Catholic News Service has published briefs on the following topics: Working in Sudan war zone; Venezuelan bishops meet Pope; Spanish victim of London attackers; Peril of global warming.
Gomez: Amid climate worries are ‘human ecology’ issues, like homelessness
LOS ANGELES (CNS) — As reaction swirled around President Donald Trump’s June 1 decision to withdraw the country from the Paris climate accord, Los Angeles received a report on “the dramatic increase in the numbers of our brothers and sisters who are homeless,” said Archbishop Jose H. Gomez. “Each night in the county of Los Angeles — nearly 58,000 people have no place to call home,” the archbishop wrote June 6 in Angelus, the online news site of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. “Personally, I am worried about the quality of life here in Los Angeles. Every day, it seems the distance grows wider between those who have what they need for a dignified life and those who do not,” he said, adding that the lack of affordable housing “is directly related to ‘the human ecology.’ Human life and human nature must be protected and cared for — our rights and dignity, the needs of our bodies, minds and spirit,” the archbishop said. Trump’s action on the Paris accord “provoked deep concern everywhere about the future of the earth we live on,” Archbishop Gomez said. “Concern about global warming and climate change is real. The U.S. bishops have long supported the need for prudent action and dialogue about the impacts of climate change, especially as they affect the poorest and most vulnerable people.”
U.S. Catholic honored as missionary, physician working in Sudan war zone
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Hidden in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, a war zone for the past few years, a U.S. Catholic missionary, Dr. Tom Catena, ministers to a village of 750,000 people as the single medical doctor in the area. He says his faith is the primary motivation for his work and that he relies on his faith to keep up with the unrelenting nature of his work. “We have very clear directives from our Lord as to how to treat our brothers and sisters who are ‘the least of these,'” Catena said in a June 5 email to Catholic News Service. Catena received the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity May 28 in Yerevan, Armenia, for his work among the people in Sudan. The Aurora Prize has been awarded annually since 2015 “to an individual whose actions have had an exceptional impact on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes,” according to the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative’s website. Founded in an effort to honor the lives lost in the Armenian genocide of 100 years ago — when 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks — the foundation supports individuals who dedicate their lives to serving those in need.
Amid nation’s crisis, Venezuelan bishops meet Pope
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After meeting Pope Francis and seeing how moved he was by their description of the crisis gripping Venezuela, the leaders of the country’s bishops’ conference said they hoped the Pope would help draw the world’s attention to the suffering of their people. “The Pope was truly moved by the situation and well informed about everything,” said Archbishop Diego Padron Sanchez of Cumana, conference president. Briefing reporters June 8 after meeting the Pope, the archbishop said the bishops hope the Pope will speak out about the situation “so the world will know its gravity.” The bishops requested the meeting as the country’s political and economic crisis became increasingly violent and after the country’s president tried to claim he had the support of Pope Francis. “There is no distance between the episcopal conference and the Holy See,” Archbishop Padron said. The bishops gave Pope Francis a dossier on the nearly 70 people — both government supporters and backers of the opposition — who have been killed in anti-government protests since April.
Spanish victim of London attackers recalled for commitment to justice
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — The Spanish government paid tribute to a Catholic man stabbed to death as he used his skateboard to try to defend a woman from a knife-wielding terrorist in London. Ignacio Echeverria, 39, native of Spain working in London for a year, was one of eight victims of three assailants who drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before they attacked people randomly with knives and machetes in nearby Borough Market the evening of June 3. The Spaniard, a Catholic and the nephew of a deceased bishop, was returning from a skateboard park when he stumbled upon the atrocity and saw one of the terrorists repeatedly stabbing a woman. Witnesses have reported that Echeverria used his skateboard as a weapon against the terrorist before he was fatally wounded himself. The Spanish government said in a statement that Echeverria’s relatives and friends “are not alone in their pain, and that, today, Spain is with them, sharing their feelings and desolation and joined with them in this terrible moment.”
World ignores warming, pollution of oceans at own peril, say speakers
UNITED NATIONS (CNS) — If left unchecked, warming, pollution, and acidification of the world’s oceans will have drastic socio-ecological consequences, particularly for people who depend on the water for their livelihoods, according to speakers at the June 5-9 Ocean Conference at the United Nations. The high-level conference was convened to support the implementation of the organization’s Sustainable Development Goal 14, “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were unanimously adopted in 2015 by 193 U.N. member states. The conference drew more than 3,500 participants representing countries, U.N. agencies, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. They examined myriad human threats to the oceans and sought to mobilize urgent and tangible action to reverse the observable cycle of ocean decline. Speakers repeatedly noted that billions of the world’s people depend on the oceans for their main source of food and millions of others draw their livelihood from the seas. Tourism, trade and other major economic activities depend on healthy oceans, they said. Oceans cover 72 percent of the earth’s surface and serve as the primary regulator of the global climate. They supply one-half of the oxygen people breathe and absorb one-third of the carbon dioxide they produce, as well as almost all of the excess heat.