“We should not be so naive as to accept every government report, every attorney general report as being totally accurate or honest,” said the retired Pennsylvania bishop, once a leading critic of the more accurate translation of the Roman Missal. “And I would not cite the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Boston Globe as sources of confident information.”

The report did not state whether any of the closed churches are Catholic parishes. The southern African nation of 29 million is 41% Catholic and 38% Protestant; Pope Benedict XVI made an apostolic journey to Cameroon and Angola in 2009.

“The Church once moved abusive priests from parish to parish, now it is shuffling the fallout from meeting to meeting,” the editorial stated. “The bishops’ failure to act this week now places the priest sex abuse scandal squarely in Pope Francis’ lap. By ‘insisting’ that the American bishops hold off on any action until after a previously scheduled meeting in Rome in February, he has taken full ownership of the matter. It will now determine his legacy.”

Cardinal John Njue of Nairobi was the Pope’s representative at a special Mass commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the evangelization of the Tanzanian mainland.

Asia Bibi is the Pakistani Christian woman who was jailed from 2009 to 2018 on an unsupported charge of blasphemy against Islam. Protests erupted across Pakistan after the nation’s high court voided her conviction.

On November 15, Pope Francis preached on Luke 17:20-25, the Gospel reading of the day.

The Ratzinger Foundation’s symposium is devoted to “fundamental rights and conflicts among rights.” Here are links to the full text of the letters from Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict.

Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, spoke to the Italian bishops on November 15 about the extraordinary missionary month (October 2019), which marks the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s apostolic letter Maxime Illud. The month’s theme is “Baptized and sent: the Church of Christ on a mission in the world.”

Rebels backed by China are targeting Christians in Myanmar’s Shan State (map). The state is 81% Buddhist, 10% Christian, and 7% animist.

Father Michael Czerny is undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugee Section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.