Vaccine scandals add to political tensions in Latin America
- Feb 23, 2021
As fighting continues in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, the Salesian order has had no contact with 25 priests and brothers who work in the region, a Vatican news agency said.
When it comes to threats to Christianity, a longtime missionary in Africa has argued that more than physical persecution, Western secularism poses a greater danger, as the Christian faith is rapidly expanding in areas where Christians are persecuted, whereas it is declining in the traditionally Christian West.
Retired auxiliary Bishop Emilio S. Allue of Boston, the first and only Salesian bishop to date in the United States, died April 26 of complications from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. He was 85.
Belgium’s Salesian order defended its decision to send a priest convicted of child abuse to work with Caritas in Central African Republic, where he has been accused of abusing children again.
The Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis charity says it learned in 2017 of pedophilia concerns involving its Central African Republic director, but left it for his superiors to investigate and he remained in place and in ministry until this year.
Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based confederation of 165 national Catholic charities, has expressed sadness and outrage over incidents of child abuse by a Belgian Salesian priest who had been the national director of Caritas in the Central African Republic.