Prosecutor confirms existence of Vatican dossier on disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor confirmed at a public event on Wednesday that despite prior denials, the Vatican does possess a confidential file on the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi — the so-called “Vatican girl” who went missing over 40 years ago.

The Vatican “found” the file, it does “exist,” the Vatican’s promoter of justice, Alessandro Diddi, said at a book presentation in Rome on Nov. 27, according to Italian media.

Orlandi’s brother, Pietro Orlandi, has maintained for years that the Vatican had information on his missing sister that it was withholding from the Italian authorities.

Diddi said Wednesday the content of the dossier is confidential, but the Vatican continues to collaborate with Italy in its new investigation into how the 15-year-old Emanuela disappeared in 1983.

Orlandi was the daughter of an envoy of the prefecture of the pontifical house and a citizen of Vatican City State. Her disappearance at age 15 in June 1983 has been one of Italy’s biggest unsolved mysteries and, since it occurred, the subject of international intrigue, including speculation about the Vatican’s role.

Public interest in the case was also rekindled in 2022 after the release of the true-crime documentary “Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi” on Netflix.

At the request of Orlandi’s family, the Vatican conducted a new investigation into the case at the beginning of 2023, sharing its findings with Rome prosecutors that summer.

In November 2023, the Italian Senate voted to begin a new parliamentary inquiry into Orlandi and another girl who went missing in Rome around the same time.

The four-year parliamentary commission has “full investigative powers” and a budget of 50,000 euros per year to shed light on the 1983 disappearance of the two girls.

140-year-old ‘Blackfriar site’ back in Catholic hands

An Australian property that was once operated by the Blackfriars – an Oxford-based community of the Dominican Order – has returned to Catholic ownership, after 140 years. 

Acquired by the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA), the building will be put to use by Sydney Catholic Early Childhood Services (SCECS), a leading provider of early childhood education in Sydney. 

A report from Catholic Weekly refers to the building as “the Blackfriars site at Broadway,” which adjoins St. Benedict’s Church, also on Broadway. 

Prior to the sale, the site was owned by the University of Technology Sydney, which ran an early childhood centre from the facility.

UNDA Chancellor Christopher Ellison explained that the Blackfriars site will continue to offer these services, but under a different management: 

“By investing in the historic Blackfriars site, we can continue to grow the Sydney campus adjacent to St. Benedict’s and with it, tertiary offerings at UNDA Sydney into the future. This will leave a legacy for generations of students to come,” Ellison said. 

The site was originally developed by the Catholic Church to become a public school known as Blackfriar Primary School. 

Over the course of the 20th century, however, the school transitioned ownership several times to become the Sydney Teachers College and eventually was purchased by the University of Technology Sydney. 

SCECS CEO Franceyn O’Connor hailed the previous owners for the services they offered and assured the community that they will continue under the new leadership of the SCECS. 

One of the leading providers of early childhood education in Sydney, the SCECS offers before and after school care, as well as vacation care across Sydney.

The not-for-profit operates five early learning centres and more than 60 care service centers across New South Wales.

“The current children’s service is a thriving community hub for families living and working in the city. SCECS looks forward to joining and enriching this community, working beside UNDA in providing a centre of excellence for professional learning in early childhood services,” O’Connor said. 

Executive Director of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Michael Digges, expressed his excitement over the acquisition of the property, pointing to the “longstanding and personal relationship” between the Archdiocese and the UNDA.

He called it a milestone for the relationship between the two entities, which dates back to 2003, when the late Cardinal George Pell invited the university to Australia. 

Auxiliary Bishop Richard Umbers of Sydney echoed the sentiments and reiterated the Church’s commitment to education. He said: 

“For over 200 years, the Catholic Church has been the leading provider of education in Australia. The expansion of the University of Notre Dame Australia at Broadway underscores the significance of education as an integral part of our ministry.” 

Bishop accused of bullying begins return to work

Scotland's first female bishop - who has been accused of bullying - has begun a phased return to work.

The Scottish Episcopal Church's Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, the Right Reverend Anne Dyer, was suspended in 2022 and was due to face a disciplinary tribunal after three complaints were made against her.

However, following a review the church's independent procurator decided last month it was not in the public interest to pursue matters any further.

Her diocese said in a statement she had now begun her return to her clerical duties and would be assisted by another bishop initially.

Bishop Dyer had been expected to return to work last month - but it then emerged she was on sick leave after a new complaint was received.

The nature of this new complaint has not been disclosed and her supporters have suggested it is part of a "campaign" being waged against her.

More than 20 members of the Scottish Episcopal Church backed her return in a letter in the Church Times.

A statement from the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney said: “A phased return has been arranged, involving professional HR advice, which has allowed Bishop Anne Dyer to return to a number of her duties following the recent conclusion of a canonical complaint process."

During the Bishop’s phased return, the Right Reverend Ian Paton - who is Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane - will assist with her duties.

A separate inquiry into diocesan accounts is being carried out by the Scottish charity regulator.

US priest challenges his unfrocking over three-year communion ‘fast’

AN EPISCOPALIAN priest in the United States, the Revd Cayce Ramey, is challenging a diocesan decision to unfrock him for undertaking a three-year “fast” from communicating or presiding at the eucharist in protest at what he describes as the Church’s complicity in white supremacy.

Fr Ramey’s appeal against a decision by the diocese of Virginia to remove him from the priesthood was being heard online this week by the Court of Review of the Episcopal Church in the US.

Fr Ramey, who is white, was Rector of All Saints’, Alexandria, until he stepped down in December 2022, 18 months after beginning his fast. He resigned just after the diocese began Title IV disciplinary proceedings against him, in which he was accused of neglecting his parishioners by not administering communion.

His fast was promptEd by a visit to Ghana in 2017. While there, he toured Cape Coast Castle, a slave-trading fort, where an Anglican chapel was built immediately above the dungeon for male slaves.

