The organisation, comprised of 57 Muslim-majority nations, said on Sunday that the suspension was due to the " granting by the Swedish authorities of licenses that enabled the repeated abuse of the sanctity of the Holy Quran and Islamic symbols."

The Islamic holy book was burned or defaced during recent public demonstrations in the Swedish capital. An Iraqi man of Christian origin living in Sweden as a self-proclaimed atheist announced plans to burn the Quran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm on Thursday.

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They '"let rip" at the Germans.

The Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland Church leaders' letter is an excellent example of one group of bishops seeing the synodal process as another country's "problem."

The Synodal Path "must be seen against the backdrop of the concrete situation in Germany", the Scandinavian bishops argue, because it gives the reason for the "felt demand/need for change".

How else could this be?

Should the German bishops reply to their episcopal confreres about the problems in the Nordic countries?

The Scandinavian bishops want to put themselves on the map and distance themselves from the "German problem".

Their letter begins in a condescending manner that continues throughout as if they bring a depth of learning and insight that is lacking in the German Church.

At the outset, they acknowledge their historical reliance on Germany from the Post-Reformation period, neatly forgetting their much earlier reliance on Germanic Christians.

They also acknowledge their financial dependence on the German Church, which they continue to enjoy.

An attempt to avoid the real challenges and issues

The "immense challenges" facing the Church, according to the Scandinavian bishops, are global and "overpowering" — challenges they wish to "negotiate" or "approach" in faithfulness to Christ.

"Avoid" might have been a more accurate sentiment. The implication of negotiating rather than confronting or addressing is clear, and it sets the overall tone of the bishops' letter.

Although they see the "felt demand for change" in Germany as the hub of the German problem, the issues raised by the Synodal Path are not "purely" or exclusively German.

The Scandinavians acknowledge that the issues raised by the Germans are "overpowering, global challenges for the Church", but as the bishops of the Nordic countries, they take issue with them. They only acknowledge ecclesial sexual abuse as a matter of justice and a Christian imperative.

The implication is that the other issues of priestly life-forms, such as celibacy and formation, the place of women in the Church (ordination and governance), and a broader understanding of sexuality are not matters of justice or Christian imperative for them.

The Scandinavians address sexual abuse with the now hackneyed episcopal condemnations.

They address this issue from the point of justice and Christian imperative because it is the "safe" issue. Safe, because everyone agrees that something should be done, and every bishop wants to be seen to be doing something.

The primary reason for their condemnation is not the ecclesial sin committed against believers but their concern for the continuing believability of the Church.

"Dangerous topics"

Again, they put the institution and the structures that created the sin first. But later in their letter, they seem to want to protect the same structures.

The other issues such as clerical life and formation, women in the Church and teaching on sexuality are treated differently, probably because they demand proactive change rather than reactive apologies.

The problem with these issues — for the Scandinavians — is they touch on the immutability of teaching and, at the same time, reflect the Zeitgeist or spirit of the age. They are "dangerous topics" that should be avoided.

Consequently, the search for answers to these issues needs to be pulled aside and reviewed by the unchangeable elements.

Clearly, the Nordic bishops have not found a dogmatic or Zeitgeist objection to ecclesial sexual abuse.

Given this context, they conclude that the "direction, methodology and content" of the Synodal Path are worrisome.

They accuse the Germans of being driven by "process thinking" and the desire for structural Church change without clearly outlining Prozessdenken and why structural change is problematic.

As a result, both process thinking and structural change are presented negatively because they reduce reform in the Church to a project.

Implicit is the notion that reform is neither structural nor human by design when applied to the Church.

The argument is that Church does change differently from every other human institution. Where the Church becomes an object of human change, it is no longer the subject of God's salvific will.

"Process thinking" and a richer theological debate

Process-thinking is an end-to-end process, that is non-hierarchical in its structure.

According to the Nordic bishops, non-hierarchical thinking threatens the non-changeable sources of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, and must therefore be eliminated.

The danger of process-thinking is that it can break down sacred theological silos and open discrete theological categories to investigation and scrutiny.

