Speaking at a week-long meeting in Rome of the global confederation of 162 national Caritas chapters, Czerny (pictured) explained that the move was necessary for the well-being of staff at Caritas and was not a condemnation of its work.

"I am sure that all of you were surprised and disturbed by this," Czerny told the audience.

"The appointment of a temporary administrator was an act of love and care, not a denunciation ... It was a necessary call to repair and fine-tune a body that is essential for the whole church."

The November decision saw Francis fire Caritas secretary-general Aloysius John, president Filipino Cardinal Antonio Tagle, Tagle's vice presidents, the treasurer, and ecclesiastic assistant.

The move came after an external investigation revealed "real deficiencies" in management that had affected staff morale at the Caritas secretariat in Rome.

While there was no evidence of financial wrongdoing or sexual misconduct, former employees described a toxic workplace environment under John, where staff were bullied, harassed and humiliated.

Several quit, giving up sought-after income tax-free Vatican employment rather than remain in abusive conditions.

Czerny insisted that the dismissals were necessary and appropriate and were by no means a criticism of Caritas or its work providing emergency aid and development assistance to the neediest worldwide.

The cardinal explained that the investigation had "revealed patterns of workplace relationships and processes that prevented the general secretariat from operating properly; furthermore, they undermined the well-being of staff.

They put the operations, name and reputation at risk, not only of Caritas Internationalis but of all Caritas."

"Brutal power grab"

On the eve of the Caritas assembly to elect new leaders, John wrote an open letter to the Caritas representatives, criticising Czerny's office for a "brutal power grab" and casting his ouster in racial terms.

John, a French citizen of Indian descent, said that the wealthier donor countries from the "North" had never wanted a Caritas secretary-general from the "South" and wanted to impose their will on the confederation.

On Saturday, Archbishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo was elected as the organisation's new president.

He will hold office for four years and may be reelected for a second term.

Addressing the assembly's 400 delegates, the archbishop stressed that Caritas "must be in the front line to receive, accompany, serve and defend the poor and vulnerable."

"This mission must be upheld and capture all attention of the members of the confederation, and I would like to be the one to lead the entire organisation to fulfil this important mission of the Church together with the Secretary-General," Kikuchi said.

"All are invited to walk together."

Sources

AP News

CBCP News

CathNews New Zealand

Raised as a Jew, Stein was an atheist philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1921 when she was 30. She became a Discalced Carmelite nun in 1938 and took the name Sr Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Pope John Paul II declared her a martyr in 1987 and canonised her in 1998. St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is the co-patroness of Europe.

On Tuesday - her anniversary - Cardinal Michael Czerny joined with her Carmelite sisters and celebrated a Mass for St Teresa Benedicta near Auschwitz.

Like her, members of Czerny's family were also arrested and sent to concentration camps. Some were sent to Auschwitz.

Czerny's homily recounted St Teresa Benedicta's story and how it intersected with his maternal Czechoslovak family.

"With Edith Stein, I share Jewish origins, the Catholic faith and a vocation to religious life ..." he said.

Even when she considered herself an atheist, "her sensitive moral conscience and intellectual honesty led her to reject relativism and subjectivism".

Stein wrote that her "first encounter with the Cross" took place in 1917.

She was visiting a recently widowed friend who told her about her late husband's conversion and her own.

The friend explained that the peace she received at her baptism prevailed even during this time of loss.

Stein "was struck by the serenity that the woman maintained in spite of tragedy," Czerny said.

"No human force could account for or explain such peace," Stein later wrote.

"It was the moment when the light of Christ, Christ on the cross, shone."

In 1933, Stein wrote to Pope Pius XI urging him to speak out against all expressions of antisemitism.

It wasn't until 1998 the Church formally apologised for not taking more decisive action to challenge Nazism and the so-called ‘final solution' to the ‘Jewish problem'.

By the end of the war, Czerny's family was scattered or dead.

His grandmother and her children were considered Jewish as his grandmother was of Jewish descent. His grandfather refused to divorce his Jewish wife, so he was arrested too.

Both her grandmother and two uncles spent time at Auschwitz before being transferred elsewhere. Only his grandfather and mother survived.

Source

• America Magazine
• AP News

"The impact on your eyes when you see (through the media) the bombing and the destruction and the blood and all that" is one of outrage, Cardinal Michael Czerny told Catholic News Service.

But, "when you meet people who are fleeing and have left everything behind, the impact is on the gut" and it triggers compassion.

Pope Francis sent Cardinal Czerny (interim president of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development) to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border to show his closeness to the victims of the war and his appreciation for those helping them.