“The site of the first Anglican celebration of Holy Eucharist in Ghana, was directly above hell on earth,” he wrote in a pretrial document. “Men stood in the dungeon, surrounded by and on top of bodies and blood, while an Anglican priest and a congregation of worshippers received the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

The visit moved him to pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree at Virginia Union University, a historically Black Baptist institution in Richmond. He completed the degree in 2022. “I have felt called to a prophetic voluntary fast, refraining from celebrating or receiving Holy Eucharist,” he wrote.

“I was ordained into a part of God’s church built on the wealth, power, and privilege gained from the enslavement and ongoing oppression and exploitation of Black people. . . How then can I administer the sacraments at the whites-only lunch-counter-altar built on top of the bodies and blood of people our theology enslaved?”

In material released by the diocese of Virginia, and available on its website, he pointed out that his parishioners were not denied the eucharist, as worship at All Saints’ was carried out with neighbouring congregations.

Some parishioners also wrote in support of Fr Ramey’s fast. One, Dixie Ross, emailed him on May 2022 to say: “I have so much respect for those who stand up for what they believe and you are a shining example of that. I’m sorry we won’t share the eucharist together, but there are so many other ways that you are involved and celebrating Jesus’ teachings with us. I think this is a wonderful, Christ like way of practicing what you preach, literally.”

Linda James, who describes herself as a “Black woman of African descent”, wrote to him: “You are an asset to us all. Whether you choose to take eucharist or not, your presence and participation means a great deal.”

In a letter explaining his fast to the diocese, Fr Ramey said: “I believe that the white church knows our siblings have something against us, so we must act. I believe we can find repentance and reconciliation through the justice and mercy of God if we prioritize our relationship with our BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and People of Colour] siblings.”

Episcopalians must prioritise those relationships “even over the demands” of the Book of Common Prayer. “The purpose of a fast is always to bring change, healing, justice, humility and hope. I continue to long for the day I can return to the altar to celebrate in reconciled life with my siblings.”

His legal counsel told the Court of Review that there was nothing in the Church’s constitution, canons, or Book of Common Prayer “prohibiting the Eucharist fast that Father Ramey is engaged in”.

The diocese has insisted that the case is not about racism, but about discipline. “The Diocese of Virginia has acknowledged over and over and over again that there is racism throughout the Church and throughout the Church’s history,” the diocese’s attorney, Brad Davenport, said.

The Court of Review is composed of lay and ordained members from all nine provinces of the Episcopal Church.

One of its members, the Revd Gregory Jacobs, said during the live-streamed hearing, reported by Episcopal News: “My problem fundamentally with this case is one of trying to figure out how we resolve the issue around a clergyperson whose individual conscience or theological difference comes to a place where . . . he did not celebrate, he did not administer, and he did not receive Communion. And, at the same time, how do we reconcile that with the impact that that inevitably has on the community of the faithful?”

The Bishop of New Hampshire, the Rt Revd Robert Hirschfeld, asked whether another priest could refuse to distribute communion as a fast over the Church’s use of fossil fuels, its investments in weapons manufacturers, or any similar protest in the name of seeking justice.

The session closed, and the Court will review and publish its decision, with no date set for publication.

Fr Ramey’s successor as Rector of All Saints’ administers the sacrament.

Fermanagh priest condemns domestic violence increase

A LOCAL priest has said that any form of violence against women is “never justified” after Fermanagh was named as one of the most dangerous places for a woman to live in Europe.

The community was left shaken after the Herald revealed that six of the 42 females killed violently in the North, over the past eight years, have died locally in Fermanagh.

Fermanagh Women’s Aid recently reported that they annually support 400 females who have experienced violence. 

Canon Jimmy McPhillips has called on people to consider their actions.

“The scale of domestic violence in this small rural county is described as staggering, shocking and appalling,” Canon McPhillips told his congregation at Holy Cross Church on Sunday.

“What do we do as a society about this? It’s obvious that we need a U-turn because there’s a silence around those who suffer and a silence of those around those who perpetuate the abuse.”

It was recently reported that, in the North, an average of five women and girls a year are dying violent deaths, with a devastating seven females killed so far this year alone.

The Fermanagh cleric feels that males need to consider their actions and views towards women.

“The perpetrators sadly are not monsters, they’re not hiding in bushes, they are normal every day people. They are sons, husbands, fathers, brothers,” Canon McPhillips said.

“Why is this happening? [It’s] A difficult question to answer but we do know that we have systemic and endemic issues around discrimination against women in society today.

“Whether that is in society around equal pay, positions of power, jokes that we tell when we’re out on a night. We know that we have a major problem around all of that.

“While this may not raise eyebrows and seem quite harmless, these things can lead to what we’re talking about, the rise in domestic violence and the taking of women’s lives,” he added.

The Newtownbutler priest also feels that religious leaders and people in authority need to take a tougher stance on the worrying rise in violence, in a bid to save the lives of innocent women.

“While women are not incapable of violence and we know that men also suffer and are slower to come forward about abuse, it’s men and men’s attitudes that needs to change,” Canon McPhillips said.

“As a church, we need to state as clearly as we can that violence against women inside or outside the home is never justified.

“Violence in any form whether it be physical, sexually, psychological or verbal is sinful and it’s a crime and a criminal offence.”

In Chile, priest is stabbed by homeless man who he used to help

A priest was attacked and stabbed by a homeless man on Nov. 24 in Santiago, as he was arriving to the rectory late at night. The aggressor was identified and detained by the police on Nov. 26.

Spanish-born Father Eduardo Rodríguez Yunta, 67, was coming back from an adoration of the blessed sacrament in another parish and noticed that somebody was inside his house, which is connected to the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Quilicura, which is in the metropolitan area of Santiago.

When he got into the rectory, Rodríguez saw a homeless man who used to ask for help in the parish. The invader demanded money from the priest and stabbed him at least two times, hitting his shoulder and his stomach. Before escaping, the criminal took a computer, a cell phone and some cash.

The priest was taken to the hospital of the Catholic University of Santiago, where he has taught different classes and has been part of ethics committees over the years. His condition was presented by the doctors as “serious, although without risks to his life.”

