Latest Posts Page

The Philippines. Towards a new “Flowers and Rosaries Revolution”.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

On May 9, the Philippines will be the scene of multiple elections
that will have particular importance and, in all likelihood,
also significant consequences.

There are so many issues on the table, so many personalities, and so much at stake for this archipelago of 300 thousand square kilometres, fragmented into over seven thousand islands which has now almost 110 million citizens, 10 per cent of whom are abroad.
The strong ties between the archipelago and the migratory calling are relevant characteristics of the population, as are its composite reality, both island and cosmopolitan, the result of a history of migrations and conquests, of faiths in coexistence or often in contrast such as Islam and Christianity, and a national character in which ancestral, Iberian, and American contributions coexist.

photo.123rf.com

The archipelago was for a long time considered ‘the sick man of Asia’ for its apparent inability to rise from its ‘evils’: poverty, underdevelopment, dependence, corruption, and an elite control that is difficult to break, whether composed of those once associated with Spanish control, those mostly of Chinese origin controlling the economy, or those more westernized.
In May, voters will, first of all, be called upon to elect the president and vice-president by direct vote, but also many thousands of offices at various administrative levels, from local councils to provincial governments. Rodrigo Duterte, at the centre of one of the most controversial post-war presidencies, will lose his position as head of state, a non-repeatable six-year post.
However, his departure from the scene, welcomed by many, takes place at a particular time that will impose urgent and difficult choices on his successor. First of all, that of whether to act with power and decisiveness to revive the fortunes of the country, or once again make his priority the clientelist and personal interests that brought him to the candidacy.

Photo: who

Faced with the siege of Sars-Cov2, and its variants of various origin, the archipelago is facing a pandemic crisis that is bringing the Philippines back to levels of existence equal to, if not lower than, those of twenty years ago, cancelling a decent economic growth that, however, had not nullified profound inequality.
With under 60,000 deaths and 3.8 million officially registered cases, the country was the third most affected in Southeast Asia after Vietnam and Indonesia. These are high numbers but with only relative impact on a population close to 110 million, but the country has been brought to its knees by rigid lockdowns, aggravated by the limited health resources available. “The government has taken the difficult decision to impose severe quarantine by prioritizing the saving of lives and protecting communities from the virus by focusing efforts at improving health facilities”, said Secretary of Economic Planning, Karl Kendrick Chua. Without hiding that “this happened at a high cost to the economy
and to the population”.

Rough streets of small town in Philippines. Photo: 123rf.com

This is an acknowledgement of difficulties that are impossible to hide and which neither speeches nor repression of discontent nor the ‘usual’ and often opportune ‘threats’ of radical independence and terrorist Islamism in the South of the country, and those of the Marxist guerrillas elsewhere, not to mention even conspiracy and censorship, have managed to hide from the citizens.
The crisis has highlighted how a change of pace is needed for the country, to improve and rationalize essential services, to build up widespread welfare, and finally to free it from dependence on resources – migrants, plantation or fish products, foreign investment – too often subject to unpredictable events and strategic contingencies. The latter was most recently highlighted by the conflict in Ukraine.
Be that as it may, the Philippines today is grappling with a situation that has exacerbated poverty, unemployment (the pandemic is estimated to have ‘produced’ five million newly unemployed) and a lack of opportunity. (Open Photo: Philippine flag. 123rf.com)

(S.V.)

Peru. The Asheninka. Mijado, the Time for Sharing.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

By the word mijado this indigenous people, living in the rainforests of Peru, refers to the time of migration of fish and fishing activity, an occasion to strengthen the ties of friendship and brotherhood with loved ones, members of the same communities, or other communities. Basically, mijado is the time for sharing.

Before talking about mijado, and therefore the life and culture of the Asheninka, it is important to ask for permission to Shapishico (the guardian of the forest), the Tunchi (protector spirit of the forest), the Yakumama (the mother of all creatures of the water), the Sachamama (spirit mother of the forest) and the other sacred beings of the Amazon rain forest. At the same time, one must invoke the spirits of the ancestors of these indigenous communities, who are the owners and guardians of these lands.
The native communities of the Amazon region refer to mijado as the time of migration of fish from the South to the North to deposit their eggs. Fish travel in large schools to reach safe places in order to deposit their eggs and guarantee the maintenance of species. So, one can also define mijado as the time of fertility and of abundance of river fish.

However, mijado, among the Asheninka, is not only the moment of fish migration, but it is the occasion for sharing and exchanging experiences with ayomparis (friends). It is the time for strengthening the ties of brotherhood with their neighbouring communities, as well as the time for bartering or exchanging products.
It is an opportunity to celebrate life by savouring different kinds of fish cooked in different ways such as grilled fish, or patarashka (seasoned and cooked fish wrapped in banana leaves), fried fish, fish soup and several other fish dishes. On these occasions food is shared with everybody, nobody can be excluded during the mijado time. In this moment of the year fish is also stored for the winter when river level begins to rise and makes it difficult to fish.

It is clear, therefore, that the Amazonian mijado is not only the time of fish migration and fishing activity, but it is also a time to reaffirm the ancestral spiritual identity of the Asheninka. Mijado takes place in a specific period of the year and in specific places which are blessed by the Yakumama (the mother of all creatures of water). On one occasion when I was in the land of this indigenous group I asked a girl where her father was and she replied in her language: “Riyaatati apa eniki royeeri otiyaarentsi” (My father is at the river to wait for mijado). Mijado cannot take place just at any time or in any place. Mijado fishing rituals in the Amazon region are generally performed in summer, between June and August. The Asheninka have set rules regarding fishing activity. They are supposed to catch fish just for food purposes and small fish, when caught, must be returned to the water in order to safeguard numbers.

According to oral narratives, the traditional cultural and spiritual event related to mijado has been practiced since ancient times among the Asheninka. The river communities and nearby settlers used to go to specific places to catch fish with artisanal tools such as hooks and nets which did not have any negative impact on environment.
The Asheninka ancestors caught only the necessary amount of fish for family and community sustenance. The tradition of mijado is well known at regional and national level, but over the generations this custom has lost that essence that characterised it as something spiritual, becoming a more commercial event. Besides, nowadays equipment for larger catches such as fishing nets of different sizes are used in order to increase fish catch, because the real ancestral meaning of mijado that is ‘sharing’ went lost, and so mijado has become a commercial event indifferent to its impact on the aquatic ecosystem and on the fishing resources of the rivers in the Amazon region. And what is more, the Asheninka are not the ones who benefit from the ‘commercialization’ of mijado, but those big merchants who arrive from the cities and who loot the resources of the indigenous communities of the Amazon. (Open Photo: ©123mn/123RF.COM)

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

UN Member States must not walk away from treaty on business and human rights.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

As the power of corporations has grown, so should their responsibility towards human rights and our planet. Yet the reality is that around the world, harms to people’s rights through business activities continue to take place with impunity.

In 2014 the UN Human Rights Council started a process to establish a treaty to regulate transnational corporations under international human rights law. A report on the latest round of negotiations of such as treaty was considered on 16 March towards the next session of the negotiations in October 2022.

