Receiving the new recruits, who have chosen to dedicate “a period of their youth in the service of the Successor of Peter,” the Pope on Friday emphasized the crucial role of the family in the transmission of the faith. “The presence of your family members expresses the devotion of Swiss Catholics to the Holy See, as well as the moral education and good example by which parents have passed on to their children the Christian faith and the sense of generous service to their neighbour,” he said.
Pope Francis also took the opportunity to recall the “illustrious past” of the Pontifical Swiss Guard Corps. He told them his thoughts turned in particular to the “Sack of Rome,” which saw the Swiss Guards courageously defend the Pope, to the point of giving their lives.
“The memory of that event,” he said, “may evoke in you the danger of a spiritual ‘plundering’.”
“In today’s social context,” the Pope continued, “many young people run the risk of being stripped of their souls, when they follow ideals and lifestyles that respond only to material desires or needs.”
Pope Francis expressed the hope that the new recruits would make the most of all the positive things the city of Rome has to offer. “It is rich in history, culture and faith; therefore, take advantage of the opportunities offered to you to enhance your cultural, linguistic and spiritual background,” he said.
“The time you will spend here is a unique moment in your life,” the Pope commented. “May you live it in a spirit of fraternity, helping one another to lead a meaningful and joyfully Christian life.”
Fidelity to Christ
Pope Francis told the new guards, “The oath that you will take the day after tomorrow is also a declaration of fidelity to your baptismal vocation, that is, to Christ, who calls you to be men and Christians, protagonists of your existence.”
He went on to say, “With His help and the power of the Holy Spirit, you will serenely face the obstacles and challenges of life. Do not forget that the Lord is always at your side: I sincerely hope that you will always feel His consoling presence.”
In conclusion, Pope Francis expressed his gratitude to the entire Pontifical Swiss Guard Corps “not only for what you do, but also for how you do it.”
Then, quoting Saint Teresa of Calcutta, he said, “at the end of our lives we will not be judged for how many things we have done, but for how much love we have put into those things.”
The swearing-in ceremony of the 38 new guards was due to take place on May 4. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it will now take place on 4 October. The ceremony will also be held behind closed doors, in accordance with current protection regulations.
Bulgaria is ready to join the production of face masks, protective clothing and ventilators amid the efforts of the EU to ensure own supply of protective equipment during the Covid-19 crisis, Bulgaria’s Premier Boyko Borissov said. On the second day of the extraordinary sitting of the European Council in Brussels, Premier Borissov said that the Council has found a relatively good balance to protect Greece and Cyprus and at the same time allow Turkey to undertake actions by December. Thus, cooperation will be enhanced and sanctions will be avoided, Boyko Borissov said.
All representatives of the Council contend that the military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh must stop and the countries involved in the conflict engage in dialogue immediately. We also share common stand on the opposition in Belarus, Premier Borissov said, quoted by BTA.
Macron’s discourse was a curtain-raiser of sorts for an upcoming draft bill against “separatist” threats, which officials say also include groups like white supremacists. But with many observers considering it clearly aimed at Islamist extremism, the legislation has already sparked sharp controversy well before its rollout later this year.
While some welcome the government’s so-called anti-separatisms drive as long overdue, leaders of France’s roughly six-million-strong Muslim community —western Europe’s largest — fear it may unfairly single them out.
“We’re near the end of Macron‘s first term,” said Jawad Bachare, director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, which has sometimes been accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. “And with each election there are the same questions about Muslims, and the financing of Muslim places of worship.”
Macron’s plan to defend France’s secular values takes specific aim at radical Islam
Macron’s address on Friday was closely followed, coming just days after two people were stabbed in front of Charlie Hebdo newspaper’s former headquarters — and as a trial unfolds over the 2015 terrorist attacks against the satirical French weekly and a kosher supermarket.
He announced the draft legislation would be introduced in December and described it as a was to preserve France’s secular state by keeping religion — including displays of religiosity — outside of education and the public sector. “Secularism is the cement of a united France,” Macron said.
Among other areas, the bill is expected to further crack down on foreign financing of mosques and private religious schools, bar foreign imams, increase surveillance of associations and individuals suspected of “separatism” — including in the public sector and in sports — and ban efforts threatening gender equality, including pre-marriage “virginity certificates” for Muslim women.