“The knife failed to attain one of his kidneys by only one millimeter,” a member of the parish who preferred to remain anonymous told Crux.

Considered to be a highly benevolent and charitable person by the members of his parish, Rodríguez at first declined to press charges against the attacker, but his assistants in the parish ended up persuading him to do so in order to avoid new occurrences.

The Chilean police had been investigating the case since then and finally detained the suspect two days after the crime. He is a 30-year-old homeless man with a long criminal record, having been previously detained for felonies including robbery, theft, drug possession, and carrying a weapon.

On Nov. 27, the Archdiocese of Santiago announced that Rodríguez left the hospital on the previous day and was sent to a home in order to rest and complete his recovery.

“We talked to him. He is feeling well and is already trying to organize his future activities. He took it in stride and is excited to go back to work,” the parish member said.

“The community of the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been permanently accompanying its vicar with its presence, prayers, and solidarity. As the Archdiocese of Santiago, we have been collaborating with them,” the archdiocese said in a statement.

The local Church also said the appropriate legal actions are being taken.

“As the Church of Santiago, we continue praying for the priest’s recovery, for its community and for all people facing vulnerability who everyday need our affection and attention,” the document read.

Rodríguez has been living and working in Chile for 27 years. He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of New York and a Master’s in Moral Theology from Saint John’s University.

His parish promotes a number of charitable works. It has a public refectory where up to 100 people can have a meal free of charge every Saturday.

“Father Rodríguez has a missionary zeal and is known for his solidarity. He always tries to help the people who go for him,” the parish member said.

The parish is located in an area that tends to be busy during the day but desolate during the night. In front of the church, a gas station used to house a number of drug addicts during the night. Rodríguez has always kept the doors open for everybody, so when people from that group approached him and asked for money or food, he usually helped them.

“About a year ago, one of them attacked and wounded a cleaning worker here,” the parish member recalled.

The person said the authorities have recently removed the group of drug addicts from the place, but violent acts continue to occur in the region.

“Many times, parishioners have been attacked and robbed. We complained about it with the authorities for months, but nothing has been done,” the parish member added.

Historically known as a safe country, an exception in South America, Chile has been seeing an unprecedented rise in the number of violent crimes over the past couple of years. The nation has become part of the route of international drug trafficking and criminal organizations from neighboring countries have installed branches there.

“A few months ago, attackers got out of a car and shot three people dead with machine guns in our region. Something like that used to be unthinkable in the past,” the person said.

Rodríguez, who has always lived alone in the parish, will now have to be accompanied for safety, the parish member said.

Inclusion of Isaac the Syrian in Roman Martyrology ‘a wonderful step forward'

Earlier this month, Pope Francis announced that Isaac the Syrian, a 7th century desert-dwelling mystic and hermit, and a saint of the Church of the East, would be added to the Roman Martyrology.

St Isaac had long been renowned for the beauty and power of his spiritual writings, but until now not been officially venerated outside his native Church of the East - an ancient Christian body indigenous to modern day Iraq and Iran, which split from the rest of Christianity after the Council of Ephesus in 431.

'Made in Prison' tote bag for Jubilee 2025 in support and solidarity with inmates

Recycled material and a “Made in Prison” tag will identify the “official” Jubilee 2025 tote bags that symbolize the hope, forgiveness and restoration that are at the heart of a Jubilee Year.

The bags, made by women prison inmates in cooperation with a social cooperative, are one of the products resulting from a vocational training course aimed at restoring dignity and helping the women prepare for reintegration into work and society.

The prisoners involved are given the opportunity to acquire technical and professional skills, allowing them to work, earn a regular salary, and, most importantly, rebuild awareness and self-worth, while the bags will be available for purchase at the official Jubilee info point in Rome.

Each tote will feature there the name of the Dicastery for Evangelization and materials used

include fabrics and objects recycled from items created for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2016.

This initiative is one of the "Signs of Hope" initiatives dedicated to the vulnerable marginalized, as called for by Pope Francis in the Jubilee Bull Spes non Confundit.

And signalling his closeness to the incarcerated, the Pope will exceptionally open a Holy Door at the Rebibbia prison in Rome on December 26, so – as he says in that Bull -  “It may be for them a symbol that invites them to look to the future with hope and a renewed commitment to life."

El Salvador charges ex-president with 1989 Jesuit murders

A court in El Salvador charged 11 people, including the former president Alfredo Cristiani, with complicity in the murder in 1989 of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter at the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador.

The court issued warrants on 18 November for Cristiani, the former member of Congress Rodolfo Parker, and nine retired military officers. 

Cristiani has long been accused of orchestrating the murders because of the Jesuits’ criticism of the conduct of the armed forces during El Salvador’s civil war. He left the country in 2021, as did Parker, after a trial for corruption, and was at one time believed to be in Italy. The judicial authorities issued an international alert for their arrest.

Fr José María Tojeira SJ, spokesman for the Jesuits Central American province and a former rector of UCA, said that a trial was not enough. “The ideal is that the judge makes the military ask for forgiveness for what was an institutional crime,” he wrote on social media. “To do it publicly and to promise to take clear measures so that it doesn’t happen again [after] 35 years without the armed forces taking responsibility for the crime.”

However, the Jesuits also called for reduced sentences for the accused because of their age: Cristiani is 76, and the other accused are in their late 70s or early 80s.

The charges followed UCA’s commemorations for the thirty-fifth anniversary of the murders, with a day of Masses, lectures and artistic activities culminating in a torchlight vigil. The motto for the commemoration was: “We sow hope for a harvest of freedom.” Many foreigners attended the events along with Salvadoreans.

UCA’s rector Fr Mario Cornejo SJ said: “It is important to keep their memory alive, especially to keep alive the memory of their solidarity with the victims of the civil war of yesterday and the victims of today, who suffer from insecurity in society, and also the victims who have suffered more institutional violence. For these reasons we believe that it is important to keep alive their legacy to learn solidarity.”