As the Human Rights Council considers the report, an international civil society coalition is standing up against attempts to undermine this crucial process. Looking ahead to the next round of negotiations in October, we call on you to support our efforts to do so in the next months. If we truly want to protect human dignity and our planet, we need a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations.

Several powerful States – primarily those headquartering large corporations – have so far refused to engage constructively with this process. They are now trying to impose their view on other States.
In doing so, they are damaging the progress made on the matter during the last seven years.

Most of these States have pointed to existing alternatives such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as being sufficient. Yet, repeatedly, these voluntary frameworks have proven inadequate to prevent or remedy human rights abuses by companies.

In the past years, the international civil society has worked to bring attention to the situation of victims seeking justice in mining-related cases such as Brumadinho (Brazil), Arica (Chile), Marinduque (the Philippines), and Kabwe (Zambia), where a combination of corporate negligence and weak government oversight have caused long-lasting and devastating harm.

In countries including Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this international civil society have stood up as access to water and other human rights are threatened by large scale industrial projects.

In most cases, companies succeeded in evading full accountability for their wrongdoing by using different legal loopholes. Meanwhile, the damage they caused is likely to go on for generations.

Oftentimes, human rights violations already occur during the early stages of extractive projects, with communities kept in the dark about the full impacts and risks and cut out of the supposed benefits.
This is why “free, prior, and informed consent” is one of the key issues covered in Franciscan’s recent factsheets on human rights and Indigenous People.

It is also why the international civil society is working closely with human rights experts at the UN on this issue, for example by contributing to the development of the “megaproject cycle” by the former Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation, which helps communities navigate these processes.

Yet the simple fact is that all these efforts can only have a limited impact without an overarching UN treaty. Since 2014, the international civil society with Franciscans International have thus supported the negotiations by both providing technical support and by bringing representatives of affected communities to the UN so they can share their testimonies. Nevertheless, after years of efforts we are still
at a crossroads.

The next session of the UN working group in charge of the negotiations in October 2022 will likely be a critical moment for this process. This fight for corporate accountability has been, and will continue to be, a collective effort. (The Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré)

John Paul Pezzi, mccj

Ukraine. Churches Divided by War.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is also having serious consequences on the ecclesial level in the complicated landscape of the Orthodox Churches. The situation is aggravated by the support of the patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, for Putin’s military invasion. An analysis.

For three years, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been divided into two opposing Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (COU), the most numerous in terms of the number of bishops, popes (priests) and parishes, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church (CAOU). Why such division?
At the time of the USSR, Ukraine was an exarchate of the Moscow patriarchate; with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s independence, that structure split into three (recovering some minor groups): a small autocephalous Church, Kyiv patriarchate (led by Metropolitan Filaret, excommunicated by the Russian Church), and the Ukrainian Church, linked to Moscow.

Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople with Ukraine children.

In September 2018 Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and primus inter pares (‘first among equals’) of the patriarchs and primates of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, announced that he wanted to proclaim the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, bringing together all the Orthodox churches of the country. The idea, according to Moscow, was suggested to him by President Donald Trump to weaken Russia!
In Orthodoxy, the autocephalous churches are canonically independent, each without interference from the others, but considered sisters, to which they are linked by the same Christian faith and fidelity to the first seven ecumenical councils (those held from 325 to 787).
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, scornfully rejected the idea of Ukrainian autocephaly, but on December 15 of that year, under the high patronage of President Petro Poroshenko, a ‘Council of Reunification’ was held in Kyiv proposing the creation of the CAOU.

St Volodymyr’s Cathedral is a cathedral in the centre of Kyiv. It serves as the mother cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate. CC BY-SA 4.0/Роман Наумов

The COU, however, absolutely refused to join. In January 2019 Bartholomew, with a tomos (decree) formally accepted the request. The Russian patriarchate considered this decision a schismatic act, taken against its will, and in a country that the Church of Moscow considered its ‘canonical territory’, that is, subject to its jurisdiction. He, therefore, ended Eucharistic communion with him.
As for the Churches united to Rome, in Ukraine, there is the Greek-Catholic Church and the Latin Church, made up mainly of Poles.
There are also small but lively Baptist communities, linked to the Protestant Reformation.
The presence of Jews in the country is significant. With the Nazi invasion of the Second World War – which began in June 1941 – they suffered severe decimation over a period of three years: 1.6 million Jews were murdered. There was the heinous massacre of Babi Yar, in Kyiv, where on 29 and 30 September of that year, 33,771 Jews were gathered, with deceitfulness and the complicity of pro-Nazi Ukrainian minorities, and then massacred.

Inter-Orthodox Schism
In the Black Sea, since Roman times there has been a great deal of traffic: by crossing it, and going up the navigable Dnieper, you could reach Kyiv, a city built on the banks of the great river, about three hundred kilometres to the north, in the centre of a territory called Russia. With the establishment of Christianity, the Byzantine traders made their religion known to the pagan Slavs of that area. It was only in 988 that Prince Volodymyr (the name in Ukrainian; in Russian it is Vladimir) was baptized; as was the custom then, all his people also had to become Christians.

The red basilica of Perushtitza, known as the church of the St. Patrick in Plovdiv, is a byzantine-ages town in Bulgaria. 123rf.com.

In 1054 the first Rome, on the Tiber, and the second, Constantinople, excommunicated each other due to theological disputes and political pressures; Kyiv kept out of this dispute, however, and tried to maintain good relations with both of them.
Two centuries later, the Mongol Tatars begin to invade Russia; in 1240 the Metropolitan of Kiev then took refuge in Russia, where he resided in various cities until he fixed his residence in Moscow (created only in 1147), finally taking the title derived from it.
After a hopeful start, the attempt of the Council of Lyons II, in 1274, to reconcile Latins and Byzantines, failed. It was the Council of Florence, in 1439, which again attempted the arduous undertaking. Pope Eugene IV promised Emperor John VIII a crusade, to help him defeat the Turks who were dangerously nearing Constantinople. But finally, the crusade failed and on May 29, 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered the city: after a thousand years, the Eastern Roman Empire ended.

St George outdoor icon. 123rf.com

Pope Paul II (1471) favoured the marriage of Zoe, the only heir of the Byzantine Empire, with the great prince of Moscow, Ivan III, hoping he would become a Catholic and participate in a crusade against the Turks, but this speculation came to nothing. In the sixteenth century, this myth was born in Russia from the monastic world: ‘The first Rome fell into the heresy of papism; the second into the hands of the Turks; the third, Moscow, the pillar of Orthodoxy, will never fall’.
In summary: the Church of Kiev is the daughter of Constantinople; that of Moscow is the daughter of Kiev. But the Russian patriarchate maintains that, since 1686, Ukraine voluntarily became its ‘canonical territory’; therefore, three years ago he considered it ‘intolerable’ that Bartholomew should initiate the procedures to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. This is how the intra-Orthodox schism arose. (Open Photo: The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, on the northern bank of the Moskva River, a few hundred metres southwest of the Kremlin. CC BY-SA 4.0/Diego Delso)

Luigi Sandri/Credere

Circus Zambia. A Chance to Change the Situation.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

The colours of the walls, the little flags decorating the entrance, the large open space where they practise all is harmony and serenity at Circus Zambia. It is here that hundreds of youngsters learn
the arts of the circus.