“There is no incompatibility between being Muslim and being a (French) citizen,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, the grandson of a Muslim immigrant, told French radio recently.
The recent attack outside Charlie Hebdo’s offices has reignited the Islamophobia debate
Rather, he said, the legislation aims to attack the “enemies of France” — terrorist but also political groups threatening “the French model of free expression, our way of living, the way we teach our children.” Macron, too, has called for protecting the nation against separatist forces. In a nod to Charlie Hebdo, he defended “the right to commit blasphemy.”
“There will never be any place in France for those who try to impose their own law,” the president said, “often in the name of a God, sometimes with the help of foreign powers.”
Deep divisions within French society
Successive presidents have tried to put a French stamp on Islam, ensuring the country’s large and diverse Muslim community is in line with its staunchly secular values. Macron is no exception, but has yet to translate promises to create an “Islam de France” into reality. The upcoming legislation may be a first step in that direction.
An Odoxa-Dentsu poll this month suggests many French back such an effort. More than three-quarters of respondents supported anti-separatism legislation, even though nearly half worried it might deepen divisions within the country.
Powering the government’s arguments is another recent survey — an IFOP poll finding some 74% of Muslims under 25 claiming to put their faith ahead of the French Republic.
“Let’s not be naive,” former Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls told a French newspaper recently, singling out two particularly conservative Islamic groups. “The real subject is the battle against political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists.”
Political commentator Alexandre del Valle agrees. A 2019 book he co-authored, The Project, describes the Muslim Brotherhood’s alleged quest to infiltrate and conquer the West.
“President Macron understood that he must reinforce the law and the system,” del Valle said, “because until now we were not able to face this strange separatism, this strange totalitarianism that was always hidden through religion.”
“Nobody is banning Muslims from going to the mosque,” he added. “We just want to ban their totalitarian, separatist and supremacist project.”
Not surprisingly, a number of Muslim leaders see things differently. The upcoming legislation, they argue, risks further stigmatizing the vast majority of French Muslims who practice their faith peacefully.
“This concept of separatism bothers me a lot,” Lyon Mosque Rector Kamel Kabtane told Le Figaro newspaper. “Because what separates? Not the Muslims, they just want to integrate.”
Parts of the French public support the planned legislation, others are worried it might deepen divisions within the country
This is hardly the first time Islamic practices have rubbed against France’s staunchly secular values. Previous measures banning face-covering niqabs, headscarves in schools and burkinis on beaches, for example, have provoked claims of intolerance and discrimination.
In an unmarked building down a narrow alley outside Paris — aimed to keep the association’s whereabouts discreet — Bachare of the anti-Islamophobia collective points to a steady uptick in anti-Muslim acts in recent years, particularly since the 2015 Paris terror attacks. They reached nearly 800 in 2019, according to his association’s statistics, a 77% increase in two years.
“Violence doesn’t belong to a certain community,” Bachare said. “Terrorism doesn’t belong to a single community. It’s a phenomenon that needs to be fought with every means possible. But it’s not right to stigmatize a whole community because one member committed terrorist attacks.”
He points to a recent example of lawmakers walking out of France’s National Assembly during the audition of a hijab-wearing student leader — although her body veil was legal.
“Islamophobia has become banal right now,” Bachare said, “to the point of becoming normal.”
From 1 September to 4 October, the Church celebrates the Season of Creation.
Christians around the world are encouraged during this period to renew our relationship with God and creation. This can be done through conversion, commitment and celebration – even as the world struggles with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
In a video message recorded before he returned to Manila and tested positive for Covid-19, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle highlights the importance of this month-long period themed “Jubilee for the Earth”.
The celebration ends on Sunday – the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi – who is also the patron saint of ecology.
“It is a season which is liturgical”, explains the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, “to celebrate in prayer, and especially in the Eucharist, the goodness of creation, signs of God’s bounty and love.”
A season with an ecological message
The Season of Creation, continues Cardinal Tagle, “is a celebration with a clear social ecological message, for the way we deal with creation is also carried over to our attitude toward life and human beings.”
“It is also a call to rediscover our vocation as stewards of creation.” Very often, he notes, “we behave like owners and forget that we are caretakers.”