Security experts warn of ‘basic security failures’ after Vatican website crash

A Vatican website crash last week bears the hallmarks of a cyberattack, security experts say, highlighting the Vatican’s online exposure to the prospect of interference from malicious actors.

Most of the Vatican’s website crashed Nov. 19, and remained unavailable for several days in some parts of the world.

While the Vatican has not confirmed the origin of the issue, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni gave indication over the weekend that Vatican officials themselves suspect an attack on their web servers.

Bruni said over the weekend that there was an “abnormal number of interactions” on the servers, which, in combination with the countermeasures used, led to the current issues on the servers.

Experts believe that the abnormal number of interactions is consistent with a DDoS attack, although the source of such an attack is unclear. At the Vatican, some have suspected that a cyberattack might have been timed to coincide with the Nov. 20 Vatican visit of Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska.

If the site crash was a cyberattack, it would be the latest in a large series of politically-motivated cyber attacks against the Vatican.

In 2015, the personal data of Vatican radio journalists and the Vatican’s website was hacked twice by hacking group Anonymous.

In 2018, both the Vatican and the Diocese of Hong Kong were affected by supposedly Chinese regime-backed hackers RedDelta ahead of talks to renew a provisional agreement on episcopal appointments.

In 2022, the Vatican’s website went down a day after the Pope criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Theresa Payton, a former White House technology director, told The Pillar this week that the Vatican’s remarks on the subject indicate what kind of attack might have disabled the site.

“The phrase ‘abnormal number of interactions’ strongly hints at automated bot activity, which may include a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack aimed at overwhelming the Vatican’s servers,” said Payton, who is CEO of Fortalice Solutions and was White House chief information officer between 2006 and 2008,

“This kind of disruption could be a ruse to conduct a separate physical or digital attack,” she explained.

A DDoS attack proceeds by automatically directing a large number of requests to a server until the server collapses. Cybersecurity experts usually compare it to a phone getting too many calls at the same time, leading to its collapse.

“Another possibility is they may have observed a surge in failed login attempts, possibly from brute-force bot attacks, which aim to crack passwords and gain unauthorized access,” Payton added.

DDoS attacks are usually conducted through bots that lead a server to crash due to the volume of requests. Their goal is not to access private information but to simply crash a website to prevent users from using it.

“Usually, DDOS attacks are from either nation-states or organized criminal gangs that operate with their blessing. With AI tools, DDOS attacks could be done by non-affiliated hackers if they were sophisticated,” Charles Brooks, a former DHS official and professor of cybersecurity at Georgetown University told The Pillar.

Brooks led a group of Catholic cybersecurity experts which urged the Holy See to create a ‘Vatican Cyber Security Authority’ in May 2023 as they were concerned about weaknesses in the Vatican's digital infrastructure.

Although DDoS attacks usually come from large-scale cyber attacks, many experts believe that in the Vatican’s case, it is hard to pin down the source of the attacks because of how vulnerable the web servers are.

Andrew Jenkinson, CEO of British cybersecurity firm CIP, told The Pillar that he has been trying to warn the Holy See of their cybersecurity vulnerabilities since at least 2020.

Jenkinson showed The Pillar an analysis of the critical servers of the Vatican which were flagged as insecure and said the DNS (Domain Name System) was exposed.

“When we tried to assist in 2020 and 2021, over 90% of their websites were showing as Not Secure. There is no excuse for such basic security failures,” Jenkinson told The Pillar.

Jenkinson believes that such vulnerabilities mean that it is hard to know the source of the attacks, as the attacker would not need to mount a large-scale operation to execute the attack.

Jenkinson had warned the Vatican about their cybersecurity issues since 2020, while a report from Insikt Group, the research arm of the U.S.-based cybersecurity company Recorded Future published a report that same year calling out "a cyberespionage campaign [against the Vatican] attributed to a suspected Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group," which they referred to as RedDelta.

In an apparent response to previous attacks, in July 2024, the Directorate of Security and Civil Protection Services of the Governatorate of the Vatican and the Italian Agency for National Cybersecurity (ACN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the exchange of information, training activities and cyber security projects to enhance technical and scientific skills and expertise in the prevention of cyber-crime risk.

However, Jenkinson believes tha tthe Vatican continued to act with negligence.

“These websites are not secure, which means they can be easily hacked. The Vatican unknowingly have back doors into their websites and totally ignored what I told them over 4 years ago,” Jenkinson told The Pillar.

“DDoS attacks exploit DNS and the Vatican’s DNS records and servers are totally exposed,” he added. “We must stop letting organisations play the victim when their clear negligence enables and facilitates cybercrime. They are all but complicit.”

A professional hacker who wished to remain anonymous told The Pillar that DDoS attacks are relatively common.

“I cannot discard that this could come from a government or a criminal group, but I would take it with a grain of salt. Anyone with enough resources can execute a DDoS attack, especially if the Vatican’s servers are so vulnerable,” he said.

“One of the most basic protections for a DNS is usually an intermediary between the website you access and the server so this intermediary ‘changes’ and does not directly show the address of the server. Cloudflare is perhaps the most famous intermediary service provider,” he added.

However, according to various cybersecurity experts contacted by The Pillar, the Vatican’s servers did not have any intermediaries to protect its DNS, making such an attack way simpler.

“If the Vatican had protected its DNS, it would be quite likely that such an attack could only be conducted by an intelligence agency or a criminal group because it’s way more complex to execute,” the hacker added.

“If the DNS is exposed, namely, if it does not have these intermediaries, then, with simple requests you have access to the address of the server and orchestrate an attack, even with only basic equipment,” he said.

Once the DNS is exposed, all a cybercriminal needs to conduct an attack is several computers that automatically send the requests and crash the website.

“Here, understand computer in the broad sense: basically anything with an internet connection. There have been cyberattacks in which compromised smart fridges were used. You don’t really need to have all these computers yourself, but many hackers infect other computers with viruses to use them as “zombies” to make these requests in a coordinated manner. The owner of the computer being hacked to make the requests wouldn’t even notice, perhaps he’d think his computer is slightly slow, but that’s it.” he said.