The writing on the wall declares that inside there is a place where people can “run, jump, fly… “, and this is the feeling we get as we enter and see the boys and girls from difficult situations finding on their doorstep a place where they feel valued and cared for.
The idea of Circus Zambia came from a boy in the outskirts. He seemingly had no prospects but just the determination to change his life and that of many of his friends.
Gift Chansa, Co-Founder and artistic director of Circus Zambia, was born and grew up in Chibolya, one of the more disadvantaged outskirts of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. From childhood, he liked to challenge his friends to do the acrobatics on the streets which led him to discover the existence of the circus.

Gift Chansa, Co-Founder and artistic director of Circus Zambia

He managed to study this discipline in China and the Netherlands. He was awarded a diploma in Project Management at the National Institute of Public Administration at the University of Zambia. Since the formation of Circus Zambia, he has become a reference point for the social entrepreneurship of his country, so much so that, in 2018, the MTV television network recognised his work and his leadership.
Six years after the start of what Chansa describes as “The movement to change the image of the city quarter “. Circus Zambia has two centres, one in Chibolya and another in a residential area in the centre of Lusaka where work continues on a project called ‘Body, Mind and Soul’ with a ‘Holistic perspective’, considering it as a whole that transforms the person and helps the community.
Chansa and his collaborators describe themselves as ‘A lively, young and social circus’ in which talent is discovered and where people work to bring it to fruition. This is how they have already succeeded in convincing some of the more talented students to spend a year in China to train and learn new circus techniques.
Today, that small group of artists is now a group of professionals who have performed in the United States, Ethiopia, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom.
Their shows, which they perform in their centres every last Friday of the month in Lusaka, and the private shows they put on for small groups or companies that book them to provide entertainment at their event, have enabled them to acquire the large centre where they train and to pay the school fees and buy school equipment for 24 boys and girls to discourage them from dropping out of school for lack of resources, or due to family pressures.

The Circus also supports about a hundred children who take part in the Body Program, practising their different skills as clowns, jugglers, dancers, or acrobats. “It is through this demanding physical training by which they improve from day to day, perfecting and improving their acts, that the young people learn the value of leading a healthy life and the importance of caring for their bodies.
The Circus keeps them away from such widespread and difficult to control problems such as drugs and alcohol”.
Among the priority activities of Zambia are the visits to the city quarters and the street shows, as the members of the project explain to us. Entertainment and humour enable us to face complex social problems. “The prevention of HIV, violence against women and child marriages are topics on which we never stop speaking so that, right from their childhood days, they are aware of the world they live in and guard against”. There are at present more than 5,000 boys and girls involved in the various projects.

Chansa points out that if you say you live in Chibolya, people do not trust you. “We know that people associate Chibolya with drugs and criminality, but Chibolya is more than all of that. Just think of talented young people who want to get on in life”.
Coordinated physical and mental work, apart from the daily difficulties of the children, transform them when they come to Circus Zambia. “With our programme, we take on the same problems that challenge young people in the community. For example, we teach such values as the empowerment of women and gender equality. We also have a project involving sanitary hygiene and clean water and we are locally involved in global problems. We are a very organic and rooted platform that assists the youth”.In the great hall, we see some young people performing exercises on special acrobatic equipment while others are practising on the beam and, in a corner, a group of young people are discussing some future projects.

Performing in front of strangers, whether on the street or the stage, develops self-confidence.
The messages encouraging them to keep on practising until they can perform the exercise, using the innate energy of youth, make the training sessions a series of incessant repetition. Some are balancing hands-free on ropes to demonstrate their ability to use their legs, arms or torso to avoid falling; others are trying the unicycle for the first time or form human figures that require enormous flexibility.
“These exercises help to increase self-esteem and to show one’s potential and talents in a natural way. What we are really doing is helping them to face life with serenity and commitment. However difficult, there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome”, Chansa concludes. (Open Photo: © Circus Zambia)

Carla Fibia García-Sala

South Africa. The Energy Transition has to wait.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

Beyond the government’s policy statements, the country will not start turning its back on fossil fuels in the short term. There is too much impact on employment.This has been confirmed by the Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe and supported by
the Trade Unions.

South Africa’s electricity generation accounts for more than 80% of the country’s output. It makes the country one of the top-20 emitters of carbon dioxide worldwide. The government plans that this will fall to 60% by 2030 through increasing renewable sources, extending the life of its one nuclear plant and natural gas.
About 95% of electricity production is controlled by the parastatal Eskom which is massively in debt and which has struggled to maintain a stable supply recently thanks to a legacy of mismanagement and corruption during the era of President Jacob Zuma. There are over 40,000 coal miners in the country and 28% of South Africa’s coal is exported, making it the 6^th largest coal exporter in the world.

Electricians working on high voltage power lines. ©sunshineseeds/123RF.COM

Eskom also employs over 40,000 people. With an official unemployment rate of 34.9%, one can understand why the South African government is cautious about an energy transition.
To re-train 80,000 workers, many unskilled, would be a huge undertaking in a developing country. The governing party also needs their votes at a time when its popularity is on the decline.
South Africa is a world leader in the process of synthesising petrol and diesel from coal. Ironically this industry was first developed by the apartheid government at a time when the regime was threatened with oil sanctions. Today this very profitable company, SASOL, employs 30,000 people worldwide and is present in 33 countries. SASOL’s factory in Secunda, in Mpumalanga Province, in eastern South Africa, is estimated to be the largest single factory carbon polluter on the planet. Like all fossil fuel companies, it proclaims that it is going green, but progress is difficult. How to move away from fossil fuels and still run a profitable company, is the problem?

Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Minerals and Energy.

The recent funding from Western countries to help South Africa make the transition to a low-carbon economy has been received by the Minister of Minerals and energy, Gwede Mantashe with some scepticism if not downright suspicion. He argues that Western attempts to ‘help’ Africa to decarbonise are hypocritical because the West’s own record on decarbonisation is one of foot-dragging. He believes that South Africa and other African nations must maintain their sovereign right to use their fossil fuels and resist being railroaded into a hasty transition that harms African development goals. After all, the fossil fuel emissions of the African continent amount to a mere 3% of global emissions. Of course, South Africa supplies coal to some of the big polluters like India, so it depends on how you generate the statistics.
Minister Mantashe is an enthusiastic supporter of heavy industry, including nuclear power. He wants to maintain and expand the exploitation of fossil fuels in South and southern Africa. He recently directed his anger at environmental groups which brought effective legal challenges to Shell’s plans to conduct a seismic survey for fossil fuel deposits on the seabed along the West Coast of the country. His arguments have a certain force, and they resonate with the unions whose members’ jobs would be threatened by the transition.

Underground Platinum Palladium Mining and Machinery. ©sunshineseeds/123RF.COM

There are two objections to them, however. The first is the problem of being left behind technologically. If South Africa and Africa invest in expensive infrastructure for the exploitation of coal and natural gas, this means there will be fewer resources to put into future energy. And this country and other African countries are ideally suited for some alternative energy sources. We have some of the most abundant sunlight sites in the world and many onshore and offshore sites which are suited to harvesting wind energy. True, these are being developed in South Africa, but mostly by private energy producers and at a government-regulated pace that is designed to protect the coal industry.
We are in a similar position to twenty years ago when the government decided to build two massive power stations in South Africa’s coalfields, thus locking the country’s economy into a technology that was already out of date. Minister Mantashe seems happy to lock us into coal and gas for another 30 years by which time Western nations might well be imposing punitive taxes on goods produced and transported
using fossil fuels.

