VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis opened a big meeting on the future of the Catholic Church on Wednesday, with progressives hoping it will lead to more women in leadership roles and conservatives warning that church doctrine on everything from homosexuality to the hierarchy’s authority is at risk.
Francis presided over a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Square to formally open the meeting, with hundreds of clergy from around the world celebrating on the altar before the rank-and-file Catholic laypeople whose presence and influence at this meeting marks a decisive shift for the Catholic Church.
Rarely in recent times has a Vatican gathering generated as much hope, hype and fear as this three-week, closed-door meeting, known as a synod. It won’t make any binding decisions and is only the first session of a two-year process. But it nevertheless has drawn an acute battle line in the church’s perennial left-right divide and marks a defining moment for Francis and his reform agenda.
Even before it started, the gathering was historic because Francis decided to let women and laypeople vote alongside bishops in any final document produced. While fewer than a quarter of the 365 voting members are non-bishops, the reform is a radical shift away from a hierarchy-focused Synod of Bishops and evidence of Francis’ belief that the church is more about its flock than its shepherds.
“It’s a watershed moment,” said JoAnn Lopez, an Indian-born lay minister who helped organize two years of consultations prior to the meeting at parishes where she has worked in Seattle and Toronto.
“This is the first time that women have a very qualitatively different voice at the table, and the opportunity to vote in decision-making is huge,” she said.
On the agenda are calls to take concrete steps to elevate more women to decision-making roles in the church, including as deacons, and for ordinary Catholic faithful to have more of a say in church governance.
Also under consideration are ways to better welcome of LGBTQ+ Catholics and others who have been marginalized by the church, and for new accountability measures to check how bishops exercise their authority to prevent abuses.
Women have long complained they are treated as second-class citizens in the church, barred from the priesthood and highest ranks of power yet responsible for the lion’s share of church work — teaching in Catholic schools, running Catholic hospitals and passing the faith down to next generations.
They have long demanded a greater say in church governance, at the very least with voting rights at the periodic synods at the Vatican but also the right to preach at Mass and be ordained as priests or deacons.
While they have secured some high-profile positions in the Vatican and local churches around the globe, the male hierarchy still runs the show.
Before the opening Mass got under way, advocates for women priests unfurled a giant purple banner reading “Ordain Women.”
Lopez, 34, and other women are particularly excited about the potential that the synod might in some way endorse allowing women to be ordained as deacons, a ministry that is currently limited to men.
For years supporters of female deacons have argued that women in the early church served as deacons and that restoring the ministry would both serve the church and recognize the gifts that women bring to it.
Francis has convened two study commissions to research the issue and was asked to consider it at a previous synod on the Amazon, but he has so far refused to make any change. He has similarly taken off the table debate on women priests.
Miriam Duignan, from the group Women’s Ordination Worldwide, said advocates want the synod to recognize that women were ministers in the early church “and they need to be restored to ministry.”
“The Catholic people around the world in every country have spoken and they have all mentioned women priests,” she said at a prayer vigil on the eve of the meeting. “They can see in their parishes, in their communities, that women are doing the work of priests. They are just not allowed to be recognized as priests.”
The potential that this synod process could lead to real change on previously taboo topics has given hope to many women and progressive Catholics and sparked alarm from conservatives who have warned it could lead to schism.
They have written books, held conferences and taken to social media claiming that Francis’ reforms are sowing confusion, undermining the true nature of the church and all it has taught over two millennia. Among the most vocal are conservatives in the US
On the eve of the meeting, one of the synod’s most outspoken critics, American Cardinal Raymond Burke, delivered a stinging rebuke of Francis’ vision of “synodality” as well as his overall reform project for the church.
“It’s unfortunately very clear that the invocation of the Holy Spirit by some has the aim of bringing forward an agenda that is more political and human than ecclesial and divine,” Burke told a conference entitled “The Synodal Babel.”
He blasted even the term “synodal” as having no clearly defined meaning and said its underlying attempt to shift authority away from the hierarchy “risks the very identity of the church.”
In the audience was Cardinal Robert Sarah, who along with Burke and three other cardinals had formally challenged Francis to affirm church teaching on homosexuality and women’s ordination before the synod.
In an exchange of letters made public Monday, Francis didn’t bite and instead said the cardinals shouldn’t be afraid of questions that are posed by a changing world. Asked specifically about church blessings for same-sex unions, Francis suggested they could be allowed as long as such benedictions aren’t confused with sacramental marriage.
Pope Francis opens big Vatican meeting as battle lines are drawn on his reform project
https://arab.news/2efy6
Pope Francis opens big Vatican meeting as battle lines are drawn on his reform project
- Gathering is historic because Francis decided to let women and laypeople vote alongside bishops in any final document produced
- Reform is a radical shift away from a hierarchy-focused Synod of Bishops
In Bihar, 19th-century library holds India’s treasure trove of Arabic manuscripts
- Collection includes ‘Kitab Al-Tasrif’ by 10th-century Arab physician Al-Zahrawi, father of operative surgery
- Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library has more than 21,000 rare and old manuscripts — half of them in Arabic
PATNA: When Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh opened his book collection to the public in the late-19th century, he was fulfilling his father’s wish. Little did he know that, over the decades, their private library would grow into one of India’s richest repositories of the intellectual heritage of South Asia and the Middle East.
