By Robin Gomes

Amid the numerous social pandemics that Covid-19 has exposed, the Catholic Church in Asia is called to develop the “vaccines of compassion, solidarity and justice” in the spirit of the encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti, on fraternity and social friendship. 

“May the call of our Holy Father to solidarity, encounter, and gratuitousness find an echo in your lives and communities. May you take up the insistent invitation of Pope Francis for dialogue, respect and generosity towards every human being.”  

Myanmar Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, the president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), makes the appeal in a letter to his fellow bishops and their Churches in Asia.   

Common good

“Our Asian realities are echoed in the urgent message Fratelli tutti”, the cardinal notes in his letter dated 12 October. Asia is at the crossroads, he says, adding that the path “we take will decide the inheritance we leave to our next generation”. 

“Will it be wasted or saved? Will Asia choose individual greed or commit to the common good?” he asks Church leaders, politicians and governments. Much, he says, depends on how we rebuild society after Covid-19.  

He laments that “many governments in Asia are attempting to return to tried and failed economic and social models”. He thus calls for a politics for the common and universal good; politics for and with the people; politics that seek human dignity; politics of women and men who practice political love; politics that integrate the economy and the social and cultural fabric into a consistent, life-giving human project.

Rising above the crisis

With Covid-19, the year 2020 has been a time of chaos, fear and loss for the people, Cardinal Bo points out. Yet, Pope Francis urges bishops never to stop being on mission, stressing: “If the Church is alive, it must always surprise.”

The 71-year old cardinal urges his fellow bishops not to let the joy of the Gospel diminish in their hearts, giving way to the culture of indifference.  Despite all the pain surrounding us, he says, the Holy Father insists on the overwhelming, immense, surprising and unmerited gift of fraternity. 

“Fraternity, which means care and respect for our sisters and brothers,” the Archbishop of Yangon says, “is the foundation and pathway to peace.”  “Fraternity is solidarity and dialogue; it is true religion. Without fraternity, liberty and equality do not make sense.”

Many underlying pandemics

According to Pope Francis, Cardinal Bo says, Covid-19 has exposed underlying systemic pandemics in society such as racism, inequity, hate speech, disregard for the poor, the elderly and the unborn, trafficking of women and children, and the culture of death.

The death penalty, the cardinal notes, is legal in at least 18 Asian countries and the continent has some of the longest running wars in the world.  Millions have no choice but to leave their families and go abroad to find work.

The Good Samaritan

Against all of this, the cardinal urges, “we must develop the vaccines of compassion, solidarity and justice,” as indicated by the Pope in the person of the Good Samaritan. In the parable, Pope Francis “charts a common course for humanity through a commitment to peace, the rejection of war and capital punishment, encouragement of forgiveness and reconciliation within societies and care for our common home.”

With the eyes of the Good Samaritan, the cardinal says, we are called to critique the culture of waste and to defend the human rights of people made vulnerable by society: women, children, racial minorities, refugees, the unborn, the aged and many others. Respect for persons and for the common good only grows from true fraternity, Cardinal Bo stresses. 

Inter-religious relationships

In his message, the president of Asian bishops’ conferences also speaks about fraternal relationships between religions in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis and on the dangers and opportunities it creates.   

In this regard, the Holy Father “urges us to look courageously and creatively for opportunities to build, here and now, the world that God desires. “The society that will rise again from Covid-19 is a society where fraternity is valued,” Cardinal Bo added. 

By Vatican News staff writer

Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed Professor José Nelson Onuchic as a new member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Vatican’s international scientific academy, established by Pope Pius XI in 1936.

Curriculum vitae

Prof. José Nelson Onuchic was born on January 17, 1958, in São Paulo (Brazil), where he graduated in Electrical Engineering in 1980, in Physics in 1981 and in Applied Physics in 1982.

He completed his PhD in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (USA) in 1987. After a brief period of post-doctoral study in Santa Barbara, California, he taught at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) from 1987 to 1990, the year in which he returned to the United States, where he taught at the University of San Diego (California) until 2011. He then moved to Rice University in Houston, Texas, to teach Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Biosciences. Here he is co-director of the Centre for Theoretical Biological Physics.

He has received several awards for his studies, including the Beckman Young Investigator Award in 1992; he became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1995 and was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2006, and of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2009.

His current research interests centre on theoretical and computational methods on the borderline between physics and biology, with their effects on human biology and genomics.

The Academy

The work of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences comprises six major areas: Fundamental Science, Science and technology of global problems, Science for the problems of the developing world, Scientific policy, Bioethics and Epistemology.

By Vatican News staff writer

Pope Francis on Wednesday named Fr William D.Byrne as the new Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States. Until now he has been parish priest of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Maryland.

He succeeds Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski who was appointed as the new Metropolitan Archbishop of Saint Louis by the Pope in June 2020.

Curriculum vitae of Fr. William D.Byrne

Bishop-elect Byrne was born on September 26, 1964 in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the priesthood on June 25, 1994 for the Archdiocese of Washington. Father Byrne attended Georgetown Preparatory School in Rockville, Maryland and received a bachelor’s degree in English from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He studied at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and received a Bachelor’s in Sacred Theology (STB) in 1992 and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) in 1994, both from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

After ordination, Father Byrne was assigned to the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Maryland as parochial vicar where he served until 1995 when he was assigned as parochial vicar at the Shrine of Saint Jude in Rockville, Maryland. From 1999 until 2007, he served as the chaplain for the University of Maryland’s Catholic Student Center in College Park, Maryland. He was named pastor of St. Peter’s parish in Washington, D.C. in 2007 where he served until 2015. From 2009 until 2015, while serving as pastor of St. Peter’s, Father Byrne was also Secretary for Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns for the Archdiocese of Washington. In 2015, Father Byrne was named pastor of Our Lady of Mercy parish in Potomac, Maryland where he currently serves.

Bishop-elect Byrne’s ministry also includes service on the Archdiocese of Washington’s Vocations Team (1998), Formation Board (2002-present), Priest Council (2003-2006), Priest Personnel Board (2006-2009), and Archdiocesan Administrative Board (2009-2015), as well as membership on the board of directors of St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home, Catholic Youth Organization, and Redemptoris Mater Seminary, as well as the advisory board of the Lay Leadership Institute.

The Diocese of Springfield is comprised of 2,822 square miles in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has a total population of 828,667 of which 199,289 are Catholic.