The Cardinal also recalles “with joy and gratitude”, the celebration of the Season of Creation in the diocese of Imus and the Archdiocese of Manila – both in the Philippines.
Concluding his message, Cardinal Tagle enjoins everyone to celebrate in the Season of Creation, the interconnectedness in the family of creation and in the human family, especially with the poor.
Press statement by President von der Leyen with President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda,Prime Minister of Estonia, Jüri Ratas, Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, and Prime Minister of Latvia, Krišjānis Kariņš
Good morning,
I am very pleased to welcome the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland to the European Commission. Today is a very important day for Europe. We are taking a big step toward connecting Europe. And we are showing European solidarity in action.
Last night, we awarded EUR 720 million from the Connecting Europe Facility to link the Baltic energy grid with the rest of Europe. This project is a landmark moment. It is a landmark moment in ending the isolation of the Baltic energy market. Most of the funding will go to a new interconnector in the Baltic Sea. And I cannot think of a better name than ‘Harmony Link’.
It will reduce the region’s over-dependence and over-reliance on a single source of energy imports by connecting it in full harmony to the rest of the European Union. It also looks into the future. The new offshore energy grid will bring electricity from renewables to all countries around the Baltic Sea.
And that is why I welcome the Baltic Declaration for Offshore Wind Energy signed this week by the Commission and eight Member States. This project is good for connecting Europe, good for our energy security, and it is good for the European Green Deal.
It demonstrates that in this Union, no matter where you are on the map, you are always at the heart of Europe.
With 35 votes in favor, 30 against and 1 abstention the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has adopted a draft resolution on Bulgaria. It calls on the European Commission to continue monitoring judicial reform and the fight against corruption in Bulgaria.
The need for the government to ensure tighter control over spending of EU fundsand to immediately respond to fears that taxpayers’ money is being used to increase the wealth of those associated with the government has been pointed out, BNR reported.
Speaking to the Bulgarian National Radio, MEP from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Elena Yoncheva said that this was not a resolution against Bulgaria, but in support of Bulgarian citizens and their desire to live in a country without corruption and with independent judiciary.
The resolution is not a binding one. It is yet to be discussed and voted on by the European Parliament.
On the 85th night of the anti-government protests in Sofia, one of the leaders of the event, Arman Babikyan, read part of the text of the resolution and said that Brussels had clearly heard the citizens in the square.
<h2>For Ruth Behar and her family, Cuba is not only a place of birth, but a site of refuge.</h2>
Last December, Ann Arbor resident Ruth Behar returned to Havana, her place of birth, to put the finishing touches on her newest novel, Letters from Cuba. She stayed in the same apartment building where she lived her first five years until 1961 — when her family left the island two years after Fidel Castro took over.
During her visit, the author worked in the nearby park she went to as a child, using public Wi-Fi to go over final editorial changes. The neighborhood is just a half-block from Temple Beth Shalom, also known as the Patronato Synagogue, a major hub of the Jewish community built just years before Behar’s birth.
Ruth Behar Gabriel Frye-Behar
She said the nostalgic location for the visit was intentional.
“I wanted to feel the island right before my book went to press,” said Behar, a writer, anthropologist and the Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. She is the first Latina to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Grant.
“I wanted to be there in Cuba again as I was letting the book go,” she said.
For Behar and her family, Cuba is not only a place of birth, but a site of refuge. Her great-grandfather Abraham Levin journeyed there from Poland in 1924 during the rise of antisemitism in Europe. He lived in the rural Cuban village of Agramonte.
Baby Ruth with her grandparents in Havana.
Behar’s Letters from Cuba, geared toward middle-grade students, was inspired by the true story of her maternal grandmother, Esther, a Polish Jew who journeyed by ship alone at age 17 in 1927 to join her father in Cuba. There, she helped make enough money to bring over the rest of her family from Poland, on the eve of the Holocaust.
The book features fictional letters from Esther to her younger sister, Malka, and imagines the experience of Esther as a young Jewish immigrant in a foreign country. Behar said that fiction became the perfect outlet for a Jewish immigration story that history does not have much record of. Instead, she used details heard in family stories, like the bread and bananas her great- grandfather sustained himself on upon arrival.
