Assessment: In October 2020 the Vatican extended an agreement with Beijing that in part calls for China to formally recognize the pope’s authority within the Roman Catholic Church and his final say over the country’s bishops. The Vatican in turn recognized the legitimacy of bishops previously appointed by the Chinese government and excommunicated by the church. The rest of the deal remains secret …
Pope Francis once again failed to mention the genocide of Uyghur Muslims in China Saturday in his annual virtual tour of injustices around the world.
In his Christmas Urbi et Orbi (to the city and the world) message the pope gave a shout out to the people of Syria, “who for more than a decade have experienced a war that has resulted in many victims and an untold number of displaced persons.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12
He drew attention to Iraq, “which still struggles to recover from a lengthy conflict,” and urged his hearers to “listen to the cry of children arising from Yemen, where an enormous tragedy, overlooked by everyone, has silently gone on for years, causing deaths every day.”
As he does every year, the pontiff also recalled “the continuing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians that drag on without a resolution, with ever more serious social and political consequences.”
Francis turned people’s gaze to “Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’ birth, which is experiencing hardship also from the economic repercussions of the pandemic, preventing pilgrims from visiting the Holy Land and adversely affecting the life of the people.”
He also spoke of Lebanon, “which is undergoing an unprecedented crisis, accompanied by very troubling economic and social conditions.”
In his address, the pope asked the child Jesus to “grant peace and concord to the Middle East and the whole world” and to “comfort the Afghan people, who for more than forty years have been sorely tested by conflicts that have driven many to leave the country.”
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