A laywoman known as “Mama Antula” will be Argentina’s first female saint. María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa (above) was born in 1730, and left her wealthy family aged 15 after rejecting an arranged marriage. She founded a centre in Buenos Aires to teach people the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. In 1760, she established a community of consecrated laywomen who helped local Jesuits. After the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from South America in 1767, “Mama Antula” kept the Ignatian tradition alive, providing retreats for 70,000 people in eight years. A miracle involving the healing of a woman from cancer has been attributed to the intercession of Bl María Antonia of St Joseph, who will be canonised early in 2024.
Franciscans lose legal status
The Nicaraguan government last week removed the legal status of the Franciscan Order in the country, claiming the Order had not produced accounts for 2022, so forfeiting its assets to the state. It also removed the status of 16 other mainly religious bodies. The same action was taken in August against the Jesuits before their Central American University was closed.
Pope Francis has expressed his closeness to the city of Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, devastated by Hurricane Otis last week, which killed more than 40 and injured hundreds. In a telegram to Archbishop Leopoldo González González of Acapulco, Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin wrote that the Pope “offers fervent prayers for the eternal rest of the deceased, while asking the Lord to grant his consolation to those who suffer the devastating effects of the hurricane”.
The Diocese of Stockton, California, issued a warning about people impersonating clergy and charging money for the sacraments. The imposters assumed the identities of two clerics from the Archdiocese of Toluca, Mexico – Archbishop Raúl Gómez González and Fr José Adán González Estrada – and have been targeting the Hispanic community in Modesto, California.
Bishop Robert Deeley of Portland, Maine, has offered prayers for those killed and wounded in last week’s mass shooting in the town of Lewiston. A gunman killed 18 people in a restaurant and nearby bowling alley, and wounded 13 others.
Myanmar’s military government has allocated land in Yangon to build a Russian Orthodox church. The plan began with a meeting in May this year between Metropolitan Sergiy of Singapore and South-East Asia and Myanmar’s Minister of Hotels and Tourism, U Aung Thaw, who is also the chairman of the Myanmar-Russian Friendship Association.
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Polish bishop Grzegorz Kaszak, whose diocese of Sosnowiec has been rocked by sex scandals, the latest being reports of a “gay orgy” in a priest’s home where a male prostitute collapsed after overdosing on erectile dysfunction pills.
Kidnappers kill novice monk
Bishop Emeritus Ayo-Maria Atoyebi of Ilorin, Nigeria, has said that his community is “still struggling with the trauma of what has occurred” after it was revealed that a Benedictine novice, 31-year-old Br Godwin Eze, was shot the day after he was kidnapped last month from his monastery in Eruku. Two postulants – Br Anthony Eze and Br Peter Olarewaju – kidnapped at the same time were later freed.
After a side meeting at the Synod in Rome, the Association of Bishops’ Conferences of Central Africa last week appealed to leaders in Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda “to put an end to the suffering of the people of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo”.
A court in the Flemish city of Dendermonde has ruled that Dr Joris Van Hove did not break Belgium’s euthanasia law when he gave a lethal injection to Tine Nyslaw, a 38-year-old woman with psychological problems. The Bishop of Antwerp, Johan Bonny, has denounced the expansion of the 2002 euthanasia law and backed palliative care, but recently said euthanasia was “not necessarily an evil as such” within strict legal guidelines.
Residents of a Spanish village have protested against the “shameful theft” by ten Carmelite nuns of religious paintings. The sisters recently moved to Valencia, closing the Carmel founded in 1460 in the village of Piedráhita in Avila. A seventeenth-century painting of the Risen Christ by Alonso Cano was among items removed from the museum once housed in the convent.
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