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With about 2,500 young Catholics, the German delegation to the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, in July of this year, is decidedly smaller than before. In comparison, some 16,500 young German Catholics attended the Madrid edition in 2011 and about 6,000 travelled all the way to Sydney in 2008. Why such a small group this time around? It’s not the distance or the cost, as Sydney was both further away and hence more expensive. No, in this case it is the German bishops who are discouraging underage Catholics from participating in the festivities, Vatican Insider reports.
Citing both travel costs and concerns about the pilgrims’ safety, the Bishop Conference’s religious education coordinator Markus Hartmann explains that the priests and coordinators accompanying the pilgrims will be ultimately responsible for their safety and that, it would seem, is a risk, or responsibility, they are not willing to take.
In a way, this reflects the added risk that Rio presents. Crime rates are admittedly higher than in, say, Sydney or Cologne, which hosted the event in 2005. On the other hand, it seems a bit odd that the bishops refuse the added responsibility: at other Church events, in or outside Germany, they are still responsible for those under their care, and pilgrims, young or old, can also be injured, fall ill, or even die in other places than Rio de Janeiro. There is always a risk.
It is sad that the bishops of Germany have chosen for this option, instead of relying on security measures that exist in Brazil, or impressing upon the pilgrims the need for extra safety precautions. After the World Youth Day, Rio de Janeiro will host both the Summer Olympics and the Football World Cup, so Brazil has much to loose if there is a security failure of any sort next July.
As the registration closed on 5 April, some 300 young Catholics from the Netherlands had signed up for the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which will take place in July. Although this is about 1,000 less than the number who went to Madrid in 2011, the number can’t be considered as very low. Whereas a bus trip sufficed for Madrid, for Rio, the pilgrims will be making an intercontinental flight, as well as significant plane journeys within Brazil or, in one case, from Suriname to Brazil. Higher costs and the far greater distance will have kept more people from committing.
The Dutch pilgrims, which will be accompanied by Bishops Hendriks, Mutsaerts and De Jong, are also joined by a group from the Diocese of Paramaribo. That is a similar construction to the one used in 2011, when the Surinam pilgrims joined up with the group from the Diocese of Rotterdam before travelling south to Spain. The Dutch pilgrims will now be guests in Suriname before travelling to Rio.
Other pilgrim groups will start their World Youth Day experience in Brazil, in the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza and the Diocese of Almenara. Two of these circumscriptions have connections to the Netherlands: Belo Horizonte is the city of Blessed Eustáquio van Lieshout, a Dutch missionary who worked miracles for the sick under his care; and Almenara’s Bishop Hugo van Steekelenburg was born in the Netherlands.
As in earlier editions of the World Youth Days, the first week will be spent in dioceses and communities across the host country and neighbouring countries. Starting on 20 July, the young pilgrims will start arriving in Rio de Janeiro.
In the final days before the Congregation for Bishops ceases its regular work when the Pope’s abdication goes into effect, it seems it wants to close some open files. Yesterday and today we saw a whole raft of appointments in such diverse countries as Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Tunisia and Congo, as well as in the Holy See’s diplomatic representation in several other countries.
Standing out are the appointments of Archbishop Ilario Antoniazzi of Tunis and Bishop Miguel Angel Olaverri Arroniz (pictured) of Pointe-Noire in Congo. Tunis is one of northern Africa’s major archdioceses. The previous archbishop, Msgr. Maroun Elias Nimeh Lahham, was called to Jerusalem as an auxiliary bishop in January of last year. Pointe-Noire, then, lost her previous bishop, Msgr. Jean-Claude Makaya Loembe, when he was removed from his office because of mismanagement in March of 2011. He was one of the handful of bishops who lost their jobs under Pope Benedict XVI.
Among the reassignments of Apostolic Nuncios (five were appointed or reassigned today) is Msgr. Ettore Balestrero, who was the Undersecretary for the Relations with States at the Secretariat of State until today. He was assigned as Nuncio to Colombia, and some see this as a result of his name having been mentioned in the context of the Vatileaks scandal. Whether that is true is anyone’s guess, of course, but it does stand out.
