to “draw the attention of the international community to the need for an immediate ceasefire in the conflicts” in the Middle East and to “shed light on the major humanitarian problem” of the influx of migrants to Lesbos and other Greek islands, the statement said.

    The Greek church has accepted the Pope’s proposal for an informal “symbolic and humanitarian” visit to an Aegean Sea island for a few hours, it added.

    The Greek Orthodox Church chose to invite the pontiff to Lesbos which, since 2015, has been the main port of arrival into Europe, from Turkey, for those fleeing war or poverty in their own countries many of whom are Syrian.

    SEND WAKE-UP CALL

    “The personality and prestige of the ecumenical patriarch (Bartholomew)” who is based in Istanbul “and the weight of the presence of the Pope will send a resounding wake-up call to the international community,” the Greek church said in its statement.

    The news of the Pope’s interest came the day after Greece began expelling migrants back to Turkey under a deal agreed between the EU and Ankara aimed at quelling the bloc’s worst migration crisis since World War II. Pope Francis has on several occasions spoken up for the migrants flooding into Europe.

    On March 27 he spoke out against the “rejection” of refugees as Europe struggles to cope with the influx which brought over a million migrants to its shore last year.

    Countries along Europe’s “Balkan route” have toughened their stance on migrants in recent weeks, closing their borders to those seeking to transit in search of a better life in the continent’s wealthier northern states.

    “The Easter message of the risen Christ… invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of migrants and refugees… fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice,” the pope said then.

    Pope Francis in 2013 visited the Italian island of Lampedusa, where large numbers of migrants fleeing fighting in Libya were arriving.

    After the EU beefed up controls along this sea route, the Aegean islands became the favoured destinations for people smugglers.

    Pope Francis greets the crowd after a mass at St Peter's square as part of the Jubilee of the Divine Mercy, on March 3, 2016 in Vatican. He has asked to visit Greece to show support for refugees there.

  • Tanzania:Church lauds efforts to restore integrity in public service

    {The Roman Catholic Church here has commended President John Magufuli and his entire team for their efforts to restore integrity in the public service.}

    Speaking in an exclusive interview he offered to the ‘Daily News’, the Archbishop of Mwanza Catholic Archdiocese, Juda Thadeus Ruwaichi, said the nation was witnessing a new style of leadership from the Fifth Phase Government. He said he supports all the actions being taken by the government to restore honesty and integrity in public — especially the fight against graft.

    “While we celebrate the talents of men in leading the families and the church, we have to also recognise the good leadership of our national leaders in restoring ethics, integrity and the rule law.

    That spirit should be adopted by other pillars of the state,” he said. The church leader said it was encouraging to see that tough measures are being taken against corrupt elements and dishonest leaders in the society. He was of the view that without good morals neither the church nor the political leadership would prosper to make Tanzania livable.

    Meanwhile, the Archbishop challenged men to be real leaders in safeguarding peace and prosperity in their families. He was speaking at Kawekamo spiritual centre yesterday as he led male Catholics to celebrate their day.

    He said men should always ensure that their families remain stable to enable them fight for their well-being in the society. He cautioned them over regarding themselves as superior, saying it was only cooperation in families and the nation at large that will make their contributions recognised.

    “Men will always remain heads in families but that does not guarantee them of turning into masters with no limitations,” he said. The day was marked by members from all 33 Parishes in the Diocese and was specifically for reminding all the men to maintain their symbol of stability and security.

    Archbishop Ruwaichi said Mwanza was set to hold huge Holy Eucharist congregation in June this year that will be attended by all bishops, priests and representatives of the faithful nationwide.

    The Archbishop of Mwanza Catholic Archdiocese, Juda Thadeus Ruwaichi.