But on the positive side, process-thinking can enable a richer theological debate, better theology and Church structures, thus optimizing Church life.

Concretely, this means having laypeople sitting beside bishops making decisions in a fundamental "equality of equals."

Some would argue that this is a model of the early Church, while others would disagree.

By contrast, the Scandinavian bishops appear to want to disempower the image or metaphor of the People of God. They write that this is "only one of the images with which the living Tradition describes the Church".

That's true, but it is a crucial image or metaphor of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

A Church with passive members

The Scandinavian bishops suggest three other images should be used to describe the Church

• Corpus mysterium
• Bride of Christ and
• Mediatrix of graces.

These are more passive and receptive than they are active and dynamic.

The curious metaphor of the Church as the "mediatrix of graces" is a reference I have not found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).

They might be meaning that the Church "is like a sacrament" (CCC 775) and "as a sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument" (CCC 776). If so, their theology is unclear and needs greater precision.

Having not paid sufficient attention to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the bishops have missed other vital images of the Church that Pope Francis has used explicitly and implicitly.

These include the Church as sheepfold and Christ as the shepherd; the Church as God's farm or field and God the heavenly farmer; the Church as building; the Church as Pilgrim People; and the Church as Body, for whom the "one mediator is Christ" (Lumen Gentium 6-8).

I believe the Scandinavians are correct to say that the Church "cannot be merely defined by the visible community".

But neither can it be defined without it.

For some, addressing the day's issues might be a capitulation to the current Zeitgeist. Still, for others, this is "reading the signs of the times".

The type of Catholic the Scandinavian bishops appeal to—and want the German bishops to hear—are those who sit quietly in their parishes with a strong sense of sacramental mystery.

These people "carry and set" the life of parishes and communities. They are not people who engage in questionnaires and debates, the bishops say, to defend them.

There is a "quietest" element to this type of person and a sense that the person who keeps his or her head firmly in the snow is the true type of Catholic.

Radical conversion and a radical image of God

But are these the people with whom Pope Francis wants us to communicate? His message is more outward-focused, asking us to engage with the sheep who have left the farm.

Consequently, the reference to Lumen Gentium 9 is double-edged.

How does the Church, in Christ's name, "approach the world and be its sure hope and source of salvation" if it does not also engage with the questions and push-back of the people of this age? Is it sufficient to live the ad intra life of the Church in peace and serenity by ignoring the ad extra "mess" we call human society?

The Scandinavian bishops then return to the "German problem" and the crisis of the German Church and its potential for renewal.

Condescendingly, they remember the dead saints, the past German theologians, and the humble and obscure German missionaries as examples of the life-giving patrimony of rich blessing for the Church in Germany.

Although they write of the need for radical conversion, they seem to want to avoid radical conversion that isn't spiritualised.

They misunderstand that the image of the People of God is a radical image of God, not of the people!

In this image, God is not the property of the people, but the people are the chosen of God.

Regarding the mission of the Church, the Scandinavians have forgotten that the Church — the People of God — are called to be salt and light for the world through living immersed in the world.

People sitting safely at home not participating in the life of the Church cannot be the synodal image of Scandinavian Catholicism the bishops wish to promote, can they?

The Scandinavian bishops should send another letter apologizing to the German Church.

They could explain why they are so frightened of facing the world's reality and why they want to hide from key contemporary questions.

Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is: Liturgical Lockdown. Covid and the Absence of the Laity. (Te Hepara Pai, 2021).

The Lutheran institution, which was the official Swedish state church until 2000, now counts 1,533 women serving as priests and 1,527 men. Its archbishop and several bishops are also women.

"It's a mirror of the society, in a way," the Rev. Elisabeth Oberg Hansen said after giving a sermon in a small church in Stockholm. "It's as it should be." Read more

Unlike most countries, Sweden has chosen a more relaxed approach to preventing the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In an open letter to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Arborelius and other Christian leaders have asked the government to protect migrants and the homeless who are most at risk of being infected or are suffering due to the economic fallout.

"We can say that we try to do what we can, but we also see there are needs. Many of the undocumented immigrants are also Catholic and they have lost work, they have lost housing," he says.