“So, this needs some preparation and sophistication, but it isn’t really rocket science,” he added.

Asked what would be needed to launch such an attack, the hacker said “Just computers to make the requests. The hardest part here is to know how many requests you need to crash the website. The attacker usually doesn’t know because it depends on the technical features of the victim’s servers. This is why these attacks happen when you’ve compromised hundreds of thousands or millions of computers for the attack.”

“Usually very basic servers can crash with 1000-2000 requests, which is something you can achieve with less than 100 computers,” he added.

“Now, I don’t really know the specifics of the Vatican’s servers, but I wouldn’t think it’s that sophisticated if it doesn’t even have an intermediary.”

The Vatican press office nor the Gendarmerie could be reached for comment by the time of publication.

Outgoing Columban Regional Director left ‘sad’ and ‘grateful’ after term

The outgoing Regional Director of the Columbans in Ireland, Fr Raymond Husband, has said that he is grateful after six years of numerous achievements in the role but that the pain of losing 62 Columbans mostly during the Covid pandemic has left “a sadness”.

Fr Husband, who was succeeded in the post by Fr David Kenneally last Saturday, said to columbans.ie that he saw his “number one priority” as “care of the elderly priests” in St Columban’s and particularly the elderly missionaries in the nursing home in Dalgan.

“Because we are such an elderly group of men, the role of director is to support them and care for them,” he said. “I would have seen that as a priority.

“The nursing home was under threat and we as a region worked hard to ensure the continuation of the nursing home. There have been challenges and even the possibility of closing it down. We had to work through that.

“I think as Columbans we are blessed that we have such a good and loyal staff in the nursing home, in the offices and in the house. I have always been happy with the staff and working alongside the staff – I am very grateful to them.”

He acknowledged that “one of the sadnesses in my six years was that 62 Columbans went to the Lord. There is a sadness. These are men that I would have known and worked with in various stages. It is part of our history” but that the Columbans “achieved a lot in the six years. One of the things that stands out for me is that when I came into the office the sale of Dowdstown House was an issue, its transition from Columban property to sale. Another headache at the time was the farm. We were going through a series of managers. So the Regional Council decided to lease the farm and that was a very positive thing. I am very proud and happy with that.”

Church-State dialogue is not functioning: ‘impoverishing’ Ireland’s voices of Faith

It has been six years since the former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar spoke about a new “covenant” between Church and State during Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families in 2018.

Almost a year later, not much had happened to further Church-State dialogue, prompting the then Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin to say in a March 2019 speech: “So far no progress has been made by the Government in developing the Taoiseach’s idea of a covenant.”

Two months later in May, after been asked about Church-State dialogue in the Dáil, Mr Varadkar reiterated his message saying that “it is now time for us to build a new relationship between Church and State in Ireland” and that he was open to suggestions as to how it might work. 

In a more concrete gesture, he announced a plenary meeting for July.

It took place in Dublin Castle and included 28 representatives of Churches, faith communities and non-confessional organisations. 

However, the closed talks were somewhat overshadowed by Mr Varadkar likening Micheál Martin to a “secretly sinning priest” in the Dáil just the week before. He subsequently apologised and withdrew the remarks.

Downfall

Then it all seemed to fall apart. A notable example of the State’s failure when it comes to relations with the Church was its reaction to the announcement of UCD founder St John Henry Newman’s canonisation in October of the same year, which saw a notable lack of diplomatic reaction – with the Irish Government belatedly saying it was sending the then Minister for Education to Rome.

Covid-19 hit Ireland the beginning of the following year, a period in which many felt acutely the lack of robust Church-State relations.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Primate of All Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin highlighted the difference in approach to the Church by the Executive in the North of Ireland compared to the Government in the south during the pandemic.

‘At the very end of that I had to say very strong words to the Taoiseach and to the government that our religious freedom is important for us,’ he said”

Archbishop Martin said: “The Executive Office for the assembly at the time were keen to listen to the voice of the Churches and gave a lot of agency to the Churches themselves. They trusted the Churches. Whereas in the South, there was an almost belligerent attitude to faith and to the Churches and to practice of the faith: ‘We don’t trust, shut your doors.’

“At the very end of that I had to say very strong words to the Taoiseach and to the government that our religious freedom is important for us,” he said. “We’re doing a reflection at the moment on the Covid experience and that is something perhaps we could look at: how did the Churches contribute to the discussion? Was the door closed? Were we simply subservient to what the State told us? Or was there an attitude of trust? That’s certainly an open question,” the archbishop added.

Before the election the Irish bishops took the opportunity to highlight the weak channels of communication between the Church’s hierarchy and the Government, something that it has not publicly broached since before the pandemic.

On November 20 the bishops put out a statement entitled ‘To be a people of hope! Bishops’ statement for Election 2024 and questions for candidates’. As the statement suggest, it hones in on a particular issue, and then offers a question to ask. It highlights challenges related to the cost of living, homelessness, housing, immigration, sanctity of life, climate change, Gaza, and also Church-State dialogue – while all are extremely important, the last is the odd one out.

Function

The statement was quite diplomatic, saying that dialogue is “not functioning”.

The bishops said in “a fracturing society, real and meaningful social dialogue is needed so that people actually feel their voice is being heard and that they have a contribution to make. Government must engage purposefully with all sectors of society, including the community and voluntary sector.

“Churches and faith communities have an important contribution to bring to this national and local conversation by helping – with others – build and sustain an Ireland that protects and values the potential of every person.”

The bishops continued: “The current structures for Church-State dialogue are not functioning for the greater good of society and are in need of review. Any such structures must be made work so that the voice of Churches and other faith communities can be heard and contribute to a national reawakening based on the reality of people’s lives, and not ideology or special interests. As a Church, we are open to engaging with Government and with other Churches and faiths on this question.”

Following this they suggested several questions for the public to ask politicians on the issue, including if they would support ‘structured dialogue’ that “includes all voices and sectors in Ireland’s diverse society including Churches and faith communities”.