Open pit coal mining and processing in South Africa. 123RF.COM

The second problem is illustrated by the situation in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique where the curse of the hydrocarbon resource is being played out tragically in the violence which has gripped that area. Islamist insurgents have caused havoc among local people in the struggle to take control of the Total gas fields off the coast.
Developing countries with ‘get-rich-quick’ natural resources are prime targets for criminal groups. It is not just the problem of insurgency. In Angola, the entire oil industry became the fiefdom of a single political family. The sad fact is that possessing large deposits of hydrocarbons does not automatically translate into the equitable sharing of wealth. The history of South Africa itself illustrates this fact – the diamonds and the gold discovered in the 19^th century attracted the attention of empire-builders like Cecil Rhodes and other colonial looters.
Perhaps South Africa has the legal and institutional strength to avoid the problem of the resource curse. However, the fact that Shell has been conducting a seismic survey off the East Coast (and another has been planned by an Australian company off the West Coast) has set environmental alarm bells ringing.

Oil rig in the ocean bay of Cape Town. 123RF.COM

A solid historical objection to Shell is the company’s history in Ogoniland in Nigeria where the environmental impact has been catastrophic and scandalous. If they trashed Ogoniland, one can ask, how can we guarantee that they will not also trash the coast of the Eastern Cape, known locally as the Wild Coast for its great beauty and rich ecological diversity?What is the feeling of ordinary people about the issue of the energy transition? In the areas where drilling might take place, there is concern for the loss of traditional economies connected to the environment, as well as the impact on tourism. Solidarity is not 100%, of course, for there are always some who would hope to benefit from the concessions and contracts that hydrocarbon exploitation brings.
As for people who are not directly involved, there seems little concern except among the professional classes. For many ordinary people, life is a hard struggle and therefore issues like how rapidly we move to a renewable electricity supply are hardly their daily concern. For them, the question is whether they can afford electricity at all and whether their children will ever find jobs. Unlike in Europe where the supporters of fossil fuels are on the defensive, in South Africa, fossil fuel businesses and their political supporters still hold many of the strong cards. (Open Photo: The Tutuka Power Station near Standerton, in the Mpumalanga Province. ©dpreezg/123RF.COM)

Chris Chatteris sj

Duterte, the Executioner.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

In office since June 30, 2016, despite the criticisms, Duterte ‘the executioner’ seemed unstoppable.

After having won the election with an overwhelming majority, basing his electoral campaign on the fight against crime and street violence, he has implemented his programs with violent methods that have caused thousands of deaths. Most of these were drug dealers or drug addicts killed in clashes with the police, but many were victims of extrajudicial executions. About one million people have self-reported their use of drugs and were mostly released after a short period of detention. The situation has accentuated the reaction of organised crime put on the ropes, but also of political opponents who feared that the president’s ultimate goal was the imposition of martial law, as in the days of dictator Marcos between 1972 and 1981.

In essence, Duterte applied the same rules and the same lack of scruples applied in the southern metropolis of Davao, of which Duterte had been the first citizen for 22 years before running for the top office in the country. A city once plagued by crime, it would become for the outgoing president ‘a model of security and legality’ that was obtained with methods that were not only hasty but, in many cases, definitive, and also denounced by exponents of the Catholic Church.
It is estimated that a thousand common criminals, squatters and street children were eliminated by the police and vigilantes under the orders of Duterte who, having risen to the highest public office, extended the same methods to the entire archipelago, despite the opposition of substantial sections of civil society, the opposition, and the judiciary threatened and often silenced without scruple.
Senator Layla De Lima, one of Duterte’s most tenacious critics, has been in prison since February 2017, accused of having favoured the spread of drugs in the Bilibid super-prison near Manila while secretary of justice. She is accused on three counts, one of which lapsed, which she herself defines as ‘politically motivated’.

Maria Angelita Ressa, the first Filipino recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2021. BY-SA 4.0/Rappler

A setback for Duterte was the victory of the Nobel Peace Prize by the journalist Maria Ressa committed to uncovering abuses under the Duterte presidency and the repressive policies towards information, a contributing if not the actual cause of 23 killings of journalists and photojournalists in the last six years.
The president’s iron fist, the cuts and incentives granted to those who participated in the ‘war on drugs’ with guaranteed mandate and immunity for those who encouraged and carried out extrajudicial killings of abandoned victims in alleys and canals, is not just about those who carried out the crimes or some boss forced to surrender under penalty of retaliation against his family. Duterte imposed an autocratic power by threatening and intimidating political opponents and institutions openly and in no uncertain terms.
Among the groups opposed to Duterte, however, there were no economic and financial potentates. However, only the near future will be able to confirm the resilience of the Philippine economy.

Manila. Everyday street life in the district of Intramuros. ©viewapart/123RF.COM

In fact, the investment and spending capacity of a population that officially lives 23.7 per cent in poverty and 64 per cent in food insecurity remains low, while domestic and international contingencies are further reasons for caution. Filipino expatriates are always in demand, as confirmed by remittances that have not significantly dropped during the pandemic season, reaching 30 billion dollars last year, but the fact that they remain so large is among the major indicators of the fragility of the system/country.In a certain sense, it is a sign of the country’s still strong dependence on foreign countries, which also applies to investments, loans, military, and diplomatic support that contribute to raising GDP, strengthening the stock market and giving Filipinos some hope that goes beyond the sometimes contradictory and often insufficient initiatives of their rulers.

(S.V.)

Kirill and Putin: complicity or subjection?

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

In theory, there has always been ‘harmony’, that is, close collaboration between church and state in Russia. In reality, everything was more complex.

When Patriarch Hadrian died in 1700, Tsar Peter the Great prevented the appointment of his successor: two centuries passed before, following the abdication of Nicholas II, in the summer of 1917 the Moscow Council elected Patriarch Tikhon. But in October of that year, the Soviet Revolution brought Lenin to power, who wanted to scale back the Russian Church, even with violence.
When, in 1925, the patriarch died, Stalin – then in power – prevented the appointment of a successor. In the years 1932-33, the Kremlin would starve millions of people to punish the peasants who refused to give the government the established amount of grain: the Ukrainians call this tragedy Holodomor.
Let’s go back to the USSR, invaded in 1941 by Hitler’s armies. Stalin gradually realized that they could destroy the country; and so, to the few metropolitans alive (many bishops had been killed or imprisoned) he asked to make an appeal to the Orthodox faithful to take sides with the Red Army against the Germans and believers did so.
Then, as a reward, in 1943 Stalin allowed the appointment of the new patriarch. Since then, the succession of leaders of the Russian Church recommenced, down to the present day.

