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(Vatican Radio) Over a million South Sudanese refugees, who've fled across the border with Uganda, are struggling for survival in one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

South Sudan, which gained independence from its northern neighbour in 2011, spiraled  into civil war after President Salva Kiir fired his vice president and rival, Riek Machar, two years later.

A regionally mediated peace agreement, signed in 2015, failed within months and since then over a third of the population has fled from the violence that has spread across the country.

Italian Comboni missionary, Fr Tonino Pasolini, has spent the past half century in Uganda, currently serving as media director for Arua diocese on the border with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He founded and runs Radio Pacis, a multi-lingual radio station bringing a message of peace and reconciliation, as tensions between the refugees and the local population continue to rise.

Fr Tonino talked to Philippa Hitchen about what his radio station is trying to do to support all those caught up in this forgotten refugee crisis…

Listen: 

Fr Tonino explains that Radio Pacis began 13 years ago with just one frequency, but soon added another to cope with the many local languages used throughout the region. Recently a third frequency has been opened in Gulu and the radio currently reaches more than 10 million people, including listeners across the border in the DRC and Southern Sudan.

He notes that since July 2016, the influx of South Sudanese to Arua diocese has been at a rate of 4.000 a day. The refugees walk for days through the bush, for fear of being killed by the army or rebels on the roads and many die along the way.

UNHCR doing 'wonderful job'

New arrivals, Fr Tonino says, are picked up by the UNHCR that is “doing a wonderful job”, despite a severe shortage of funds. They are taken to camps where they are screened, registered, and given a jerry can, a basin, a hoe, some blankets and some poles to build a shelter for the night.

Though there has been some much-needed rain in the region, Fr Tonino continues, many refugees are going hungry and there are also growing tensions with local residents, who have been very generous in supporting the new arrivals. But over a million have arrived in the past year, he says, 86 percent of them women and children: what is their future, he asks?  

Local Church support for refugees

The local Caritas is doing what it can to support the refugees, funded by donors in Europe, Fr Tonino says, but the numbers are “overwhelming”. Some missionaries have also come from South Sudan to support their people in the settlements.

Radio Pacis also provides a vital contribution by spreading a message of hope and helping people to recognize that “unless each refugee becomes a peace maker, reconciling him or herself with neighbors from other tribes, there will be no peace in South Sudan”.

Message of peace and reconciliation

Through a weekly roundtable programme called 'Community Voices', Fr Tonino says, the radio can also help Ugandans understand the plight of the refugees and be more ready to welcome them.

Asked why there is no media attention to this crisis, Fr Tonino says he believes that “Italy or other countries in Europe have no economic interest in Uganda or South Sudan, so why care for those people?” While it is “painful to hear, here in Italy, about migrants arriving”, he reflects, the numbers “are very few in comparison” but “nobody talks about that”.

Visit by Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury

Finally Fr Tonino shares his hopes for a planned visit by Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to South Sudan, which was postponed due to a lack of security guarantees.  “The only way would be to come and visit refugees in northern Uganda” he says, but such as visit would help to capture media attention, just as a visit by the new UN Secretary General did a few months ago.

Through the presence of these two leaders, he says, people might talk about this issue “so that international community would do something”. Otherwise, he says, no one within South Sudan at the moment seems able “to develop reconciliation and peace between these two peoples”. 

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Denver, Colo., Aug 1, 2017 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After the US Department of Justice did not drop its appeal of a contraceptive mandate lawsuit by the Catholic Benefits Association on Monday, the group expressed its disappointment.

“It is disappointing that that process hasn’t moved forward. It does seem to be stalled currently,” Douglas Wilson, CEO of the Catholic Benefits Association, told CNA Tuesday.

Catholic Benefits Association is comprised of over 700 Catholic employers, including dioceses, schools, hospitals, and social service agencies. The group helps the employers provide quality Catholic health care in accordance with Church teaching.

The association had previously asked the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to drop the government’s appeal of their lawsuit against the HHS contraceptive mandate. The Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the government until July 31 to reply to CBA’s request.

In a July 27 statement, Wilson said that “President Trump took an important first step by instructing these agencies to change their mandate and to protect religious liberty.”

“HHS and DOJ need to follow President Trump's lead by dropping their appeal by July 31,” he said.

CBA had filed a motion in court asking either for “summary affirmance” of its claim that the HHS contraceptive mandate was illegal, or for the administration to drop its appeal of the case.

The Department of Justice was given until July 31 by the Tenth Circuit Court to reply, and said on Monday that it was still working on a final rule on exemptions from the contraceptive mandate.

Wilson said on Tuesday that the CBA wants the administration “to get those interim regulations filed and promulgated as soon as possible.”

The Catholic Benefits Association is one of dozens of non-profit organizations which sued the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration over the contraceptive mandate and its “accommodation” offered to objecting entities.

While the mandate ordered employers to provide cost-free coverage in their employee health plans for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, the government offered an “accommodation” to non-profits that conscientiously objected to complying with the mandate. They would notify the government or the third party administrator of their plan of their objection, and their administrator would then provide the coverage to the employees.

Many non-profits, including the Archdiocese of Washington and the Little Sisters of the Poor, claimed that this “accommodation” still forced them to cooperate with morally-objectionable practices of providing access to contraceptives.

Last year, in the middle of the contraceptive mandate case Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts and directed both parties to come to an agreement where the interests of the government – providing coverage for contraceptives and the other drugs and procedures – were respected, while the religious liberty of objecting parties was also respected.

However, even under the Trump administration the Department of Justice had not stopped its appeals of the HHS mandate cases. On May 4, however, President Donald Trump announced that, as part of his religious freedom executive order, the objecting religious non-profits would receive relief from the mandate.

He told the non-profits and the nuns present from the Little Sisters of the Poor that “your long ordeal will soon be over” and that “we are ending the attacks on your religious freedom.”

HHS Secretary Tom Price said the agency “will be taking action in short order to follow the President’s instruction to safeguard the deeply held religious beliefs of Americans who provide health insurance to their employees.”

A draft interim final rule from the HHS was leaked in May, which reportedly carved out religious exemptions from the mandate for the objecting non-profits that were more broad than the narrow exemptions determined by the Obama administration, which applied to churches and very few other religious groups.

Becket, a religious freedom law firm defending many of the objectors to the HHS mandate, said the language in the draft would offer sufficient protections from the mandate for the religious groups.

In the draft, the government also admitted in the draft that the contraceptive mandate did not advance a compelling governmental interest, which is one of the necessary qualifications for a law that infringes upon someone’s sincere religious beliefs to succeed the test, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

However, the administration’s rule has not yet been released. The Catholic Benefits Association finally filed a motion in court asking the government to drop its appeal of the HHS mandate case, and citing the government’s admission in the draft rule that the mandate did not further a “compelling governmental interest.”

The court gave the government a July 31 deadline to reply to the motion. On Monday, the Department of Justice replied that the administration was still in the process of crafting the final rule for religious non-profits and the contraceptive mandate, and asked the court to suspend the motion until the process was finished.

“As we explained in our status report of July 14, 2017, the new Administration has initiated the rulemaking process to amend the regulations at issue here,” the agency said on Monday. “That process has not, however, reached conclusion. This Court has properly maintained abeyances in related cases while the rulemaking process proceeds, and it should do the same here.”

In response, Wilson said that “the Tenth Circuit made clear that it wanted the government’s response to address ‘with specificity’ the arguments in our motion, which of course they have not done to date.”

The agency had initially requested from CBA an extension to reply to the motion, which CBA would have opposed, Wilson said. However, later on Monday, the agency instead filed a short brief in response to the motion.

“We’re disappointed in that all of the facts come to our side of the equation, they favor our argument,” Wilson said. He said that “we’re very heartened that the response that they filed is in our opinion lacking in substance, and we feel hopeful that the court’s going to see it the same way.”

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Santa Rosa, Calif., Aug 1, 2017 / 03:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The impact of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the Americas should encourage Christians in the U.S. to continue to evangelize, even when their country seems headed in the wrong direction, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has said.

“Guadalupe is the true ‘founding event’ in American history. And that means it is the true founding event in the history of our country — and in the history of all the other countries in North and South America,” Archbishop Gomez said July 27. “We are all children of Guadalupe.”

“In God’s plan, this is one continent. It is meant to begin new civilization. A new world of faith,” he reflected.

“Our Lady did not appear only for the Mexican people. Her intentions were continental and universal,” the archbishop said. He cited the account based on St. Juan Diego’s testimony, in which Mary described herself as “truly your compassionate Mother; your Mother and the Mother to all who dwell in this land and to all other nations and peoples.”

The impact of Our Lady of Guadalupe was immense, he added. Within just a few years of the Marian apparition, millions had been baptized, and missionary efforts like St. Junipero Serra’s fanned out from Mexico.

“A great wave of holiness swept through the continents — raising up saints and heroes of the faith in every country,” Archbishop Gomez said.

He spoke at the Napa Institute Summer Conference in Napa, Calif., about 40 miles southeast of Santa Rosa. The conference aims to consider challenges facing Catholic leaders in contemporary America

“My simple point today is that each one of us is a part of that story — part of the great mission to America that began with the visitation of the Virgin of Guadalupe,” the archbishop continued.
 
“The Church in this country — and every one of us — has the responsibility to continue the task that the Virgin gave to St. Juan Diego. To ‘build a shrine’ with our lives. To build a society that glorifies God and is worthy of the dignity of the human person,” he said.

For the archbishop, Our Lady of Guadalupe can reach a “post-Christian” society and provides “a way to think about our Christian lives and mission in the years ahead.”

Recognizing a common “sense of urgency” about the direction of the country, he suggested, “it is like we all woke up to discover that American society is being progressively ‘de-Christianized’.”

For Archbishop Gomez, American institutions and national self-identity were meant to be shaped by “the vision and values of the gospel.” America promised a commitment to human dignity and freedom under the Creator.

At the same time, he granted, “there are too many ways our nation has never lived up to Christian values.” He named slavery, the mistreatment of native peoples, and ongoing injustices such as racism and abortion.

Even with past influence of Christianity, “all that is changing right now.”

“We face an aggressive, organized agenda by elite groups who want to eliminate the influence of Christianity from our society,” Archbishop Gomez said, noting that Christian beliefs are being labeled as hatred or intolerance. He pointed to lawsuits against Church institutions which believe what Christ  taught and which do not want to cooperate with “practices we find immoral or dehumanizing.”

“My friends, we do not have the luxury to choose the times we live in. These are hard times. There is no denying it,” he said. “But the saints remind us that all times in the Church are dangerous times.”

The archbishop said Christians must ask these questions: “how does God want us to shape our times? What is the path that Jesus Christ would have us follow in this moment in our nation’s history?”

“We need to follow the path that the Virgin sets before us — the path of building a new civilization of love and truth in the Americas,” he said.

Archbishop Gomez reflected on several themes from the story of Guadalupe: vocation, education, life, culture and family. These themes suggest a strategy for Christian living

Just as Our Lady of Guadalupe asked Juan Diego to build a shrine “to show, praise and testify to God” where people could find God’s love, compassion, help and salvation, God is calling Christians “to ‘build a shrine’ with our lives,” the archbishop said.

“Through our work and the way we live. God is calling us to bear witness to his salvation, to the difference that Jesus Christ makes in our lives,” Archbishop Gomez continued. “He is calling us to show his love and compassion to our brothers and sisters.”

St. Juan Diego had objected to the Virgin Mary that he was not strong enough or holy enough to do what she wanted.

Her response was: “Understand that I have many servants and messengers who I could send to deliver my message and do my will. But it is absolutely necessary that you yourself go.”

The Los Angeles archbishop exhorted his audience to evangelize: “We are here to share this beautiful treasure of our relationship with the living God — who became a man for us, who gave his life to save us and to make us into a new humanity. Who is living with us now and walking with us as our Friend.”

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Montgomery, Ala., Aug 1, 2017 / 04:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal judge has struck down an Alabama law requiring more scrutiny for minors who seek an abortion without parental consent.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Russ Walker said that the law governing judicial bypass requests unconstitutionally imposes an undue burden on a minor who seeks an abortion. She said the law violates the minor’s confidentiality by possibly bringing other people from her life into the process, the Associated Press reports.

The State of Alabama had argued the law would allow a meaningful inquiry to judge the minor’s maturity while providing a “confidential, and expeditious option for a teenager who seeks an abortion without parental consent.” Other backers of the law said it helped give guidance to the minor.

State law requires minors who can’t secure parental consent for abortion to seek court permission. The 2014 law modified the process to allow a judge to appoint a guardian “for the interests of the unborn child.” The law allows the local district attorney to call witnesses and question the girl to determine her maturity level. If the minor’s parents or guardians learn of the hearing they may also be involved.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama had filed the lawsuit in 2014 on behalf of the Montgomery abortion clinic Reproductive Health Services.

Judge Walker cited the case of a 12-year-old pregnant girl who had been raped by a relative. She was 13 weeks pregnant when she went before a family court judge, who approved the abortion on June 27. The district attorney appealed the decision on the grounds the fifth grader was not mature enough to make an informed decision. On July 12 the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled in the girl’s favor.

The judge said that a minor seeking permission for abortion could face both a lawyer appointed for the unborn baby and the chief prosecutor in her county, who is “empowered by the act to represent the state's public policy to protect unborn life, and backed by substantial state resources.”

The Alabama attorney general’s office said it is reviewing the decision.

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Vatican City, Aug 1, 2017 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After violence followed a controversial vote in Venezuela this weekend, the Vatican Secretary of State has encouraged the country's citizens to find a "peaceful and democratic" way out of the crisis.

The violence comes on the heels of a vote for an assembly charged by the country's socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, with writing a new constitution.

According to ANSA news agency, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said that he and Pope Francis are "very committed" to seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. The Vatican has been "seeking to help all, indiscriminately, and calling each person to fulfill their own responsibility."

"The criteria should be only the good of the people,” he said. "The dead are too many and I do not think there are other criteria to follow that is not in the common good of the people," he insisted.

With that in mind, Cardinal Parolin said that “it is necessary to find a peaceful and democratic way to get out of this situation, and the only way is always the same: we must find, talk, but seriously, to find a way to solution."

His statements come only days after July 30 nation-wide elections, which approved a constitutional assembly to reform the country’s 1999 constitution. However, some reports and members of Venezuela’s opposition have disputed the fairness of the elections, which were boycotted by the opposition.

Although the government claims that more than 8 million voters attended, the Democratic Unity Table, an organization monitoring the election, reported that only 2.4 million votes, or 12 percent of eligible voters, were cast, of which a quarter would have voted “no”.

Furthermore, in the days leading up to and following the election, uprisings and protests swept throughout the country. Conflicts between protestors and the country’s Bolivarian National Guard have resulted in the death of at least 15 people, including two minors.

According to critic of the Maduro regime and Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz, "10 people lost their lives surrounding Sunday's vicious election, totaling 121 deaths since the protests began in April.”

The constitutional revisions have been rejected by the Venezuelan bishops for being not only "unconstitutional, but also unnecessary, inconvenient and harmful for the Venezuelan people."

In their message of July 27, the bishops said that Maduro's initiative "has not been convened by the people, has unacceptable commissions, and only the partisans of the ruling party will be represented there."

"It will be a biased and biased instrument that will not solve, but will aggravate the acute problems of high cost of living, the shortage of food and medicines that suffer the people, and deepen and worsen the deep political crisis we currently face," .

Two opposition leaders, Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, have been re-arrested following the vote.

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