While migrants and homeless people are among the most at risk of getting COVID-19, elderly men and women living in retirement homes have suffered a high death rate.

So high, questions are being asked of the government as as to whether measures meant to protect the most vulnerable have worked.

"Not being an expert, it's difficult to judge, but I would say that many people here in Sweden are very worried and, also, the authorities have recognized that we have not been able to give elderly people the protection they needed," Arborelius says.

These measures include Swedish authorities asking for people to work remotely and restricting gatherings of more than 50 people since the start of the crisis.

At the same time, schools for under 16-year olds remained open, while restaurants and bars also remained open.

Anders Tegnell, the country's chief epidemiologist, says cases in Stockholm, the epicenter of the outbreak, have peaked. Furthermore, the number of people hospitalised "is clearly falling".

By 8 May, about 3,040 people had died from COVID-19 in Sweden, while in Denmark 514 people died and Norway has reported 217 deaths. In Finland, 255 people have died.

According to a study by John Hopkins University, the death rate in Sweden is currently at 28.88 for every 100,000 people. As a comparison, in the US, which has the most number of cases worldwide, the death rate is 22.44.

Statistics released on 6 May from Sweden's National Health and Social Affair's office show 90 percent of Covid-19 victims were 70 years and older. Of these, half were living in government-run retirement homes.

"If you come to Stockholm, you see more people in the street than in other parts of Europe," Arborelius says.

But because of the high mortality rate, "there is a discussion going on here in Sweden: Is this really a good thing to do?"

Arborelius says the approach taken by the Diocese of Stockholm has been "a bit more strict".

The Catholic Church chose to close catechism classes for children and young adults.

Some churches began to open gradually after Easter while observing the government's regulation limiting gatherings of more than 50 people. However, others are continuing to livestream Masses for the elderly and the sick, he says.

Source

• The Tablet
• Image: MSN.com

A comment about Jesus appointing Greta Thunberg as one of his successors has resurfaced.

After initially defending the tweet, last December the Church of Sweden Malamö deleted the tweet and abandoned the account.

However the church's Twitter account has resurfaced, retweeting people who supported and praised their "humorous" December tweet.

Saying it would ring its bells during the strike before gathering "for prayer for the future of the earth," the Church of Sweden Malmö outlined the prayers that would be offered at the gathering.

"We pray that we believe that man is responsible for nurturing and managing Creation so that children are given the opportunity for a future.

"We pray that we know that climate change affects the most vulnerable — poor, children and women. We pray that we believe in man's ability to change and change."

The Church of Sweden is a national Evangelical Lutheran church with more than half of the Swedish population claiming membership, although less than two percent attend services.

The Church is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden.

No longer supported by the government, it is known for its liberal position on several theological issues.

While some Swedish Twitter users were amused by the tweet claiming Thunberg to be a successor to Christ, others found the suggestion offensive.

After the global strike, Thunberg had a speaking engagement at the United Nations (UN).

"My message is that we'll be watching you," she told the UN.

"This is all wrong, I shouldn't be up here, I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.

"Yet, you all come to us young people for hope, how dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words and yet I'm one of the lucky ones.

"People are suffering, people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing," Thunberg continued.

"We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you."

Source

• Daily Wire
• CBN
• Image: Loudwire

There have been many attacks against the Swedish Jewish community over the past few years, with two during the past week.

It is thought the most recent events are connected with United States President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In one of the violent events last week, masked youths threw molotov cocktails through a Goteborg synagogue window at people celebrating the Hannukah festival.

Hannukah runs from 12 December until 20 December.

Three men were arrested on suspicion of attempted arson.

Two days later, two bottle bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo.

This is the second time in recent years the Jewish chapel has been attacked. There was an arson attempt in 2009.

In addition to the attacks, hundreds of protestors gathered in Malmo last week, publicly shouting for violence against the Jewish community.

"We want our freedom back, and we will shoot the Jews," a radio station reported the crowd as saying.

The next day, protestors publicly burned an Israeli flag in Stockholm.

At another protest against Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, protesters called for an intifada and promised "we will shoot the Jews."