St Basil’s cathedral and Kremlin on Red Square at night, Moscow. 123rf.com/

After the war, the Soviet regime continued, however, to keep the Church subjugated. Only in the years of Mikhail Gorbachev did things begin to change; in 1988 he helped the patriarchate to organize the solemn celebration of the ‘Thousand Years of the Baptism of Russia’.
The USSR collapsed in 1991 and, in the new Russia, first Yeltsyn, and then Putin granted many favours to the patriarchate, also to compensate it, in some way, for the immense damage – dozens of bishops, hundreds of priests and thousands and thousands of Orthodox faithful killed, many churches destroyed, and many monasteries requisitioned – caused to the Russian Church in 75 years of Soviet rule. Against this background, we must consider the statements of Kirill, elected in 2009, on Putin’s unfortunate war against Ukraine.

Kirill on one side, Onufry and Jean (Francia) on the other
The Patriarch of Moscow essentially supported the invasion of Ukraine. He made Putin’s thesis his own: in the Donbass – an area mostly inhabited by Russians and Russian speakers – the Ukrainian extremists, manipulated by the Ukrainian government, dominated at the expense of the rights of that minority in Ukraine (but the majority in Donbass), even committing execrable acts (Kiev, however, rejects the accusation). All this happened without the West ever raising its voice. Zelensky denied this thesis; the Russian president reiterated it, and Kirill agreed with him.

This explains the tone of the message that Kirill addressed to his entire Church on February 24, the day of the beginning, for Putin, not of a ‘war’, but only of a ‘special military operation in Ukraine’: “It is with deep sorrow in the heart that I feel the sufferings of the people, caused by the events that are happening. As Patriarch of all Russia, and primate of the Church whose flock is found in Russia, Ukraine and several other countries, I feel deep compassion for all who have been affected by misfortune. I urge all parties to the conflict to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties”.
The tone of an appeal launched that day by Onufry, the primate of the UOC, albeit linked to the Russian patriarchate, was quite different: “Defending the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, we turn to the president of Russia and ask him to immediately cease the fratricidal war. The Ukrainian and Russian peoples arose from the baptismal fonts of the Dnieper and the war between these two peoples is the repetition of the sin of Cain, who killed his brother out of jealousy. Such a war finds no justification either before God or before men”.

The Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine, Onufry (Berezovsky). CC BY-SA 4.0/ Vadim Chuprina.

The problem, for Kirill and Putin, is that Onufry is not alone. Indeed, on Sunday 6 March several metropolitans of the COU – such as Eulogius of Sumy, Theodore of Mukachevo, Filarete of Leopoli and four or five others – ‘ignored’ the name of Kirill in the ‘divine liturgy’ (the Mass). To evaluate this silence, it is necessary to know that, in Orthodoxy, when the bishop celebrates the Eucharist, the name of the patriarch with whom he is in communion is always solemnly remembered: to skip it, in itself, is a schismatic choice.
But several parish priests of the COU, in addition to imitating these bishops, have gone further: they asked Onufry to convene a council (which provides, in addition to the bishops, also the presence of representatives of the parish priests, monks and faithful) to proclaim the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. But there already is an autocephalous Church: would the new one join it, or would it join the CAOU? And would it place itself under Constantinople, detaching itself from Moscow, perhaps waiting for the Russian patriarchate to radically change its position on the war in Ukraine?
Even stronger signs of extreme unease have come from within Russia, and from the Russian Orthodox living in Europe. About 240 Russian popes and deacons, at home, in early March, after describing the ongoing war as ‘fratricidal’, added: ‘We weep at the ordeal to which our brothers and sisters in Ukraine have been undeservedly subjected’.

Jean of Dubna, archbishop of the Orthodox Churches of Russian tradition in Western Europe. (Photo: Yefimov Vladimir)

But the harshest judgment came from Metropolitan Jean of Dubna, archbishop of the Orthodox Churches of Russian tradition in Western Europe, who on March 9 wrote to Kirill from Paris: ‘On behalf of all of our faithful I turn to Your Holiness that you may raise your voice, as Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, against a monstrous and senseless war, and intercede with the authorities of the Russian Federation so that, as soon as possible, there may be an end to this deadly conflict which until recently seemed impossible between two nations and two peoples united by centuries of history and their common faith in Christ’. Jean also disagreed with the anti-gay affirmations made three days earlier by Kirill, who took it out on Gay Pride that wants to morally legitimize the practice of homosexuality, prohibited – he underlined – by the law of God: “Your Holiness, in your homily on Sunday of Forgiveness, delivered on March 6 in the patriarchal cathedral of Christ the Savior, you suggest that you justify this cruel and deadly war of aggression [against Ukraine] as ‘a metaphysical fight’ in the name ‘of the right to stay on the side of the light, on the side of God’s truth, of what the light of Christ and His Gospel reveals to us’. With all the respect that is due to you, I must tell you that I cannot subscribe to such a reading of the Gospel”.

Where will Orthodoxy go from here?
Already shattered, in fact, into three sections due to the Ukrainian autocephaly affair (pro-Constantinople: the patriarchate of Alexandria, the Church of Greece, that of Cyprus and the CAOU; pro-Moscow the patriarchate of Antioch and the Polish Church; other neutral churches such as the Romanian Church), Orthodoxy will now be shaken by the earth tremors of the war in Ukraine, and consequently will have to pass judgment on Kirill (Bartholomew immediately launched an appeal, condemning the invasion).

Festive Liturgy on the Day of the Holy Trinity led by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in the Church of St. George in Istanbul. ©palinchak/123RF.COM

The spokesman of Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, with transparent reference to Kirill, but without ever naming him, spoke thus: “The true Christian distinguishes between an authentic and worthy primate of the Church of Christ, and a primate who is, from the moral and Christian points of view, dishonoured by cynical complicity with the most hateful things that man without God is capable of doing: the war of conquest, terror, torture and the killing of masses of people”. Will the explosion of Orthodoxy, therefore, be one of the ‘side effects’ of Putin’s war against Ukraine? (Open Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Photo Sputnik)

Luigi Sandri/Credere

Mexico. Saint Joseph ‘the Worker’.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

‘Labour Day’, is celebrated on the first of May along with the religious feast of ‘Saint Joseph the Worker’ in the municipality of Chilapa, Guerrero, in south-western Mexico.

The celebrations held in honour of Saint Joseph the Worker begin on 30 April with a great fair. Merchants from all over the region come to sell fruit, vegetables, food, and utensils. The festival begins with a parade of floats and the performances of dancers. But the culmination of this event is on May 1, Labour Day, when the statue of Saint Joseph is taken to the atrium of the church where people come to pray to him and to place candles at its feet. Some offer the Saint incense; others hang necklaces of marigold flowers on the arms and neck of the statue and kiss it with great fervour. In the meantime, in the square outside the church, families gather to eat corn, snacks, and compadres drink mezcal and beer.The dances, the magic sound of the violins and the chilefrito bands (so called because they play various rhythms), are cultural expressions intrinsic to the festive nature of this celebration.