The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishop, Marc Cardinal Ouellet, is considered a papabile, so perhaps the Congregation is wise to get as much work done in these last days: who knows, she may lose her prefect during the conclave…
Photo credit: Javier Valiente
For the last time in this year of two consistories, a cardinal leaves the group of cardinal electors, by reaching the venerable age of 80. He is Eusébio Oscar Cardinal Scheid of Brazil, and with his birthday last Saturday, he leaves 119 cardinals who can vote in a conclave.
Born in the south of Brazil, Eusébio studied for the priesthood at the seminary of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, an order which he joined as a priest upon his ordination in 1960. His ordination took place in Rome, as he was studying Christology there. He eventually earned a decree in Sacred Theology.
Returning to Brazil, Father Scheid taught dogmatic theology and liturgy for some twenty years. In 1981, he was appointed as bishop of São José dos Campos, northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Bishop Scheid ministered to the faithful there for ten years, after which he was appointed as archbishop of Florianópolis, in his native state of Santa Catarina. He led that archdiocese for another decade, until 2001.
In that year, Archbishop Scheid was called to become the archbishop of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. Shortly thereafter, he was also appointed as the ordinary for the Eastern Rite Catholics in Brazil. He also served as president of Region IV of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference.
With the archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro also came a cardinal’s hat, and Archbishop Scheid became Cardinal Scheid in 2003, in Blessed Pope John Paul II”s last consistory. He was granted the title church of Santi Bonifacio ed Alessio. Cardinal Scheid retired as Rio’s archbishop in 2009, and as the Eastern Rite ordinary in 2010.
Cardinal Scheid was at the centre of a small media scandal in 2005, when he publically criticised the faith of Brazil’s president. Prior to the conclave which elected Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Scheid spoke in favour of an African pope, understood by many as support for the election of Cardinal Arinze.
Cardinal Scheid was a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and the Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organisational and Economic Affairs of the Holy See.
Going by the date of creation, Eugênio de Araújo Sales was the most senior cardinal in the College until his death last night. At the age of 91 the former archbishop of Rio de Janeiro came to the end of a life marked by service to the Church in his native Brazil, and the numbers of that life are certainly impressive. A priest for more than 68 years, a bishop for almost 58, and a cardinal for a little over 43 years…
Eugênio de Araújo Sales was born into a wealthy family in the northeastern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte. His father was a judge, and young Eugênio was able to receive a good education. At 15, he entered the minor seminary in Natal, the state capital, and a year later he moved to the major seminary in Fortaleza. Completing his studies in 1943, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Natal, which had been created only 34 years earlier. He devoted his time to pastoral work, but somehow came to the attention of the higher powers in the diocese that in 1952 had become an archdiocese. In 1954, Pope Pius XII appointed him as auxiliary bishop of Natal, with the titular see of Thibica (a see today held, incidentally, by the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer).
In 1962, although Archbishop Marcolino de Souza Dantas did not retire as archbishop of Natal, Bishop de Araújo Sales was appointed as apostolic administrator sede plena, indicating that the archbishop was, in some way, incapacitated or unable to run the archdiocese. Two years later, on 9 July 1964, Bishop de Araújo Sales was transferred to the Archdiocese of São Salvador de Bahia, one of Brazil’s oldest and most prestigious sees, once more as Apostolic Administrator sede plena. In that same period, he attended all sessions of the Second Vatican Council. In October of 1968 his appointment as archbishop of São Salvador de Bahia followed. Befitting his new function, Archbishop de Araújo Sales was created a cardinal in the following April, at the same consistory were Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands was created. His cardinal title was San Gregorio XII. He was the first cardinal protector of that church.
The cardinal’s time in São Salvador de Bahia turned out to be fairly short, as he was moved southward in April of 1971, to the Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. And that is where he would stay until his retirement in 2001. He was also the bishop for the faithful of the Eastern Rites in Brazil. Recently, evidence began to surface that, in Rio, Cardinal de Araújo Sales was strongly opposed to the human right violations committed under the military regime of the time. Later, he also became a steadfast voice for the protection of Catholic morals in daily life in the city and all of Brazil.
Aside from his normal work as shepherd of the faithful in Rio, Cardinal de Araújo Sales participated in several major international conferences and assemblies in the Americas and in Rome. He participated in the conclaves that elected Popes John Paul I and Blessed John Paul II, and represented the latter at several major celebrations in Brazil and Portugal. Followed the death of the Blessed Pope, Cardinal de Araújo Sales was one of the nine prelates offering a funeral Mass for the deceased pontiff.