A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews "apes and pigs." There were promises of martyrdom.

Malmo's Jewish community sees the recent events as "extremely serious."

"We strongly emphasize that we can never accept being subjected to threats and attacks," the Jewish assembly said.

Responding to the violence, the Bishop of Stockholm wrote to one of the affected communities, expressing solidarity.

The Bishop's concern was echoed by Cardinal Anders Arborelius.

"It's with deep sorrow that I have heard about the detestable attack on your parish," he wrote.

"I just want to express my sympathy in this difficult situation. I pray that God will help and protect all of you."

Antje Jackelen, the Lutheran Archbishop of Uppsala, said "I would like to assure you of the solidarity of the Swedish church in the fight against anti-Semitism and violence in the name of religion."

The Times of Israel reported Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven as saying "There is no place for anti-Semitism in Swedish society."

Sweden's Interior Minister for Justice, Morgan Johansson, is vowing to protect the Jewish community.

He said there is increased security around Jewish buildings around the country and police have been patrolling for anti-Semitic activity.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Arutz Sheva
• Hot Air
• Image: The Tablet

Their role would be similar to that of the College of Cardinals and would offer more opportunity for women's leadership in the church.

Francis made Arborelius Sweden's first cardinal in a consistory on Wednesday.

He said he thinks "it's very important to find a broader way of involving women at various levels in the church."

"The role of women is very, very important in society, in economics, but in the church sometimes we are a bit behind," Arborelius says.

In this respect he has wide support, including from the female advisory board for the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Their wish is to send an "electric shock" that will open discussion on women's roles in the Church.

"The Church is a male-dominated world, but the [wider] world in which it exists is both male and female," Consuelo Corradi, vice rector for research and international relations at the LUMSA University of Rome, told Crux.

"The global church needs to enter a continued dialogue with women," she says.

Arborelius noted the church has in the past sought women's advice, and mentioned that Pope John Paul II had often sought counsel from Mother Teresa and Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement.

"Maybe it could be made more official," he suggested.

"We have a College of Cardinals, but we could have a college of women who could give advice to the pope."

The College of Cardinals is the body of all the cardinals of the Catholic Church.

Cardinals are usually senior Catholic prelates who serve as bishops in dioceses or in the Vatican's central bureaucracy and have a special tie to the pope as the symbolic heads of Rome's parish churches.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Crux
• Image: franciscanmedia.org

Stefan Lofven says as they are members of Sweden's State church which agreed in a recent Synod that it would support same sex marriage, all priests should do the same.

If they don't want to do this they should leave the Church, he says.

Lofven also says only priests who agree with same-sex marriage should be ordained.

Although the Synod did agree to performing same-sex marriage, it does not require individual priests to carry out the weddings if they don't want to.

The church currently allows priests to choose to refuse to perform weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

Lofven likens the priest-and-gay-marriage situation with that of Swedish midwives who refuse to perform abortions.

"If you work as a midwife must be able to perform abortions, otherwise you have to do something else. It is the same for priests who do not want to perform same-sex marriages," he says.

Source

• Breitbart
• RT
• Image: Pace Vegas

The visit is to mark the start of observances of next year's 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which traditionally dates from Oct. 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a German cathedral.

On Friday (Oct. 28), the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an interview that Francis — who is also a member of the Jesuit order — gave to a Swedish Jesuit, the Rev. Ulf Jonsson.

In the interview the two discuss a wide range of topics, from relations between Catholics and Protestants to being a minority faith in a secular culture and the "terrorism" of gossip.

Here are excerpts from their exchange:

On his goals for the Sweden trip and relations with Lutherans:

"I can think of only one word to say: to come close. My hope and expectation is that of coming closer to my brothers and sisters. Closeness does all of us good. Distance, on the other hand, makes us bitter. When we are distant, we close within ourselves and we become individual entities, incapable of encountering each other.

"We are held back by fears. We need to learn to transcend ourselves to encounter others. If we do not do this, we Christians, too, become sick because of our divisions. My expectation is that of being able to take a step of closeness, of being closer to my brothers and sisters in Sweden."

