Vatican City, Nov 14, 2019 / 10:39 am (CNA).- In a speech to the head of major global tech companies, Pope Francis said Thursday that protecting children from evils such as trafficking and pornography requires a recognition of the limits of online freedom.

“A crucial aspect of the problem” of child safety online “concerns the tension – which ultimately becomes a conflict – between the idea of the digital world as a realm of unlimited freedom of expression and communication, and the need for a responsible use of technologies and consequently a recognition of their limits,” the pope said.

“A fitting balance must be found between the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression and the interests of society,” he continued, “so as to ensure that digital media are not used to perpetrate criminal activities against minors.”

The pope underlined the huge potential of digital technology, but noted also its negative impact when abused for “human trafficking, the planning of terrorist activities, the spread of hatred and extremism, the manipulation of information and – we must emphasize – in the area of child abuse...”

He noted that many children use cellphones, and current protections against access to pornography are inadequate; studies show, he said, that the average age of first encountering pornography is 11 – and it is lowering.

“This is in no way acceptable,” he stressed.

Pope Francis spoke in the Vatican’s apostolic palace to participants in a Nov. 14-15 Vatican meeting on promoting child dignity online.

Sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the meeting included the participation of high-level executives from Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Paramount Pictures.

The pope said companies have long considered themselves to be mere “suppliers” of technological platforms, without having a legal or moral responsibility for how they are used.

But freedom and protection of privacy must be balanced with concern for the common good, he urged.

Leading technology-based companies can no longer consider themselves unaccountable for the services they provide their customers, the pope said.

“I make an urgent appeal to them to assume their responsibility towards minors, their integrity and their future,” he said.

To protect minors in the digital world requires the “full involvement of companies in this sector,” he added. It also requires the companies’ “full awareness of the moral and social repercussions of their management and functioning.”

“Such companies are bound not only to respect the law, but also to be concerned with the direction taken by the technological and social developments which they produce and promote, since such developments are far ahead of the laws that would seek to regulate them,” he said.

The Vatican meeting, which continues through Friday, also has an interreligious focus, with speeches by Orthodox leader Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Lutheran Queen Silvia of Sweden, and Muslim Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb Sheikh of Al-Azhar.

Vatican City State’s new president of the tribunal Giuseppe Pignatone and Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will also speak.

The meeting is a follow-up to the 2017 Vatican and the 2018 Abu Dhabi conferences on digital child dignity.

Bangkok, Thailand, Nov 14, 2019 / 09:15 am (CNA).- Salesian Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, Pope Francis’ second cousin who has been a missionary in Thailand for over 50 years, will be in attendance during papal meetings in the country later this month.

While in Bangkok Nov. 20-23, Sivori, 77, will be a part of the papal entourage, following the pope to all his events and encounters, according to Reuters.

Pope Francis and Sivori, who grew up in Argentina together, are related through their grandfathers, who were brothers.

Since Pope Francis’ election in 2013, whenever Sivori visits Argentina, she first makes a stop in Rome to see him. She said she has grown closer to him in the last few years, Reuters reports.

In an interview with Italian magazine Il Mio Papa, Sivori said she is happy to be able to greet her second cousin, but she is “especially happy for the small Catholic community here and for all the Thai people. It is a great blessing and a special gift for Thailand.”

“Although Catholics here are a minority, thanks be to God there is a great religious tolerance that allows peaceful coexistence marked by simplicity and brotherhood,” she added.

Sivori joined the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, also called the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, at the age of 23. She was sent soon after, in 1966, to be a missionary in Thailand, where she has been living ever since.

She is currently vice principal of St. Mary’s School in the northeastern part of Thailand, over 350 miles from the capital city of Bangkok.

On the pope’s schedule in Bangkok is a meeting with King Maha Vajiralongkorn at the Amphorn Royal Palace.

The pope will meet with Christian and other religious leaders, and also with the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, who is the leader of the order of Buddhist monks in the country.

He will also celebrate Mass in the National Stadium and in the Cathedral of the Assumption.

Sivori told Reuters that when she and Francis talk, “we feel like brother and sister. For me, of course I know that he’s the Pope ... but we talk simply.”

“When I meet him, I’ll call him by his name, Jorge. Pope Francis just came after,” she said. “I’m proud of him.”