Cardinal de Araújo Sales continued with pastoral activities well after his retirement. At the age of 90 he still regularly offered Mass in a parish church in Ipanema and maintained an office next door to it. He also contributed a weekly column on faith and morality to a local newspaper until the current archbishop of Rio, Orani João Tempesta, took over from him (upon the cardinal’s own suggestion) in April of 2011.
With the death of the cardinal, the College of Cardinals now numbers 208, 121 of whom are electors.
After a busy morning in which he consecrated Archbishops Charles Brown and Marek Solczyński during today’s Epiphany Mass, the Holy Father appeared a bit later than usual for his noon Angelus address. He quickly moved to the big event that was already causing a considerable buzz among Catholics – journalists and otherwise – on Twitter: the announcement of a consistory on 18 February in which no less than 22 new cardinals – among them 18 electors – will be created.
Soon swapping the purple for red, Archbishop Eijk will be in need of a new official portrait
There are a few big names in the list, but standing out for us here in the Netherlands is that of Archbishop Willem Jacobus Eijk. Three years after his arrival in Utrecht, he will become the metropolitan see’s fifth cardinal in a row. Turning 59 in June, Cardinal-designate Eijk will be able to participate in at least two conclaves, I would think (unless the sucessor of Pope Benedict will pull a JPII and remain on the seat of St. Peter for 20 years or more).
The selection of Archbishop Eijk was not unexpected. His name was already mentioned in the run-up to the November 2010 consistory, but the 80th birthday of Cardinal Simonis, the only Dutch elector, cleared the way for Eijk to succeed him in the College of Cardinals. With the title of cardinal comes, of course, a title church in Rome and a whole bag of expectations. And certainly the local media, which has been seeing the Church and the archbishop in the light of the abuse crisis, will be asking a whole heap of questions about Eijk’s suitability for the red hat. But these are questions being asked too late. A candidate’s suitability as cardinal flows from his suitability as bishop or priest. Added to that is the issue of the College of Cardinals reflecting the world Church and the importance of a see or curial position reflected in a cardinal title. The Archdiocese of Utrecht under the guidance of Archbishop Eijk is, in the mind of the pope and most likely also in light of the future, deserving of a cardinal at the helm.
Here is the full list of future cardinals:
- Fernando Filoni, 65, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of People
- João Bráz de Aviz, 64, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
- Manuel Monteiro de Castro, 73, Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary (only appointed as such yesterday!)
- Giuseppe Bertello, 69, President of the Governorate of Vatican City State
- Domenico Calcagno, 69, President of the Administration of the Patrimony of theApostolic See
- Giuseppe Versaldi, 68, President of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See
- Santos Abril y Castelló, 76, Vice-Chamberlain of the Apostolic Chamber and Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major
- Edwin Frederick O’Brien, 72, Pro-Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem
- Antonio Maria Vegliò, 74, President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People
- Francesco Coccopalmerio, 73, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts
- Giuseppe Betori, 65, Archbishop of Firenze
- George Alencherry, 66, Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly
- Thomas Christopher Collins, 65, Archbishop of Toronto
- Willem Jacobus Eijk, 58, Archbishop of Utrecht
- John Tong Hon, 72, Bishop of Hong Kong
- Rainer Maria Woelki, 55, Archbishop of Berlin (the youngest member of the College of Cardinals)
- Timothy Michael Dolan, 62, Archbishop of New York
- Dominik Jaroslav Duka, 68, Archbishop of Prague
- Prosper Grech, 86, Priest of the Order of St. Augustine
- Karl Josef Becker, 83, Priest of the Society of Jesus
- Lucian Muresan, 80, Major Archbishop of Fagaras si Alba Iulia (Romanian)
- Julien Ries, 91, Priest of Namur, Belgium
This consistory is a fairly Italian affair. With 7 new cardinals, Italy easily overtakes the United States and Germany, which each gain two cardinals (Dolan and O’Brien; Woelki and Becker), Brazil (Bráz de Aviz), Portugal (Monteiro de Castro), Spain (Abril y Castelló), India (Alencherry), Canada (Collins), the Netherlands (Eijk), China (Tong Hon), the Czech Republic (Duka), Malta (Grech), Romania (Muresan) and Belgium (Ries) each have one new cardinal.