“That was a clue to how these new immigrants were taking care of themselves,” Behar said. “It showed how they were gently immersing themselves, trying the fruit of this new culture, while still trying their best to follow the kosher traditions of the old country.”
In addition to her grandmother’s story, Behar said she was motivated to write the book by the climate of hostility toward immigrants exhibited by the Trump administration. She saw connections between her family’s migration patterns and current events.
“It brought the past and the present together for me,” said Behar. “I thought, ‘My own family went through this.’”
In the 1920s, when Behar’s family was trying to escape persecution, the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas on how many people could come to the country from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Goworowo map from Memorial Book.
“My family was unwanted here, so our American lives began in Cuba,” she said.
After Communist revolutionary Castro seized power in 1959, Behar said 94 percent of the Jews in Cuba left. Until her immediate family could obtain American passports, they spent a year in Israel living on a Spanish-speaking kibbutz. The family then immigrated once more to join her maternal grandparents in Queens, N.Y.
“I can actually remember looking out [the] ship’s window and seeing the Statue of Liberty when we arrived,” Behar said.
There, they joined a sizeable community of Jewish Cubans, and Behar worked hard to learn English. Still, she held onto her love of Spanish, and eventually pursued a career that allowed her to engage with her passion for language and diversity.
“As a cultural anthropologist, I have this intellectual passport that not only allows but encourages me to connect with the places I write about,” she said.
As part of her anthropological research and writing, she has lived and worked in Mexico and Spain. She has also made many return trips to her native Cuba.
“I do research there on the Jewish community, art and literature, and try to reconnect with the place I was born,” she said.
Haven from the Holocaust
Now, Behar enjoys a home base in Ann Arbor, where she teaches courses on Cuba and its diaspora and the concept of home at the University of Michigan. For herself, the concept of home evokes feelings of gratitude. She recognizes Cuba as the sanctuary that saved her family from a possible death in the Holocaust.
In Letters from Cuba, Behar aims to repaint this picture of the island as a center of welcome for many Jews. She said when it comes to Jewish migration to Cuba, scholars focus on the story of the SS St. Louis, a German luxury ship that carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939. Only a handful were allowed entry into Cuba upon arrival. Behar believes this tragedy is out of character for the diverse country.
“I wrote this book in contrast to those stories,” Behar said. “I wanted to show that Cuba did offer sanctuary to very many Jews, that the majority, in fact, did find refuge.”
Behar also hopes the book will fill a gap in children’s learning, to deliver them the diverse kind of anthropological material she teaches to her students at the University of Michigan.
“They’ve read a lot of World War II stories,” Behar said. “They’ve read a lot of immigrant stories. But they don’t know the stories of Jews who went to Cuba.”
In sharing this history, she believes the novel will teach young readers to have compassion toward other immigrant children and hopefully make her readers better citizens of the world.
Perhaps most integral to Behar’s newest literary adventure, however, is remembrance. As remaining Holocaust survivors pass on, and as Behar worries about what she sees as a new climate of fascism, the author wants to make links between past and future traumas.
“We have to do everything we can to bring this historical memory into the present so young people can see it in relation to the contemporary struggles occurring,” she said. “We have to be able to connect all these things and understand how past and present are always in relation to one another.”
Member of the European Parliament Charlie Weimers tweeted that the European Parliament is holding a closed meeting devoted to the escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
“President Emmanuel Macron confirmed France has evidence on Turkey supporting Azerbaijan with Islamists from Syria. He will ask the European External Action Service if the European Union has condemned Turkey’s interference in the conflict and if it considers the expulsion of Turkey from the OSCE Minsk Group,” he tweeted.
AMMAN, Jordan — Earlier this year, as the pandemic was sweeping across the globe, something unusual happened in news reporting—profound ideas about social transformation and acts of solidarity were making headlines worldwide. Although less pronounced now, news outlets continue to feature such stories, many of which would have been considered irrelevant or insignificant before the crisis.
Responding to increased interest among media professionals about new approaches to the field, Bahá’í communities in several countries have been exploring with journalists and others how the media can contribute to societal harmony and stimulate thoughtful conversations on issues facing humanity.
Responding to increased interest among media professionals about new approaches to the field, Bahá’í communities in several countries have been exploring with journalists and others how the media can contribute to societal harmony and stimulate thoughtful conversations on issues facing humanity.