©auroraangeles/123RF.COM

One of the most interesting dances that are performed in this festival is the Los Ocho Locos dance, which is also known as the dance of the Eight Vices. It involves a number of dancers who represent the eight vices as well as an angel, a devil, a doctor, and a priest. This dance of Spanish origin involves numerous movements and spoken text which are accompanied by the music of a violin. The melodies can be sad or merry according to the passage that is interpreted. The Dance of the Moros and Christians is another typical dance performed during the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. It has its origin in the Twelve Peers of France, based on the story of Charlemagne, and was introduced by the Spanish monks during the Conquest. The first performance of this dance dates back to 1524, and it was so successful that it spread throughout the country, from Oaxaca to New Mexico in the United States.
The dancers form two antagonistic groups to represent the faithful of the two religions. This dance is part of a larger ceremony that can last up to two days and consists of mock battles.

The church of the Virgen de la Asunción, Chilapa, Guerrero. CC BY-SA 2.0/ Comefilm

The dancers in the performance that takes place in Chilapa are all women except for the leaders of the groups who are two men. The dancers representing the Christian women dress in blue and the dancers representing the Moro women in red, and all wear capes embroidered with sequins. The festival in honour of Saint Joseph the Worker culminates with the Castles of Fire, hand-assembled pyrotechnic castles, and the Burning of the Bulls.
The bulls are made out of papier-mâché with fireworks shooting out of it going in different directions. The Castles of Fire shoot off batteries of fireworks into the sky, and enormous multi-coloured papier mâchéd bulls are run through the streets by whole families, firing off fireworks in all directions while the band keeps on playing.
In this way, lights, sounds, dances, food, mezcal, beer, and amazing fireworks conclude the celebrations in honour of Saint Joseph the Worker in the municipality of Chilapa. (Open Photo: ©auroraangeles/123RF.COM)

Alfredo Martínez Fernandes

Marian Shrines in Africa. The Great Devotion.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

Many shrines and pilgrimage sites in honour of the Virgin Mary have sprung up throughout the African continent. Seven cases of Marian apparitions have been reported, the most famous and officially recognised is that of Kibeho in Rwanda. An introduction to the main centres of Marian worship in Africa.

To date, seven cases of Marian apparitions in Africa have been reported: in 1980 in Ede-Oballa (Nigeria); in 1982 in Kibeho (Rwanda); in 1984 in Mushasa (Burundi); in 1984 again in Rwanda, in Mubuga; in 1985 in Yagma and Louda (Burkina Faso); in 1987 in Muleva (Mozambique); and in 1998 in Tseviè (Togo).
There are few testimonies about these appearances, except for those that took place in Kibeho, a small town in south Rwanda, which were officially recognised and which received canonical approval by the Holy See, on 29 June 2001, after Augustin Misago, the Bishop of Gikongoro, approved public devotion linked to the apparitions that took place in the small town of Kibeho between 1981 and 1983. He recognised as authentic the testimonies of the three visionaries Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango, who were 16, 17 and 21 years old, respectively. The Virgin Mary appeared to them dedicated as ‘Nynia wa Jambo’, meaning ‘Mother of the Word’.

Rwanda. Sanctuary of Our Lady of Kibeho. The only approved Marian apparition in Africa. (CAN)

The three girls said that the colour of her skin was black. The Virgin invited them to conversion, prayer and fasting. Once, on 15 August 1982, the Virgin showed them gruesome scenes: “A river of blood, massacres, corpses lying abandoned”. It was the announcement of what would happen in 1994, a genocide with almost a million dead.
In the meantime, Kibeho has become a place of interest as a pilgrimage destination. The Kibeho shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. Rwandans consider it a pilgrimage destination and meeting point for those who seek God and wish to pray. According to the Rwandan bishops, “Kibeho is a place of conversion, of reconciliation and reparation for the sins of the world; a meeting point for those who were lost, for those who are passionate about the values of compassion and brotherhood without borders. For this reason, the Church must become a place of reconciliation for all. Our Lady has come to speak to her young children to begin the second phase of evangelization, at the end of the second millennium and at the beginning of the third”.

Burkina Faso. The Yagma shrine is dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes.

In 1966, the then Archbishop of Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, Cardinal Paul Cardinal Zoungrana, urged Christians who wanted a place to worship Mary: “Find the place you like, prepare it and then we will come to build a church”. Therefore, the site of Yagma, a few miles from Ouagadougou, was especially chosen in 1967 for the purpose of building a Marian shrine. On that small hill a replica of the Lourdes grotto was built out of lateritic stone. The site of Yagma hosted the first pilgrimage in 1968 and in 1971 the place was officially recognised by Cardinal Zoungrana as a pilgrimage destination. In 1985 a young woman claimed that the Virgin had appeared to her several times, although these appearances were never officially confirmed by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the number of pilgrims has been constantly increasing. Twenty-nine January 1990
was a historical day.
The site of Yagma welcomed Pope John Paul II that day. More than 600,000 people attended the Eucharist, as the Pope blessed an image of Our Lady of Lourdes that he gave as a gift for the site of Yagma.
Other Marian places are Our Lady in the town of Dingasso, in Bobo-Diulaso; Our Lady of Peace, in Diébougou; Our Lady of Louda, in Kaya; Our Lady of Reconciliation, in Koudougou; and Our Lady of Lake Bam,
in Ouahigouya.
The shrine of Notre Dame de la Délivrande (‘Our Lady of Salvation’) in the town of Popenguine, Senegal, was established in the 1800s by a Catholic bishop named Mathurin Picarda.
In May 1888, Monsignor Picarda, led the first Marian pilgrimage to the shrine in Popenguine. In 1891 a small stone basilica was built to replace the previous wooden one. In 1988 a new larger church with a greater capacity was inaugurated.

Senegal. The shrine of Notre Dame de la Délivrande (‘Our Lady of Salvation’) in the town of Popenguine. (Photo: Ji-Elle)

Since then, Popenguine has become a place of pilgrimage and Marian worship for Senegalese people. In 1991, at the request of Cardinal Hyacinthe Thiamdoum, a native of Popenguine, a new church was built and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, and it was named a minor basilica in 1991. This marked the beginning of a new life for the church and the community.
On February 20, 1992, Pope John Paul II, paid a visit to the shrine and crowned the statue of Our Lady of Deliverance before a crowd of thousands of people. Since then, the sanctuary has been the destination of many pilgrims. Currently more than 100,000 people annually visit this great Senegalese Marian shrine.
The Marian shrines of Egypt, besides having a special importance for the memory of the historical presence of the Holy Family in this land, have always been of special interest from the ecumenical point of view. Some, among the 160 churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the country, are considered authentic ‘Marian places’ or real sanctuaries.
Among them are the monastery of Santa Catalina, in Sinai; the Cathedral of Our Lady of Egypt; the sanctuary of the Virgin of Zeitoun; the Al-Muallaka Church (‘the Hanging Church’), in the area of Al-Fustat in Cairo; and the Saint Mary Church, in Maadi. The Feast of the Assumption is one of the most popular feasts in Egypt. The faithful of Egypt’s Coptic Church simply call it the ‘feast’ of the Virgin. The fidelity with which the Coptic Church has venerated Mary has been unceasing. The icon of the Virgin found in the famous Al-Mou’allaqa church is highly revered. Saint Catherine’s Monastery is an Eastern Orthodox monastery located on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, near the town of Saint Catherine.