Four of the cardinal-designates: Filoni, Ries, Woelki and Duka
Which is also, of course, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the rock and the apostle to the gentiles, in many ways the foundations of the Church. And also, it is the day upon which Pope Benedict XVI celebrates 60 years of priesthood.
As every year, the metropolitan archbishops, standing firmly in the line of the aforementioned saints and in union with the Holy Father, today receive their pallia. In the words of the pope, from today’s homily:
“What does this mean? It may remind us in the first instance of Christ’s easy yoke that is laid upon us (cf. Mt 11:29f.). Christ’s yoke is identical with his friendship. It is a yoke of friendship and therefore “a sweet yoke”, but as such it is also a demanding yoke, one that forms us. It is the yoke of his will, which is a will of truth and love. For us, then, it is first and foremost the yoke of leading others to friendship with Christ and being available to others, caring for them as shepherds. This brings us to a further meaning of the pallium: it is woven from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of Saint Agnes. Thus it reminds us of the Shepherd who himself became a lamb, out of love for us. It reminds us of Christ, who set out through the mountains and the deserts, in which his lamb, humanity, had strayed. It reminds us of him who took the lamb – humanity – me – upon his shoulders, in order to carry me home. It thus reminds us that we too, as shepherds in his service, are to carry others with us, taking them as it were upon our shoulders and bringing them to Christ. It reminds us that we are called to be shepherds of his flock, which always remains his and does not become ours. Finally the pallium also means quite concretely the communion of the shepherds of the Church with Peter and with his successors – it means that we must be shepherds for unity and in unity, and that it is only in the unity represented by Peter that we truly lead people to Christ.”
The harvest is quite large today, with 49 new metropolitan bishops appointed since last year’s ceremony. A significant number comes from traditionally Catholic countires and areas, such as South-Anmerica, the Philippines, but also various sub-Saharan countries, North-America, and a few nations in Europe and Asia.
Archbishop Lacroix of Québec receives his pallium from the Holy Father
Below follows the list of new metropolitan archbishops. The vast majority of these men were specifically apointed to archbishops, but a number became so because their dioceses were elevated to archdioceses. Recently, this happened with two dioceses in Angola – Malanje and Saurimo – and three in Brazil – Passo Funda, Pelotas and Santa Maria.
Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze, Benin City
Archbishop Thumma Bala, Hyderabad
Archbishop John Barwa, Cuttack-Bhubaneswar
Archbishop Jacinto Bergmann, Pelotas
Archbishop Vincenzo Bertolone, Catanzaro-Squillace
Archbishop Pedro Brito Guimarães, Palmas
Archbishop Pierre-Marie Joseph Carré, Montpellier
Archbishop Thaddeus Cho Hwan-kil, Daegu
Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, Concepción
Archbishop Paul Stagg Coakley, Oklahoma City
Archbishop Sérgio da Rocha, Brasília
Archbishop Charles Henry Dufour, Kingston in Jamaica
Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, Santiago de Chile
Archbishop Antoine Ganyé, Cotonou
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, San Antonio
Archbishop José Horacio Gómez, Los Angeles
Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba, Saurimo
Archbishop Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Québec
Archbishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, Campo Grande
Archbishop Jairo Jaramillo Monsalve, Barranquila
Archbishop Darío de Jesús Monsalve Mejía , Cali
Archbishop Pascal N’Koué, Parakou
Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia, Turin
Archbishop Paul Yembuado Ouédraogo, Bobo-Dioulasso
Archbishop Jose Serofia Palma, Cebu
Archbishop Luis María Pérez de Onraita Aguirre, Malanje
Archbishop Guire Poulard, Port-au-Prince
Archbishop Juan Alberto Puiggari, Paraná
Archbishop Johannes Maria Trilaksyanta Pujasumarta, Semarang
Archbishop Murilo Sebastião Ramos Krieger, São Salvador de Bahia
Archbishop Gonzalo Restrepo Restrepo, Manizales
Archbishop Hélio Adelar Rubert, Santa Maria
Archbishop Juda Thadaeus Ruwa’ichi, Mwanza
Archbishop Rémi Joseph Gustave Sainte-Marie, Lilongwe
Archbishop Jesús Rubén Salazar Gómez, Bogotá
Archbishop James Peter Sartain, Seattle
Archbishop Pedro Ercílio Simon, Passo Fundo
Archbishop William Slattery, Pretoria
Archbishop George Stack, Cardiff
Archbishop Zbignev Stankevics, Riga
Archbishop Fausto Gabriel Trávez Trávez, Quito
Archbishop Marjan Turnšek, Maribor
Archbishop Sergio Lasam Utleg, Tuguegarao
Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales, Guatemala
Archbishop Lewis Zeigler, Monrovia
Five of these men, namely archbishops Barwa, N’Koue, Poulard, Pujasumarta and Zeigler, were unable to be in Rome for the ceremony. They will receive their pallia at a later date.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Tony Gentile
In the aftermath of my post on Bishop Schilder, I wondered how many other Dutch bishops are serving abroad, or, at least, are still alive. In a twist of irony, the Netherlands was at one time something of an exporter of missionary priests and religious and some of those ended up climbing the ranks to become bishops of a diocese on another continent.