Francis’ visit to Thailand is in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the Vatican Mission to Siam in 1669.

The small Catholic community in Thailand, less than 0.5% of the mostly Buddhist population, has been celebrating the anniversary throughout 2019.

After Thailand, Pope Francis will travel to Japan for three days.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pope Francis’ family reunion -- The Holy Father announced he will travel to Thailand in November. The trip may result in the reunion between <a href="https://twitter.com/Pontifex?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Pontifex</a> and his second cousin, Sr. Ana Rosa, who has worked in Thailand as a missionary since 1966. <a href="https://t.co/ihIgSmbADn">pic.twitter.com/ihIgSmbADn</a></p>&mdash; EWTN News Nightly (@EWTNNewsNightly) <a href="https://twitter.com/EWTNNewsNightly/status/1173612591878422528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 16, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Vatican City, Nov 14, 2019 / 07:10 am (CNA).- Pope Francis urged interreligious dialogue in Burkina Faso Wednesday as ongoing violence by jihadist groups has killed more than 750 people in the West African country this year. 

“I address a special thought to dear Burkina Faso, who for some time has been tried by recurrent violence,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square Nov. 13.

At least 38 people died and 60 were injured in an attack on Canadian mining company convoy, Semafo, Nov. 6.

“I entrust to the Lord all the victims, the wounded, the numerous displaced persons and those who suffer from these tragedies. I appeal for the protection of the most vulnerable,” the pope said.

Violence involving jihadist groups -- some affiliated with al Qaeda or the Islamic State -- has killed at least 755 people in Burkina Faso between January and October 2019, according to Reuters.

Attacks on Burkina Faso’s gold mines have provided the armed groups with new sources of funding.

Following the most recent attack, Pope Francis appealed to civil and religious authorities “to multiply their efforts, in the spirit of the Abu Dhabi Document on Human Brotherhood, to promote interreligious dialogue and harmony.”

In May 2019, ten Catholics were murdered by gunmen in one week. During Mass, attackers shot and killed five men, including the priest, and then burned down the Catholic church in Dablo. The following day,  gunmen killed four more Catholics during a religious procession and then burned the Marian statue.

Following the wave of violence against Catholics this year, Bishop Laurent Birfuoré Dabiré of Dori, Burkina Faso told the papal charity Aid to the Church in Need of an attack that occurred on July 27, 2019:

“When the people of the village of Bani had gathered together to speak among themselves, the Islamists arrived and forced everybody to lie face down on the ground,” he said. “Then they searched them. Four people were wearing crucifixes. So they killed them because they were Christians.”

The bishop said this was the fifth attack against Christians in Burkina Faso in 2019.

“Today their main target appears to be the Christians and I believe they are trying to trigger an inter-religious conflict,” he said.

“If the world continues to do nothing, the result will be the elimination of the Christian presence in this area and quite possibly in the future from the entire country,” Bishop Dabire said.

Vatican City, Nov 14, 2019 / 04:47 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Nov. 14 appointed Spanish Jesuit Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, following the expiration of Cardinal George Pell’s term in February.

From Merida, Spain, Guerrero, 60, will begin his term as prefect in January 2020.

Pope Francis established the Secretariat for Economy in 2014 as part of his financial reform of the Vatican. Its task is to oversee the financial aspects of both the Roman Curia and the Vatican City State administration, including a review of financial reports.

The position of prefect of the economy secretariat has been empty since Feb. 26, when Pell was confirmed to no longer hold the position via a tweet from Alessandro Gisotti, then-interim Holy See press office director.

Pell, who is in a prison in the Australian state of Victoria following his 2018 conviction on five counts of sexual abuse, was the first prefect of the Secretariat for Economy. The cardinal took a leave of absence as prefect starting in June 2017, when he returned to Australia to face trial.

Pell’s five-year-term as prefect was to have expired in February 2019. His resignation was not noted in the Vatican’s daily news bulletin, so it is believed his term lapsed and was not renewed, and he was not removed from office.

Guerrero, who has been a Jesuit since 1979, has a degree in economics from the Autonomous University of Madrid, as well as degrees in theology and in philosophy and letters.