Speaking to CNS by phone from Budapest, Hungary, the cardinal said he met a woman from rural Ukraine who was forced to flee, leaving behind all her animals.

"I'm not saying she was weeping for her animals, but this has been her and her family's life for generations. And now, suddenly, she's uprooted from that, and she has absolutely nothing."

The look in her eyes and the sorrow in her voice "lodges in your gut in a physical way," the cardinal said.

Cardinal Czerny was driven across the Hungarian border to Beregove, Ukraine, to meet with the local Eastern and Latin-rite Catholic bishops.

There he found bishops and representatives of the local Protestant and Jewish communities working together to assist the displaced.

"It was a happy surprise," he said. "It seemed to be the most natural and normal and necessary thing to do."

But the cardinal highlighted a potential evil lurking in the darkness of war: the danger of human trafficking.

Men of fighting age are not allowed to leave Ukraine, so the refugees are mostly women fleeing with their children.

"This is exactly when trafficking goes into high gear because they have such a large, vulnerable population of young women, young children," he said.

"A stranger comes up to you when you are in total need and says ‘Do you want help?' and you innocently say yes," and the consequences can be devastating.

More than 2.3 million people fled Ukraine since the war began on February 24 according to figures compiled on March 9 by the UN Refugee Agency. More than 200,000 of the refugees crossed the border into Hungary.

The rapid organisation of assistance, he said, is thanks to the Hungarian government working with Caritas Hungary, other organisations and hundreds of volunteers.

Cardinal Czerny also met with Zsolt Semjén, Hungary's deputy prime minister, and encouraged the Hungarian government to continue to widen its assistance to refugees.

"For this to be a real grace," the cardinal told CNS, "it must be prolonged in time and applied universally. There is no category of person for whom it is justified closing the door and saying, ‘You don't deserve help.'"

Sources

Catholic News

Vatican News

The Catholic Register

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski said he intended to enter the war-torn country via Poland at the pope's behest. Krajewski holds the title of papal almoner, officially charged with performing acts of mercy on behalf of the pope.

Speaking in Poland on March 7, he said: "I bring you greetings and blessings from Pope Francis. The pope is praying and very much experiencing the situation of war. Today you have to think with the Gospel and not with the world. From Lublin, I will go to Ukraine, as far as I can."

Krajewski is one of two of Pope Francis' most trusted Vatican officials to go to Ukraine to seek an end to the conflict.

Along with Krajewski, Cardinal Michael Czerny will also go to the war zone in what the Vatican called "an extraordinary gesture."

Czerny is the ad interim prefect of the Vatican Department for Promoting Integral Human Development.

"The Holy See has put itself at the service of achieving peace in Ukraine," the Vatican said on March 7. It added that the two cardinals "are directed to Ukraine and depending on the situation they intend to reach the country in the coming days."

The pope's decision to send two high-ranking Vatican officials so closely tied to Francis can be interpreted as an absolute commitment by the Holy See to help mediate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

"The Holy See is ready to do everything to put itself at the service of this peace," Francis said during his weekly prayer service on March 6.

"The presence of the two cardinals there is the presence not only of the pope, but of all the Christian people who want to get closer and say: ‘War is madness! Stop, please! Look at this cruelty!"

The pope lamented that "rivers of blood and tears are flowing in Ukraine."

He added that the current conflict is "not merely a military operation, but a war, which sows death, destruction and misery."

Sources

Religion News Service

Catholic News Agency

Czerny, who has been the under-secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development's Migrants and Refugees Section since 2017, is urging people to develop local solutions to address the needs of immigrant and refugee families around the world.

"There are no global responses, there are only local answers. You see why our Migrants and Refugees Section is most interested in what's going on on the ground, at the borders, on the Mediterranean, in the farm belts…"

Immigrants often fill jobs of an essential nature in their adoptive countries, he points out.

"Who are the orderlies and the cleaning people and who are the support staff in the hospitals? Who are the people who are picking the fruit and vegetables...?"

"Who are the people who are taking care of our elderly or challenged people or other people who need support and care?"

"Many, many, many of them are ...[migrants or refugees], who are here doing the work because it's the work we need."

During the pandemic, governments have severely limited opportunities for migrants and refugees to enter their countries. Some nations, including the United States, have given temporary visas to people who do "essential" jobs like seasonal work or meatpacking.

"Until now, we sort of took them for granted - and some political forces even tried to use them for political advantage," Czerny says.

"But the fact is, they are essential supports for our societies and for our communities and for our families - and suddenly, the COVID-19 spotlight reveals that without the help of these people, we can't go on."

Unfortunately the virus has also made already-vulnerable people become more vulnerable to illness and to exploitation, "whether they are migrants… or asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking or internally displaced people," Czerny says.