On the best means to promote unity among Christians:

"[T]heological dialogue must continue, even if it will not be easy. Personally, I believe that enthusiasm must shift towards common prayer and the works of mercy — work done together to help the sick, the poor, and the imprisoned. To do something together is a high and effective form of dialogue.

I also think about education. It is important to work together and not in a sectarian way. There is a policy we should have clear in every case: to proselytize in the ecclesial field is a sin. Benedict XVI told us that the Church does not grow by proselytism, but by attraction. Proselytism is a sinful attitude. It would be like transforming the Church into an organization.

Speaking, praying, working together: this is the path that we must take. Look, in ecumenism the one who never makes a mistake is the enemy, the devil. When Christians are persecuted and murdered, they are chosen because they are Christians, not because they are Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Catholics or Orthodox. An ecumenism of blood exists. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by David Gibson in Religion News Service
• Image: Huffington Post

"My hope and expectation is that of coming closer to my brothers and sisters," he said.

Being close "does all of us good. Distance, on the other hand, makes us bitter."

Francis says distance makes us "close within ourselves and we become individual entities, incapable of encountering each other. We are held back by fears."

Instead, he thinks we need to learn "to transcend ourselves to encounter others,".

If this doesn't happen, he said even Christians "become sick because of our divisions."

During his trip, Francis will pray privately at Lund's Lutheran cathedral before taking part in a larger ecumenical event in Malmö.

He will then celebrate Mass on All Saints Day. This was not on his schedule, but added after Sweden's small Catholic community.

Most Swedes (6.2 million) are Lutheran. The next biggest religious group is Muslim, - 5% of Sweden's 9.6 million population.

Francis said he chose not to celebrate Mass at first. His aim instead was to promote unity, and avoid sectarian divisions.

"You cannot be Catholic and sectarian. We must strive to be together with others," he said.

He went on to explain that "‘Catholic' and ‘sectarian' are two words in contradiction,".

Rather than Mass, he says he "wanted to insist on an ecumenical witness."

He changed his mind after reflecting on his role as pastor of Scandinavian Catholics. This and the Catholic community's request changed his mind. He then decided to celebrate a Mass, lengthening the trip by a day.

Source

• CNA
• Image: Free Republic

The doctor was forced to leave his job as a locum at a practice run by the local authority in southern Sweden, Region Skåne.

Bosses at the GP surgery reported him after it emerged he had filled his room with religious symbols, music stands and hymn books.

He was also accused of having tried to talk his patients into joining the Catholic Church - denying one antibiotics when the notion was refused.

Continue reading

Ekman called his conversion a "personal journey" and said it was not his agenda to unite Word of Life with the Catholic Church.

Continue reading

They know they are putting their lives at risk. Nevertheless, many people board ramshackle watercraft and set sail from the coast of Africa in the hope of a better life in Europe.

While a few years ago it was predominately North African migrants coming to Italy in search of work, today it is often refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia who are fleeing chaos and violence in their countries. The number of asylum applications in Europe has sharply increased in the past six years.

Refugees are "particularly vulnerable people," warned German President Joachim Gauck after hundreds of people drowned off the coast of Lampedusa on Thursday. "Protecting lives and granting refugees the chance to be heard is at the foundation of our legal and moral codes," he concluded. On Tuesday, the EU interior ministers gathered in Luxembourg to discuss the consequences of the accident, which resulted in around 300 deaths. But despite heavy criticism, they couldn't manage to come to a decision about comprehensive change to European asylum policy.

The expectations of refugees who come to Europe often go unfulfilled. Many must struggle through long asylum application processes or fight against ingrained local prejudice. In some countries, they endure appalling living conditions in refugee camps; in others, they end up on the streets.

The correspondents of SPIEGEL ONLINE report on the situation in various European countries.

ITALY

By Hans-Jürgen Schlamp

The Lampedusa disaster has shaken the world — especially Italy. The populace watches the images on television with horror, the body bags lined up across the beach. How can this be? "A disgrace," says Pope Francis. "Yes," agree many, "a disgrace." There is talk of solidarity. Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta awarded posthumous Italian citizenship to the deceased. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: euobserver.com