Cathedral of Our Lady of Egypt. CC BY-SA 3.0/ Hierarchicus

It is the most important Marian sanctuary in the Sinai Peninsula, and the traditional site of the Burning Bush, the symbol of the divine motherhood of Mary. The monastery is visited by thousands of pilgrims every year.
Despite the fact that there are not many important sanctuaries in Ethiopia, due to the little importance that the Coptic Church gives to images, the Virgin Mary, known as ‘Waladita Amlâk’, the Virgin Mother of God, has a very special place in the Ethiopian cult, and the devotion to her holds the highest place. Ethiopia is known as the country of Mary, its protectress. The name Mary is very common among Christians, both women and men, in Ethiopia, and many churches carved out of the rocks are dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
On the 10th of February the Ethiopian Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of the Covenant of Mercy (Kidama Mehret). It refers to the Ethiopic tradition that Jesus promised his mother that he would forgive the sins of those who sought her intercession.
Every year in November, thousands of Malians and Christians from all over West Africa gather in the small town of Kita, about 150 kilometres west of Bamako, Mali’s capital. They go on pilgrimage to pay homage to Our Lady of Kita. The clay image of the Virgin Mother was made by a lay brother who collaborated with the first missionaries in the country.
The pilgrimages to venerate Our Lady of Kita began in 1970 and take place every year in the last week of November.
These events have always been moments of dialogue and brotherhood between Christians and Muslims in Mali.

Ivory Coast. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, CC BY-SA 2.0/ Felix Krohn –

Located on the west coast of Africa, Ivory Coast was evangelized in the last decade of the 19th century. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, the administrative capital of Ivory Coast, is considered the ‘Palace of Our Lady’. Consecrated by John Paul II in 1990, it is known as the ‘Saint Peter’s Basilica of Africa’. The design of the dome and encyclical plaza are clearly inspired by those of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican City, although it is not an outright replica. It is the largest church in the world. Every year thousands of pilgrims arrive in Yamoussoukro from all over the continent to venerate Our Lady of Peace.
However, the national Marian shrine in Africa is that of Our Lady of Africa, located in Abidjan and dedicated to Our Lady of All Graces.
Other places of Marian pilgrimage are the Shrine of Our Lady of Liberation, in Issia, in the Diocese of Daloa, and the Shrine of Ferké, in the Diocese of Katiola.
The first missionaries, who arrived in Angola in 1491, built a church dedicated to ‘Our Lady Saint Mary’. Today, there are more than one hundred churches and chapels dedicated to the Mother of God in Angola. The Shrine of Our Lady of Muxima is located 130 kilometres from Luanda, Angolan capital, and it is considered by many to be the most popular place of pilgrimage and worship in Angola.
The festival in honour of Our Lady of Muxima – which in the Kimbundu language means ‘heart’ – has been celebrated since 1833. Due to its importance and historical significance, the church, built at the end of the 16th century, was declared a national monument in 1924.

Benin. The Grotto of Our Lady of Arigbo in Dassa-Zoume,

In Benin, the Grotto of Our Lady of Arigbo in Dassa-Zoume, was blessed in 1954, and it has gradually become an international pilgrimage centre. Every year on 15 August this place is the pilgrimage destination of people arriving from Benin, Togo, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The shrine of the Divine Mercy of Aliada is also another popular pilgrimage centre where faithful gather to ask the Mother of God for protection and mercy.
In Linzolo, a few kilometres from Brazaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, one of the first missions founded by the Spiritan Missionaries in 1883, there is a gigantic grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes at the bottom of a magnificent valley. Every year, since the Marian Year of 1987, flocks of faithful have reached this site, which is the most important Marian meeting place in the country.
In 1952, during a Marian congress that took place in Durban in South Africa to celebrate the centenary of the arrival of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in South Africa, Archbishop Martin H. Lucas proclaimed, ‘Mary Queen Assumed into Heaven’ Patroness of the South African Church.
Our Lady of Ngomé is one of the best-known Marian shrines in South Africa. It is located in the diocese of Eshowe, in the heart of the Zulu region, where it is said that the Virgin manifested herself to a Benedictine nun named Reinolda, who died in 1981. Mary is venerated in this place with the title of ‘Mary, Tabernacle of the Most High’. In Uganda, in the diocese of Arua, in Lagonda, in the north of the country, is the sanctuary of Mary Mediatrix of all Graces, where the Virgin is also called ‘Our Lady Sultana of Africa’.

Ismael Piñón

Internal Conflicts.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

Once again, on May 9, the Filipinos will also bring persistent situations to the polls which, although less relevant than in the past, contribute to keeping a substantial part of the archipelago in uncertainty, starting with the communist and Islamist guerrillas
and the response of the authorities.

Despite various rounds of talks with the mediation of Norway and an effective reduction in military activities, the conflict between the government and armed militants of the New People’s Army (NPA), represented in the talks by the National Democratic Front, the political reference of the communist guerrilla active from decades in the north of the country, remains heated. The longest-running armed rebellion in Asia, the one led by the New People’s Army, has cost at least 30,000 victims since 1968.

Members of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines held a lightning rally at Mendiola (Photo Manila Today)

The weakening of the NPA, which saw its numbers drop from 26,000 at the peak of its military capacity in the 1980s to an estimated 4,000 at present, rather than continuing to guarantee its role and territorial control, seems to have continued to guarantee the security forces an important and profitable role, as well as having allowed Duterte to ask for the country’s trust even when repeatedly accused. A similar situation occurs in the south of the Philippines where, for some time, and even more so since the start of the presidency now coming to an end, military pressure has been intensified against the Muslim guerrillas of the Abu Sayyaf group in the Basilan and Jolo islands and against other groups who claim links with global Jihadist movements such as Isis and Al Qaeda and which aim to impose at the same time an area of militant Islamism in a crucial and sensitive area of Asia.
The peace treaty of 2014 that, in 2019, led to the birth by a referendum of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) for whose security and control the former guerrilla movement, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was called, was not the end of all the conflict. But it has started with a certain consistency on a path of peace and normalization in Mindanao and in the archipelagos that extend towards Malaysia, rekindling the hope that the violence that cost the lives of at least 120,000 Filipinos will end and ignite the progress long denied to the region.

The House of Representatives of the Philippines. Photo: congress.gov.ph

A scenario in chiaroscuro is the legacy of 77-year-old Duterte who tried, unsuccessfully, to have the constitutional provision that precludes a second term cancelled. His handling of the pandemic, in particular, has aroused discontent over the choices considered uneconomic and contrary to the most basic rights of the population. However, most Filipinos continued to confirm their support and trust, albeit with many exceptions. These include: the attacks of critics and opponents inside and outside Parliament; the summary killings; and the apparent insensitivity to the chains that keep his country in widespread poverty, despite the sustained development of recent decades, have characterized a presidency that has repeatedly ended up on a collision course with the Catholic hierarchy on ethical and moral issues, rights, and democracy.
This tension involved the laity and clergy, most recently in the battle to prevent the extension of the law that provided for the classification as ‘terrorists’ or ‘communists’ of individuals and organizations critical of the Duterte administration. An arbitrary initiative that also affected the Benedictine nun Mary John Mananzan, strongly hostile to the ‘war on drugs’ and who was, therefore, indicated in June 2020 by a government official as a supporter of a communist terrorist organization. The law did not pass through the commitment of ecclesial representatives and the faithful, but the controversy has further strained relations between the presidency and the Church.
The situation marked the Duterte presidency right up to last year when the 500th anniversary of evangelization began.
The celebrations were initiated on March 14, 2021, with a ceremony attended by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica. The story began with the landing of Ferdinand Magellan on the island of Mactan near Cebu, today the fifth Philippine city in terms of population, and an essential tourist, commercial and logistic centre.