Some countries have created pathways for immigrants to receive healthcare, realizing "the virus doesn't distinguish between citizens and migrants. You've got to stop the virus wherever it's spreading." In addition Italy, for example, has announced an amnesty so illegal migrants.

Despite these and other measures, Czerny says the exploitation of undocumented migrants for slave labor is probably going up during lockdown.

He explains that in countries enforcing quarantines a lot of international movement has stopped. However, people in desperate situations continue to try to find work or safety, so some "movement continues, and unfortunately criminal activity continues.

"So, let's not continue this blatant contradiction: saying ‘Yes, let them come and help us,' but, ‘No they're not allowed to come. That doesn't make any sense at all."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Vatican News

Their needs are the focus of new guidelines Pope Francis and the Vatican have just released.

"In this time of pandemic, the virus does not seem to distinguish between those who are important and those who are invisible, those who are settled and those who are displaced. Everyone is vulnerable and each infection is a danger for everyone," Cardinal Michael Czerny said at a news conference this week.

Czerny is the undersecretary of the migrants and refugees section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

"In the post COVID-19 world that is emerging, the contribution of internally displaced people — like everyone's contribution — will be very much needed," he added.

The Dicastery's migrants and refugees section was created and is led by Pope Francis.

It's purpose is to lead initiatives for the millions who are forced to leave their homes due to war, natural disasters and climate change.

The news conference was held to release a new publication called "Pastoral Orientations on Internally Displaced People."

Inspired by Francis' call to "welcome, protect, promote and integrate" all those who live "in the peripheries," the new work invites Catholic parishes, nongovernmental organizations and dioceses to champion internally displaced people.

Millions were displaced in Syria after the Islamic State group destroyed Syrian towns and cities.

Internally displaced children are at risk of exploitation or trafficking in Kurdistan.

In Myanmar, persecuted Rohingya Muslim communities are unable to access clean water during the current pandemic.

There are also internally displaced people are also right beneath our noses, Czerny noted. They are mong the homeless and destitute.

The new publication invites parishes to discover internally displaced people in their community and find ways to cater to spiritual and basic needs.

Often these people struggle to gain public and social recognition. In some countries their human rights are trampled. At present, they have a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and many are forgotten in the frenzied efforts to limit contagions.

Another Dicastery member, Fr Fabio Baggio, says it is important to recognise the "invisibility and vulnerability" internally displaced people face in the pandemic.

In addition, Baggio says "we must not forget about other emergencies and those still to come." These could include numerous disasters, challenges and changes.

Part of the Church's efforts includes engaging in dialogue with other religious communities and working together for common goals and shared principles. This interreligious "trend" in the Church is essential, he says.

The newly-released publication is part of a series of efforts and commitments the Church has made during Francis's papacy.

These have included 20 pastoral action points for people working with immigrants and refugees.

The Dicastery has also published guidelines to combat human trafficking, which Francis calls "modern-day slavery."

Future publications will focus on climate change impacts and the growing number of internally displaced people.

Source

• Religion News Service
• Image: Religion News Service

Although Pope Francis's exhortation on the Amazon bypasses making decisions about women deacons and married priests, there is still room to move, say number of the pope's close advisors.

In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon), Pope Francis released last week , Francis appears to leave the question of married priests open-ended. He didn't give a clear yes or no on the issue.

Instead, he suggests there be a better distribution of priests in the Amazon.

He wants to encourage missionary priests to work in the region and to go to more rural areas.

At the same time, he says there is a need for a priestly formation which better understands and appreciates local cultural traditions.

Francis's exhortation on the Amazon also avoided making decisions about women deacons.

Rather, it warned against the temptation to "clericalise" women rather than empowering them through leading community roles which better "reflects their womanhood."

Cardinal Michael Czerny said the best way of looking at the pope's approach to married priests in the document is that it is "part of a journey."

"We are at a very important point in the synodal process."

"There are long roads ahead, as well as roads already traveled," he said

He also pointed out that on the question of married priests, Francis "has not resolved them in any way beyond what he has said in the exhortation."

Czerny stressed that the exhortation "is a magisterial document".

This means it is binding, whereas the final synod document, which includes supportive proposals for married priests and women deacons which the pope must approve, does not bear the same weight.

Czerny said without a firm 'no' from the pope on these issues, they will continue "to be debated, discussed, discerned, prayed over and, when mature, presented to the appropriate authority for a decision."

These decisions, he said, can be made at a diocesan, national and universal level.

Czerny said the proposal for ordaining women deacons is still "being studied". He said this is probably awaiting a conclusion on the topic from a commission Francis formed in 2016 to study it.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Jesuits.org