A glance at the unrivaled repository of all things bishop that is Catholic-Hierarchy, I found a list of all living bishops who in some way have something to do with the Netherlands. Among them the bishops who were born here but who put on the mitre somewhere else. There are twelve of them. Eight have already retired, and four are still active.
They are the following:
- Monsignor Everardus Antonius M. Baaij, S.C.I. 89 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Aliwal, South Africa. Ordinary from 1973 to 1981
- Monsignor Wilhelmus Josephus Adrianus Maria de Bekker. 71 years old. Bishop of Paramaribo, Suriname. Ordinary since 2004.
- Monsignor Wilhelmus Joannes Demarteau, M.S.F. 94 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Banjarmasin, Indonesia. Ordinary from 1961 to 1983. From 1954 to 1961 he was the Vicar Apostolic of Banjarmasin, then not yet a diocese.
- Monsignor Henk Kronenberg, S.M. 76 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Ordinary from 1999 to 2009.
- Monsignor Herman Ferdinandus Maria Münninghoff, O.F.M. 89 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Jayapura, Indonesia. Ordinary from 1972 to 1997.
- Monsignor Joseph John Oudeman, O.F.M. Cap. 69 years old (exactly 69 today, by the way). Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane, Australia. Auxiliary since 2002.
- Monsignor Cornelius Schilder, M.H.M. 69 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Ngong, Kenya. Ordinary from 2002 to 2009.
- Monsignor Andreas Peter Cornelius Sol, M.S.C. 95 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Amboina, Indonesia. Appointed Coadjutor Bishop in 1963, ordinary from 1965 to 1994.
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Bishop van Steekelenburg
Monsignor Johannes Henricus J. Te Maarssen, S.V.D. 77 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea. Ordinary from 2000 to 2009.
- Monsignor Theodorus van Ruijven, C.M. 72 years old. Vicar Apostolic of Nekemte, Ethiopia. Appointed Prefect of Jimma-Bonga in 1998, Vicar Apostolic of Nekemte since 2009.
- Monsignor Hugo María van Steekelenburg, O.F.M. 73 years old. Bishop of Almenara, Brazil. Ordinary since 1999.
- Monsignor Vital João Geraldo Wilderink, O. Carm. 79 years old. Emeritus Bishop of Itaguaí, Brazil. Appointed Auxiliary BIshop of Barra do Piraí-Volta Redonda in 1978, ordinary of Itaguaí from 1980 to 1998.
All but one of these bishops belong to religious orders or congregations, indicated by the abbreviations behind their names, evidence that all of them once joined the mission as priests. The twelve also represented at least two distinct generations. The first in the late 80s and 90s, and the second, still serving for the most part, in their 60s and 70s. The youngest, Bishop Oudeman, being 69, does show that this Dutch presence among the bishops of other nations is slowly coming to an end. After all, it is not unheard of that priests in their 40s or 50s are appointed bishops, but these men are well beyond that age. Besides, most of the countries named above are now ‘homegrowing’ their own bishops, so there is less need to fall back on the mission.
But, as it is, these twelve men of God remind us of a part of the recent history of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands which seems quite unusual to our modern eyes.