Ordained a priest in 1992, since 2017 Guerrero has been in Rome serving in the positions of general counsellor and delegate of the superior general for the interprovincial houses and works of the Jesuits.

From 2014-2017, he was treasurer and project coordinator of the Jesuits in Mozambique.

“This call was something completely unexpected. Initially, it filled me with anxiety, and I felt quite numb,” Guerrero said in an interview with Vatican News published Nov. 14.

“But I welcome it with humility, with confidence in the Lord and in the team that is already working in the Secretariat for the Economy. I will collaborate in the service of this mission by offering the best of myself.”

According to Vatican News, Guerrero, who speaks Italian, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, asked Pope Francis to not require his ordination as a bishop, so that after his term as prefect he can return to normal religious life.

“I come to this task from outside the Vatican Curia, and I will be entering a new world,” the priest said. “I thank the Holy Father for allowing me to carry out this mission as a Jesuit, so that I can continue to remain a Jesuit when this service ends.”

“I hope to contribute to the economic transparency of the Holy See, and to help to use efficiently the goods and resources that are at the service of the important evangelizing mission of the Church,” he told Vatican News.

 

Lexington, Ky., Nov 14, 2019 / 03:12 am (CNA).- A Kentucky diocese is leasing a tenantless building to a Catholic charity to create a holistic recovery program for people in the area struggling with drug addictions.

“It's an exciting possibility,” said Jenny Ramsay, co-founder and director of Catholic Action Center (CAC), the homeless service agency in Lexington which will be helping run the new program.

“Our [clients] need it so desperately … This place is welcoming, and it includes the holistic approach with environmental sustainab[ility],” she told CNA.

The Diocese of Lexington announced Friday that the Catholic Action Center is beginning a three-year lease on the Cliffview Retreat and Conference Center in Lancaster. The facility will be known as Divine Providence Way at Cliffview, and CAC will have an opportunity to purchase the property at the end of the lease.

The Catholic Action Center will be in charge of developing a holistic environment for the addiction recovery center. This will include recreational therapy, such as music and art. The medical side of the recovery efforts will be run by Mountain Comprehensive Care, a mental health and addiction center based in eastern Kentucky that has partnered with CAC for the past two years.

The program will also offer job training through Bluegrass Community and Technical College, which will take place at a specific satellite campus for the beneficiaries. There, the clients will have access to educational opportunities including culinary art, sustainable living, building and maintenance, and information technology.

Ramsay said the building and maintenance program will focus on skills like carpentry and solar panel installation. She said the IT program will teach some basic coding and other entry-level IT skills.

The program will be environmentally sustainable, Ramsay said, relying on green energy from solar panels and incorporating beehives, chicken coops, and greenhouses.

“We are creating the environment at Cliffview, which will include sustainable agriculture. Holistic care of the people includes the fact that their environment needs to be something that renews them,” she said.

“We're human beings and we all have different brokenness, but we all relate and can be healed through [a holistic approach] … We're not going to say that one size fits all, but when we engage with the earth and engage the mind, body, and spirit, then changes happen,” she added.

The idea for Divine Providence Way was developed after staff members at the Catholic Action Center witnessed a need for greater addiction care among the homeless population.

The initiative comes amid an ongoing opioid crisis in the United States. Kentucky has been among the states hit hardest by the epidemic. From 2012-2017, more than 6,700 overdose deaths were reported in the state, according to data from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. In 2017,  Kentucky had a drug overdose rate of 37.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the fifth-highest in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We see the individuals, we see the overdoses, we see the challenges,” said Ramsay, when asked about the opioid crisis.

Founded in 2000, the Catholic Action Center is an initiative inspired by Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. According to its website, the organization has served more than 5.5 million meals and distributed over 2.5 million items of clothing. The agency has also covered 90 funerals for clients who had no families.

Ramsay stressed that it is a Christian’s duty to care for all people, even those struggling from addiction and currently abusing drugs. She said it is an example set by Christ.

“As Catholic Christians, we're called to address [this] and to...help those in need,” she told CNA. “Knowing that we may have the opportunity to help others in a unique situation, we couldn't turn our back on [them].”

“Jesus said feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty. He didn't say feed the hungry who are sober,” she added.