Traffic on bridge and boats crossing at Mactan Bridge Cebu. Photo: 123rf.com

It was an event in Asian history and European colonialism that was to found a Church that gave a national identity to the archipelago and made it the cornerstone of Catholicism in Asia. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, former Archbishop of Manila and second-term president of Caritas Internationalis, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples since December 2019, concelebrated the Holy Mass which kicked off the celebrations of the 500th anniversary.
Less than two weeks after that suggestive and evocative ceremony, the Pope announced the appointment of 69-year-old Cardinal Jose Fuerte Advincula, former Bishop of the diocese of Capiz, as titular of the archdiocese of the capital, certainly not an easy role for the new archbishop, in a situation like the current one that associates the already heated conflict between the Filipino Church and the current presidency of Rodrigo Duterte with the enormous difficulties that are emerging from the pandemic crisis. All this must be taken into account to relaunch the Catholic identity of the archipelago which is losing momentum in the face of the multiplicity of challenges it faces.

(S.V.)

Namibia. Namib, the Living Desert.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

The oldest desert in the world: a sea of sand caressed by ubiquitous fog. It seems to be desolate and unfit for human habitation. Appearances may be deceptive. Hidden in the heart of the Namib are incredible gems of life, plants and animals that have adapted to the most extreme conditions. A world still to be discovered.

The term nama, which gives this desert its name, means ‘a vast place’ and it may be used to describe a 1,300 km belt of sand, the oldest in the world according to the geologists and among the highest: an imposing bulwark against the Atlantic Ocean. A vast bed of schist, metamorphic rock surmounted by a more recent layer of limestone, it contains a sea of dunes, the largest in Africa – apart from the Sahara Desert, obviously.
It is the dunes that perform the role of absolute leadership, especially those facing the ocean between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
These are dunes of sand with their colours, dimensions and steep sides that challenge the viewer and his desire to climb them. They each have a name and even a voice.

A large part of the desert is located within a park called the Namib Naukluft Park, the largest reserve in Southern Africa. Starting in the early 1900s, in the area of the Swakop River, the protected area was gradually extended and today it covers almost 50,000 square kilometres. It is an enormous ancient desert that derives from two factors: almost permanent high pressure and freezing cold oceanic currents.
The first of these causes such low rainfall that there is almost no surface water. In fact, the few existing wadis (riverbeds) are almost always dry and even when it rains, their way is blocked by the dunes giving rise to the use of the term temporary oasis; they are formed by the waters of rivers in flood after infrequent rains and are unable to break through the barriers of sand and find a way to the sea.

Life-giving haze
The interaction between the cold, damp oceanic winds deriving from the cold Benguela Current which comes from the Arctic regions and the warm, dry air of the desert causes thick fog to form, especially in the early hours of the day. It is this fog that makes the Namib what it is.
The same winds that drive away the rains create the conditions for the formation of fog which it drives for tens of kilometres towards the interior enabling various species of plants and animals to capture the microscopic droplets of humidity using refined methods of relating
to the environment.

Among the unusual plants, it is worth mentioning is the Welwitschia mirabilis whose leaves are like green ribbons that grow continually from the base, up to five metres long, twisted together and resting on the ground. The ends continually become frayed, turn a brown colour, and die. It is a strange sort of plant with some characteristics of the gymnosperms which produce cones, but it also has some similarities with the angiosperms which have flowers. It is, in brief, a sort of very ancient ring in the chain of botanic conjunction. Nevertheless, what makes these plants truly exceptional is their venerable age which, in many cases, exceeds a thousand years.

The Ibex of the dunes
While the botanical plants are noted for their great age, zoology has a surprising array of specimens of rare beauty and an extraordinary way of using strategies of adaptation and not just of survival such that, if they were removed from the desert they would die. Among the foxes and black-backed jackals, it is also possible to spot one of the most elegant gazelles of Africa: the Oryx. It has an incredible way of living in harmony with the desert: it eats mostly at night to capture the moisture contained and deposited on the surface of the plants.

The silhouette of its head and long, straight diverging horns makes it a symbol not only of the Namib but of the spirit of all of Africa.
Due to its bodily structure and its large shoulder muscles, it is able to run for long distances over the sand. Its body shape, and the colour of its fur, enable the Oryx to expose a smaller surface area to the rays of the sun at its highest point.
Not even the white stains on the face and legs are accidental in that the opposite reaction to heat facilitates the circulation of the blood. The Oryx is often sighted wherever a blade of grass happens to sprout on the surface of the dunes.

Nature without borders
That same fog, so precious for the life of many living species, following its more insidious characteristics, has led to the shipwreck of many vessels. The numerous remains of shipwrecks have given the coastal area the name of Skeleton Coast, sinister both in name and appearance: it is a coastal area where ancient hulls mark the graves of a watery cemetery among the crashing of the waves and the creaking of decayed and water-logged timbers.

Some of the wrecks are to be found just a few metres from the coast, witnessing the fact that the desert is slowly expanding towards the west where the sea once was. In this African country, it is nature, not man, that reigns supreme. It supports very little agriculture and demands the importation of massive amounts of essential goods from South Africa. It is a concentration of free apices and vastness.
The beauty of this country may be appreciated in all its dimensions by flying over Namibia in a light aeroplane. Once the fog has dispersed, it is possible to follow the dividing line between the foam and the sand, looking down upon chalky white rocks that look like snow, and lines of dunes twisting like serpent tails. The best way to view the Namib is from above. Looking down, one can really appreciate the gulfs of dunes as they meet the sky, and the endless escarpment flanked by a sea of dunes and the foaming crests of an unstoppable sequence of waves.

Fossil forests
The simplicity of its etymology expresses more than many words in the nama language: sossus means ‘the place where the water collects’, and vlei is a South African term that means ‘a hollow place that fills with water during the rainy season’. The area of Sossusvlei opens up among the dunes and gives one to understand that, in the past, the area was regularly flooded with water, the reason why in some areas deposits of silt have accumulated which gave their origin to the gleaming white pans (saline pools). In the course of time, the dunes invaded much of the base, leaving some areas uncovered that remained miraculously free, though surrounded by mountains of sand, due to the favourable winds.

Among the many, the one that leaves one breathless is the Daedvlei. The name refers to the acacia trunks that dot the landscape, the remains of an epoch when water was plentiful, and vegetation flourished. They are, as it were, petrified and stand out against the white of the ground and the dark red of the sand in the background. Contemplation is the only suitable way to react to this place which the soft winds, the dry air and the absence of insects and microorganisms have kept intact for at least six hundred years. Looking at the forms of the bare trees, it would seem the called-for rains ought to pour down at any moment.

Elena Dak/Africa

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission