The following news briefs were recently published by Catholic News Service:
Shooting in Brazilian cathedral leaves five dead, four injured
SAO PAULO – A gunman opened fire inside a Brazilian Church, killing four people and injuring four others before turning the gun on himself, police said. The shooting occurred Dec. 11 just as parishioners from Our Lady of the Conception Cathedral in Campinas, near Sao Paulo, were leaving a midday Mass. “I conducted the Mass at 12.15, at the end of the Mass a person came firing and made some victims, nobody could do anything, or help at all,” said Father Amauri Thomazzi in an emotional video posted on his social media account hours after the incident. Police identified the gunman as Euler Fernando Grandolpho, 49, of Valinhos, a nearby city in the densely populated state of Sao Paulo. Police said the gunman fired more than 20 shots before being cornered by officers near the altar and killing himself. In a telegram sent Dec. 12 to Father Jose Eduardo Meschiatti, administrator of the Archdiocese of Campinas, by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, Pope Francis expressed his sadness after hearing news of the attack and “assured his solidarity and spiritual comfort to the families who have lost their loved ones.”
Strasbourg bishop speaks of ‘lucid madness’ after terror attack
STRASBOURG, France – At noon Dec. 12, the bells of every Catholic Church in Strasbourg rang for 10 minutes to honor the victims of a terror attack at a Christmas market the previous day. On Dec. 11, a shooter opened fire on the crowd, killing at least two and injuring 12 others. Police said the suspect, a 29-year-old man presumably linked to radical Islam, fled the scene after he was injured by soldiers. The attacker was said to have yelled “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) during the incident. Police said the suspect was radicalized while in prison. “Once again, once again, terrorist violence has struck us,” Archbishop Luc Ravel of Strasbourg said in a Dec. 12 statement. He said he felt the same “vertigo” he had after the 2015 terror attacks in Paris. “Vertigo in front of the lucid madness of the assassin, who should not make anyone believe that his act is rational or religious. It is absolutely necessary that all religious authorities rigorously denounce this vicious rapprochement between God and terrorism,” wrote Archbishop Ravel. Pope Francis expressed his “sadness and concern” after learning of the attack in Strasbourg, as well as his “firm condemnation against such acts.”
Pope: Protecting human dignity must be government priority
VATICAN CITY – Protecting human dignity and human rights must always be at the heart of any action by world leaders to confront the many humanitarian crises afflicting today’s world, Pope Francis said. Meeting with new, non-resident ambassadors to the Vatican Dec. 13, the Pope noted the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and said governments must ensure the document continue to “guide the efforts of global diplomacy to secure peace in our world and to promote the integral development of each individual and all peoples. It is essential that respect for human dignity and human rights inspire and direct every effort to address the grave situations of war and armed conflict, crushing poverty, discrimination and inequality that afflict our world and in recent years have contributed to the present crisis of mass migration,” he said. After receiving their letters of accreditation, the Pope welcomed the 10 new ambassadors who hailed from Switzerland, Malta, the Bahamas, Cape Verde, Estonia, Iceland, Turkmenistan, Grenada, Qatar and Gambia.
USCCB welcomes Treasury Department guidance on ‘parking lot tax’
WASHINGTON – The chairmen of two U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committees welcomed a new explanation from the Treasury Department that relaxed rules on the payment of taxes by Churches and nonprofits that offer employee parking. Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, of the Committee for Religious Liberty, and Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said the revisions, which will allow many nonprofit employers to retroactively reduce nondeductible parking expenses, were needed. In a Dec. 11 statement, the prelates also called for the full repeal of a provision in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that would tax houses of worship and other nonprofits for parking and transit benefits they provide to their employees. The USCCB joined other faith-based organizations in November in urging the repeal of what became known as the “parking lot tax.
Religious freedom laws meant to be ‘shield, not sword,’ says speaker
WASHINGTON – Religious freedom is widely misunderstood, prone to being used only for political purposes and is identified by the public mostly with the Republican politicians. And its enshrinement in law requires constant vigilance on all sides. Those were some of the conclusions of a Dec. 13 panel sponsored by the Religious Freedom Center at the Newseum in Washington. The main topic was supposed to be the role of women as heads of religious freedom organizations. Instead, the discussion moved quickly onto the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress in 1993, and the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Human Rights Commission, decided June 4 by the Supreme Court in favor of baker Jack Phillips, who had cited his Christian beliefs on traditional marriage in refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The court ruled 7-2 in favor of Phillips under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The baker said his religious views also prevented him from making Halloween-themed or satanic-themed items.