Archbishop Martin said that in recent times whenever leaders of the Church in Ireland make statements, they receive hostile responses on social media and in writing”

While not calling for it themselves in the statement, the bishops also asked people to tackle politicians on the question: “Similar to Governments in other European countries and at EU level, should a specific Government minister with responsibility for dialogue with Churches and other faith communities be appointed as part of the next administration?”

Asked about the publicly renewed call for Church-State dialogue, Archbishop Martin said that in recent times whenever leaders of the Church in Ireland make statements, they receive hostile responses on social media and in writing. He said: “That is so contrary to the actual mood in politics and religion throughout the world where in many democratic countries the voice of people of faith, and indeed leaders of faith, is deemed to be a very significant and important voice in all policy making.

Voice

“And if you take, for example, Article 17 of the Lisbon treaty which is about the foundation of the European Union, it makes it very clear that politicians and indeed the European Union should listen to the voice of faith, as in Church leaders, but also to the voice of philosophers and others who have something to contribute.”

Looking back on the Pope’s visit in 2018 and the former Taoiseach’s pledge on Church-State dialogue, the archbishop said: “I too, remarked at the time those words of former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, whenever Pope Francis was in Dublin, where he spoke about the need to develop a new relationship, or a new covenant I think was the word that the former Taoiseach used, and at that stage I was quite excited by that and the idea that perhaps this would herald some opportunity for dialogue, for discussion. And yet, I think the particular model that is used in Ireland for Church-State dialogue is tired, I think it’s unused. It is very seldom being called.

I think it’s hugely impoverishes the Church if we are not able to engage in that dialogue, and equally I think it hugely impoverishes democracy if the voice of faith is not heard”

“I think during Covid we sought on behalf of the Catholic Church a bilateral dialogue with the Taoiseach and it was difficult to get,” he said.

“If you think where this whole idea of Church-State dialogue in the European Union emerged, I think it might have been Jacques Delors [eighth president of the European Commission] who spoke about the need for Europe to have a soul, and I think that is true also of Ireland, and it would be sad if Ireland loses its soul. And I’m not saying that the Catholic Church has a monopoly on the soul of Ireland, but I do feel that people of Faith are increasingly finding their voice again after a period of time where they felt beleaguered and in some ways shut out from the public domain and from public discussion.

“I think it’s hugely impoverishes the Church if we are not able to engage in that dialogue, and equally I think it hugely impoverishes democracy if the voice of faith is not heard. So, you’ll see that when we made this statement for the election this time around, we added that paragraph at the end – that we are here to help, not necessarily to threaten the state, but indeed the opposite, to support our politicians because they have accepted a very noble vocation to serve the people.
“But that means to listen to the voice of faith and there are many people in Ireland who have faith and who are willing to write that in the census, and say ‘I am a person of Faith’. So I think it’s really important not to monopolise the issues but to contribute something particularly unique to the discussion.”

Polish parliament approves making Christmas Eve day off work

The lower house of parliament, the Sejm, has approved a bill making Christmas Eve a day off work in Poland, with the changes set to take effect from next year.

The legislation would also allow shops to open on three Sundays leading up to Christmas. At present, trading is only allowed on two Sundays in December.

The bill will now proceed to the upper house of parliament, the Senate, which can suggest amendments but not block the legislation, before being passed to President Andrzej Duda.

However, Duda – an ally of the former ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that first introduced Sunday trading restrictions – opposes the move to increase the number of shopping Sundays in December and could veto the bill for that reason, according to media reports.

Poland’s main Christmas celebration takes place not on the 25 December but on the previous evening, known as Wigilia, when people gather for the traditional Christmas meal and open presents. 

However, while 25 and 26 December are officially days off work in Poland, Christmas Eve is not.

The bill, tabled by The Left (Lewica) – the smallest group in the ruling coalition, which also includes Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) and the centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) – initially proposed the introduction of a work-free Christmas Eve in 2024.

However, in the end, MPs adopted an amendment proposed by KO, the largest group in the ruling coalition, postponing the law’s entry into force to February 2025, meaning that the first day off work on Christmas Eve will be next year.

The bill passed with 403 MPs from almost all political groups voting in favour. Ten, mainly from the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), were against, and 12, mainly from PiS and the left-wing Together (Razem), abstained.

A separate proposal by Together (Razem), which recently cut ties with the ruling coalition, to limit the trading Sundays before Christmas to two instead of three, was rejected, despite receiving support from PiS, which is now the main opposition party.

After the main bill was passed, The Left’s Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, who is minister for family, labour and social policy, criticised the introduction of an additional trading Sunday, saying that trade workers should not be “punished with an additional day of work”.

“Holidays are about giving, not about taking something from someone,” she added, quoted by broadcaster TVN.

Later, The Left’s Krzysztof Gawkowski, who is deputy prime minister, said that his group would try to make amendments in the Senate to remove the additional trading Sunday and to make Christmas Eve a day off work already this year.

Meanwhile, although President Duda has previously expressed support for making Christmas Eve a day off work, he is opposed to adding an additional trading Sunday in December, reports Polskie Radio.

“This is a disadvantageous solution for trade workers. I think the president will not agree to it. The Senate must amend the law passed by the Sejm. Otherwise, MPs will [have to] work on it from scratch,” a source at the president’s office told the broadcaster anonymously.

The Sunday trading ban was first introduced in 2018 by the then-ruling PiS government, following a campaign spearheaded by the Solidarity trade union and the Catholic church. The restrictions were gradually phased in, and since 2020 trade has only been allowed on seven designated Sundays a year.

These exceptions include the two Sundays preceding Christmas, the Sunday immediately before Easter, and the last Sundays of January, April, June and August. If passed into law, the latest legislation will allow an additional trading Sunday in December.

However, some elements of the ruling coalition that replaced PiS last December have sought to end or soften this ban. In March, Poland 2050 tabled a bill that would allow shops to open on two Sundays each month. The draft, however, has not yet been adopted and is still being discussed in the Sejm.