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Photograph taken before the current health crisis. The Bahá’ís of Jordan have been hosting roundtable discussions with journalists on how the media can be a source of hope for society.
The Bahá’ís of Jordan have been hosting roundtable discussions with journalists on how the media can be a source of hope for society. “The Bahá’í teachings envision the media as a vital element of society with the potential to be a mirror for the world, reflecting the range of experience of diverse people,” says Tahani Ruhi, of the country’s Bahá’í community’s Office of External Affairs.
“At certain points in the past few months, a fuller picture of the world has been reflected in news reporting: not just of sensational narratives, but also of the constructive processes that exist in every community. The media’s power to inspire hope has become especially visible during this time. Due attention has been given to positive developments—big and small—that show the nobility of people and their capacity to put the needs of their fellow citizens ahead of their own.”
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A discussion with journalist held by the Bahá’í community of Jordan.
Ghada al-Sheikh of the Al-Ghad newspaper, a participant of the roundtable meetings, says: “These discussion spaces are allowing us to better understand important concepts related to progress and to think deeply about their implications for our work. Our consciousness of our mission as journalists is being strengthened as we consult together on issues of social and economic solidarity and how the media can contribute to people’s sense of priorities.”
The roundtable participants in Jordan have also been looking at the impact of structural factors in a media industry shaped by commercial interests. “Media practitioners should not view themselves as competitors, but as collaborators. We are seeking truth, whatever form of media we produce,” said Mahmoud Hishmeh, director of the East and West Center for Dialogue and Sustainable Development, during one of the discussions.
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Photograph taken before the current health crisis. A series of structured discussions held by the Bahá’í community of Australia in collaboration with First Draft and the Centre for Media Transition, is bringing together media practitioners to reimagine the Australian media landscape.
On the other side of the world, the Australian Bahá’í community has also been bringing journalists and others in media together to examine how to be conducive to social cohesion, an issue of great significance in the country. One such effort includes a series of structured discussions, in collaboration with First Draft and the Centre for Media Transition, bringing together media practitioners to reimagine the Australian media landscape.
“By drawing on the principles of Bahá’í consultation we have had the opportunity to exchange diverse experiences respectfully and in an environment that is encouraging and dynamic,” says Venus Khalessi of the Office of External Affairs. “In what is often a fast-paced environment, where complex decisions are made under immense time pressure, media practitioners appreciate the opportunity to step back and reflect on how to apply guiding principles and values to the situations they face.”
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The Australian Bahá’í community has been bringing journalists and others in media together to examine how to be conducive to social cohesion, an issue of great significance in the country.
At one gathering, Alan Sunderland, Executive Director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen and Standards Editors, said, “There are a lot of people talking at the moment about how the media can do more than just highlight divisions, but can talk about things that unite us. That is challenging for journalism, which traditionally is built on a conflict model, one where you find problems to expose. Finding ways to be constructive while recognizing that there is a fundamental requirement for journalism to ask difficult questions is a really interesting issue to explore.”
Participants at the most recent gathering in Australia expressed that the current health crisis has shown more than ever the responsibility of media to act for “the greater good of humankind.” Just as there is a need for accuracy in reporting facts, participants have noted the need for stories to convey values conducive to harmony. Examples of this during the pandemic have included a greater effort by news outlets in the country to report on stories of community-driven response and resilience.
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Photograph taken before the current health crisis. The Bahá’ís of Spain have been having conversations with journalists and other social actors about the need to overcome division and polarization in response to crises.
Meanwhile in Spain, the Bahá’í community has also been having conversations with journalists and other social actors about the need to overcome division and polarization in response to crises.
“Early in the pandemic, new topics entered the public consciousness,” says Sergio García of the country’s Bahá’í Office of External Affairs. “Media outlets focused on discussions of the need for greater international cooperation; the need to transform economic models to be more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient; and many other profound ideas in all areas of life.
“Though older patterns of media coverage reemerged after some time, this change showed a glimpse of how media can open the horizons of human thinking and foster a deep discussion about our common future in a shared world. Media contributes to setting the tone for relations among different elements of society, and it can generate the feeling that we are one world and one people who need to work as such to address our common challenges.”
