The amazing devotion of African refugees
In the National Catholic Register, Victor Gaetan spoke to Fr Linus Dragu, a priest with a ministry to migrants in Italy. In the last three years Fr Dragu has baptised more then 1,000 refugees from Africa – Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Niger, Kenya, Mali, Chad and Gambia.
Fr Dragu describes himself as “a missionary in Italy”, and says he has never done anything so rewarding as a priest – partly because he has “never seen the intensity of prayer, of devotion, of reverence, as I have from my African children.”
Gaetan spoke to some of those “children”, like Charles Gyamfi, 34, a Ghana-born migrant who, after escaping Libya, survived the perilous journey to Lampedusa in 2011. Gyamfi said that when he got to Italy, he “knew I had to change my life, and prayed to God that he forgive me for the sins I made in Libya”.
In the chaos of the country’s breakdown a few years ago, there were many moral dilemmas, he said.
Another refugee from Libya, Promise, aged 32, said: “God will repay Fr Linus. He lives to help us. He is fulfilling the Word of God.”
Father’s Day when your father has died
At Aleteia, David Mills observed his 12th Father’s Day since his own father died. Grief’s effects can be long-lasting, Mills wrote. “The world sets traps for you. For the first few years, I would see a book he might like and start to reach for it, thinking I’d buy it for him. This happened many times and I never touched the book before my stomach exploded with adrenalin as I remembered that he was dead.”
His advice to others living through Father’s Day in their father’s absence?
“Remember your dad. Don’t pretend the hole he left will ever be completely healed.
Remember his death as well as his life, because that’s the memory that will make him most present, at least it does for me.”
Dialogue in the Vatican’s academy
At his Patheos blog, Mark Shea said several people had asked him about the appointment of Nigel Biggar, the Anglican clergyman and professor of philosophy, to the Pontifical Academy for Life. The appointment has been controversial because Biggar has said he believes abortion should be permissible up to 18 weeks. His views on euthanasia, while complex, have also been strongly criticised by Catholic writers, because they can be seen to imply that euthanasia might be theoretically permissible.
But Shea said we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the Pontifical Academy for Life, or its president, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.
✣Meanwhile…
✣ The papal almoner has given up his flat in Rome for a Syrian refugee couple with a newborn baby girl.
Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, who learned of the family through the Sant’Egidio community, now sleeps on the top floor of his office.
He told La Repubblica: “Many priests in the world behave like this. Charity and sharing are in the DNA of the Church … I have no family, I am a simple priest. To offer my apartment doesn’t cost me anything.” The archbishop was appointed papal almoner in 2013. The almonry is the Holy See’s charitable arm. The office runs a 40-bed homeless hostel and provides free showers to 200 people a day.
✣ A video of a nun playing keepy-uppy has attracted hundreds of thousands of views online.
The Dominican nun bounces the ball off her knees, feet and even her shoulder in a game against a police officer in Limerick.
The Sister is a member of the Nashville Dominicans. The Sisters declined to give her name but said she had been playing football since she was five.
In an email she said God “wants to touch others everyday through the gifts we can give – through a smile, an encouraging word, a silent prayer and through simple joys like a game of soccer”.
✣The week in quotations
I won’t be the new Archbishop of Milan Cardinal Pietro Parolin La Stampa interview
We have to decentralise. The Church is too big Cardinal Oswald Gracias National Catholic Reporter
This is a sacrament of shelter Cardinal Nichols on praying before the Blessed Sacrament Pastoral letter
If Wilberforce, Shaftesbury or other great Christian campaigners stood as MPs today, would they be welcome? Tim Montgomerie Twitter
✣Statistic of the week
76 The proportion of Peruvians who identify as Catholic. The Pope will visit in January SourceL Pew Research Center
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