Trade unions, including Solidarity and the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), welcomed the move to make Christmas Eve a day off work.

Employers, however, voiced concerns over the economic impact and lack of consultation. Finance minister Andrzej Domański, meanwhile, estimated that the measure could cost the economy around 4 billion zloty (€927.5 million) and the state budget around 2.3 billion zloty.

Study: Number of religious groups in Switzerland is falling

The dwindling social influence of religion in Switzerland is also reflected statistically. 

According to a recent study, the number of religious groups in the Alpine republic fell by around seven per cent to 5,880 between 2008 and 2022. 

This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the Universities of Lausanne and Basel.

According to the study, the Reformed and Catholic churches in particular have lost many local groups. 

However, the decline also affects other religious communities such as Hindus and Muslims. 

"Generally speaking, the smaller and younger the religious groups are, the more likely they are to disappear," explains Jörg Stolz, one of the authors of the study.

Evangelical-charismatic communities and Pentecostal movements, on the other hand, are on the rise. According to the data, more than 200 new groups of this type have emerged in Switzerland since 2008. 

However, due to high fluctuation, their total number has remained stable.

BREAKING: UK Parliament votes in favor of Bill allowing doctors to kill their patients

The British Parliament has voted in favor of a Bill permitting doctors to help patients kill themselves.

In a 330-275 vote, the UK Parliament advanced the highly controversial “Assisted Dying Bill” that allows doctors to euthanize their patients under certain conditions to a third reading.

The outcome of the vote was unclear beforehand, as the Bill was highly contested and faced opposition across party lines. The vote was considered a matter of conscience, meaning that MPs were not expected to vote alongside their party’s position. Former Conservative leader Rishi Sunak voted for the measure whereas the new leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, voted against it.

The Bill, first introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, allows adults who are estimated to have less than six months to live the option to kill themselves with the help of doctors. According to the proposed legislation, two doctors and one judge need to approve each case.

The Bill will now move on to a third reading—the committee and report stages—where it will be further scrutinized by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Bill, with any possible amendments added during this stage, will then be voted on again by Parliament. This process will not begin before April 2025.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting from the governing left-wing Labour Party said beforehand that he would vote against the Bill because the UK’s end-of-life care was not formidable enough to support it. According to the parliamentary record, Prime Minister Keir Starmer voted in favor of the bill.

During the debate leading up to the vote, Conservative MP Danny Kruger said that disenfranchised people need to be protected from euthanasia and that Parliament needs to be their safeguard.

“We are the people who protect the most vulnerable in society from harm, and yet we stand on the brink of abandoning that role,” Kruger stated. “The Rubicon was a very small stream, Mr. Speaker, but on the other side lies a very different world, a worse world with a very different idea of human value: the idea that our individual worth lies in our utility, valuable only for so long as we are useful – not a burden, not a cost, not making a mess.”

Sir Edward Leigh, another Conservative MP, said during the debate: “I was really very struck by the comment which was made earlier … that we can’t consider this just in terms of individual hard cases, but in terms of society as a whole. What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves life, that loves our NHS, that loves caring, that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society which believes that there is despair? So I will be voting for hope at 230, and I will be voting against this bill.”

Showing that the bill was opposed across party lines, Labour MP Florence Eshalomi also gave an impassioned speech against the proposed legislation.

“Put simply, Madam Deputy Speaker, we should be helping people to live comfortable, pain free lives on their own terms, before we think about making it easier for them to die,” Eshalomi said.

World to get first glimpse of restored Notre Dame interior following 2019 fire

The restored interior of Notre Dame Cathedral will be unveiled for the first time after more than five years of reconstruction work following a devastating fire in 2019.

The occasion is French President Emmanuel Macron’s final visit to the construction site to see the restoration for himself before the famous monument’s reopening for worship on December 8.

His two-hour tour is being televised live.

The images are expected to be breathtaking, showing renovated stonework, vibrant colours, and other fruits of the mammoth reconstruction.

Joined by artisans, architects, business leaders and donors, Mr Macron is expected to pay tribute to the craftsmanship and dedication of all those who worked to bring Notre Dame back to life.

The visit kicks off a series of events ushering in the reopening of the 12th-century Gothic masterpiece.

Mr Macron will return on December 7 to deliver an address and attend the consecration of the new altar during a solemn Mass the following day.

Mr Macron’s administration is hailing the reconstruction as a symbol of national unity.

Victims of former Christian Brother Paul Dunleavy tell how abuse devastated their lives

TWO VICTIMS OF a paedophile former teacher and principal have told how they have never been able to get over the abuse they suffered.

Paul Dunleavy, 89, a former Christian Brother, was sentenced at Belfast Crown Court yesterday on 36 charges of historical sex offences dating from 1964 to 1991 while he worked at four schools in Northern Ireland.

One of the victims from Belfast told the PA news agency how the abuse started at school when he was just five years old.

The charges included indecent assault and gross indecency with or towards a child. The offences were committed between 1964 and 1991 while Dunleavy worked at four schools in Belfast, Newry and Armagh.

He is already serving a prison sentence having been convicted previously on two separate occasions of sexual offences against children in his care.

Those two cases involved nine other victims and included 36 other offences, meaning Dunleavy has now been convicted of a total of 72 offences involving 18 victims.

Passing sentence, Crown Court judge Patrick Lynch KC said the prison term would commence at the end of his current sentence in May 2026.

Judge Lynch said Dunleavy, who the court heard has a life expectancy of around four years, felt he could conduct his predatory behaviour with impunity.

The victims were aged between seven and 14 at the time. Dunleavy briefly bowed his head in the dock of Belfast Crown Court as sentence was passed yesterday afternoon.

One victim said that Dunleavy was waiting for him to arrive when he arrived at school and “always wanted to get kids into the car, sat you on his knee. That’s how it started”.

“When you were five or six, you didn’t know what is right or wrong. You didn’t talk to anybody about it. It went on for a few years,” he told the PA news agency.  “Not only did it happen to me, but I witnessed it happening to other young boys.”

“As I started to get older I started to realise things were wrong.”

“People say time is a healer but this never goes away. There is always something to remind you. You can be watching TV and something will be a trigger. You are always fighting the battle in your head, there is no peace.”

The victim came forward to police after seeing a report on TV about other abuse carried out by Dunleavy. The man told of his emotions after seeing Dunleavy in person for the first time for decades during his trial at Belfast Crown Court.

He said: “I just wanted to kill him, I still want to. There was no sign of remorse. I don’t want an apology from him, but if he would just admit what he has done, that would be something.”

Another victim from Co Down said Dunleavy began to abuse him in the late 1960s at primary school. He said it had a devastating impact on his life.

He said: “I have tried in the past to kill myself. I have done a lot of self-harming. I started drinking as a child. All I wanted to do was get drunk to numb the pain. I didn’t care if I lived or died.”

The man said it took him decades to tell police about what had happened to him. He then had to face his abuser in court.

He said: “I didn’t recognise him in court. He was an old man, he didn’t have any power over me any longer. He looked old, frail. It was nerve-wracking having to give evidence. He wouldn’t admit what he had done.

“I live with guilt because maybe if I had said something sooner, some of these people wouldn’t have had to go through what they did.”

He added: “You try to put it out of your head, but it always comes back. There is not a day goes past that you don’t hear something which triggers it.

“There are a lot more victims out there. The reason I came forward is because I think there are hundreds more.”

Jailed former Christian Brother made abuse victims feel 'worthless'

"A big dark shadow" is how one victim described former Christian Brother Paul Dunleavey.

"He was a horrible man that loved to give pain, loved to give out pain, and loved to intimidate and, you know, make you feel worthless.

"As I call it, stolen potential, because I think up until then I was going the right way."

The man does not want to be identified, so is being referred to as Survivor A.

Dunleavy first singled him out for bullying when he was in P5, mocking and belittling him in front of his young primary school classmates.

He quickly moved on to physical and sexual abuse, moving from the open classroom to the privacy of his office.

The teacher also used his car to lure some of his pupils into abuse.

"He would have had his car in the car park as you were coming into school and then he would have got you into the car," explains another man, Survivor B.

"It was only a short distance to drive you up the wee hill and he would have put you on his knee and it would have started from there.

"After a few times he would have been fondling you as he was doing that, but he was always there in the morning times to get you into the car and sit on his knee and do this.

"I wasn't the only one it happened to, it happened to loads and loads of pupils."

The abuse then moved to Dunleavey's office when Survivor B and a friend had to go there after being caught mitching from school.

"Then he more or less says to us if you drop your trousers and masturbate, play with yourselves, I won't tell your parents that youse weren't here," Survivor B recalls.

"That was the start, that was the kind of thing that was going on."

I, myself, remember Brother Dunleavy when he taught briefly at the Christian Brothers Secondary School on the Glen Road in west Belfast.

A pupil at the time, I was not aware of his abusive behaviour, but do recall a tall, stern disciplinarian who could instill fear.

Only decades later did I discover that he was a man who had destroyed many young lives.

Dunleavy, now 89, has been sentenced for 36 offences involving nine victims who had been pupils in four Christian Brothers schools in Belfast, Newry and Armagh.

In September, he was found guilty of 31 counts of indecent assault, one of attempted buggery and four of gross indecency.

A number of his victims in the public gallery of Belfast Crown Crown cried and were comforted by family members as they those verdicts were read out.

But those convictions represent just half of his known criminal activity over a 28-year period when he taught in five different primary and secondary schools in Belfast, Armagh and Newry and was headmaster in three of the schools.

Police say he used his trusted position as a respected and influential member of the community to carry out his offending against young people in his care in school, home and other public places.

In 2020, Dunleavy was found guilty of 29 offences involving six victims and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but those convictions were overturned on appeal.

Then in two further trials in December 2022 and June 2023 he was found guilty of 36 other offences against nine other victims. He has been in prison since being sentenced after the first of those trials in March 2023.

In total, he has now been convicted for 72 historical sex offences committed over a 28-year period from 1964 to 1991 and involving 18 victims.

In each trial, Dunleavy denied his crimes, forcing some of his victims to endure the additional trauma of having to recall their abuse in the witness box.

He has been in prison since March last year when he was sentenced.

The impact of his actions is still being felt decades later.

Survivor A suffered a sense of shame and denial for many years, resulting in heavy drinking, a lack of confidence and relationship problems.

There remains a sense of anger that Dunleavy was able to continue abusing children for many years.

"This man started this two years before I was even born. His first case was in 64, imagine it, and he went to four different schools," says A.

"Why was he allowed to go through all that, why was he allowed to carry on, to go back to schools that he abused in and do it again?"

Survivor B says he knows victims who died by suicide because of what they suffered.

"There's a lot of ones that this happened to, there's a lot of people along the way didn't make it past their teens and twenties, took their own lives because of it.

"Not being able to go and tell their mother and father, their brothers and sisters. It's a guilt that not just me, a few of us, will have to take with us because we witnessed this, we witnessed these things happening but those people aren't here now and there's nobody to tell their story."

Survivor B was one of those who was in court in September to watch as Dunleavy was found guilty.

He was angered that he did not admit his actions and that he had destroyed many lives.

"Every day is a battle, there's days there you don't really think about and then there's days that, bang, it just comes to you again," he says.

"When I faced him across the courtroom I just wanted to get at the man. He was in the dock, I couldn't take my eyes off him. If I had been able to get close to him, I'd have killed him."

In a pre-sentencing hearing last week, a lawyer for Dunleavy asked the judge to show mercy and leniency due to his age.

The barrister said that his client is now 89 and there is a real prospect that he would die in prison if a lengthy sentence was imposed.

Judge Patrick Lynch replied that Dunleavy "showed no mercy to the victims in this case" when they were abused, nor when he made them go into the witness box to give evidence about what had happened to them.