The Bakhsh family was a family of jurists and scholars, who migrated from Delhi in the early-19th century and established themselves in Patna — the capital of the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
Khuda Bakhsh’s father, Mohammed Bakhsh, was a lawyer and bibliophile, who collected 1,400 Arabic and Persian manuscripts. His son increased the collection to 4,000.
“He was spending all his money, all his assets, on developing this library, acquiring the manuscripts from all over the world,” Dr. Shayesta Bedar, the library’s former director, told Arab News.
“His father desired that Khuda Baksh should make a library for the use of the public, and it should also specialize in manuscripts. He kept the word.”
The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library opened in Patna in 1891, in a two-story building near the banks of the Ganges, where it still stands today.
It now holds more than 2 million items, including books, calligraphy, paintings and 21,136 manuscripts — half of them in Arabic and another few thousand in Persian.
The library’s founder had an employee named Makki, whose sole duties were to search for and buy centuries-old works on science, history and Islamic studies.
“Makki used to roam all over the world ... and he was acquiring them from different places,” Bedar said.
“(Khuda Bakhsh) was a rich man. He was an advocate, he has his own lands, and he had no other passion except to develop this library.”
Among the rarest manuscripts in the library’s holdings is the “Kitab Al-Tasrif.” Known in English as “The Method of Medicine,” it is an Arabic encyclopedia of medical procedures written near the year 1000 by Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi, a famed Arab physician from Andalusia.
Al-Zahrawi is considered the father of operative surgery and is credited with performing the first thyroidectomy and introducing more than 200 surgical tools.
Another rare work is the “Kitab Al-Hashaish,” known as the “Book of Herbs,” which is the Arabic translation of the famous Greek botanical and medical text known by Dioscorides, a 1st-century physician and pharmacologist.
“These are 11th-century works ... Today’s medical science has been based on this ‘Kitab Al-Tasrif.’ And ‘Kitab Al-Hashaish’ is a collection of works that deal with medicinal plants and animals. These are some of the rarest manuscripts,” Bedar said.
Among the most prominent Persian works in the collection is the original manuscript of “Tarikh-e Khandan-e Timuriyah” (“Chronicle of the Descendants of Timur”), a 16th-century work commissioned by Mughal Emperor Akbar, which describes the descendants of the 14th-century ruler Timur in Iran and India, including Babur, Humayun and Akbar himself.
Another one is the “Divan of Hafez,” a collection of works by the 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafez.
“This (volume) was used by Mughal emperors to take out the omens and the writing of these Mughal kings, notes, are on the margins of the manuscript,” Bedar said.
“These (manuscripts) are a few to be named — just a glimpse ... These are the rarest ones, which are not available anywhere else in the world.”
The library has been administrated by the Indian government since the 1950s. In 1969, Parliament declared it an Institution of National Importance, which is fully funded by the Ministry of Culture.
Since 2023, works have been underway to digitalize the library’s collection and many texts are already available online — expanding the reach of Khuda Bakhsh’s library far beyond the Patna community it was intended for.
But most of the research work still happens offline, in the library’s reading rooms.
“We are connected with the libraries of Saudi Arabia, like the library of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah ... People from the Arab world come here for research,” Shakeel Ahmad Shamsi, the library’s information officer, told Arab News.
“We have about 10,000 Arabic manuscripts in this collection, about 8,000 or 9,000 in Persian, and in other languages also like Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Pashto, Turkish ... This library is famous for its manuscripts ... it is famous in the whole world.”
Venice expands its day-tripper tax program in bid to combat overtourism
- A UNESCO body decided against putting Venice on its list of cultural heritage sites deemed in danger after the tax was announced
- Opponents of the day-tripper fee say it has done nothing to discourage tourists from visiting Venice even on high-traffic days
VENICE, Italy: Venice is charging day-trippers to the famed canal city an arrivals tax for the second year starting Friday, a measure aimed at combating the kind of overtourism that put the city’s UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status at risk.
A UNESCO body decided against putting Venice on its list of cultural heritage sites deemed in danger after the tax was announced. But opponents of the day-tripper fee say it has done nothing to discourage tourists from visiting Venice even on high-traffic days.
Here’s a look at Venice’s battle with overtourism by the numbers:
5-10 euros (about $6-$11)
The fee charged to visitors who are not overnighting in Venice to enter its historic center during the second year of the day-tripper tax. Visitors who download a QR code at least three days in advance will pay 5 euros ($5.69) — the same amount charged last year throughout the pilot program. But those who make last-minute plans pay double. The QR code is required from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and is checked at entry points to the city, including the Santa Lucia train station, the Piazzale Roma bus depot and the Tronchetto parking garage.
54
The number of days this year that day visitors to Venice will be charged a fee to enter the historic center. They include mostly weekends and holidays from April 18 to July 27. That is up from 29 last year. The new calendar covers entire weeks over key holidays and extends the weekend period to include Fridays.
2.4 million euros
That is the amount Venice took in during a 2024 pilot program for the tax. The city’s top budget official, Michele Zuin, said last year the running costs for the new system ran to 2.7 million euros, overshooting the total fees collected. This year, Zuin projects a surplus of about 1 million euros to 1.5 million euros, which will be used to offset the cost of trash collection and other services for residents.
450,000
The number of day-trippers who paid the tax in 2024. Officials say 8,000 day-trippers paid in advance to enter the city on Friday, among the 77,000 who have already registered so far to enter the city this year. Another 117,000 have registered for exemptions, which apply to anyone born in Venice, those paying property taxes in the city, studying or working in the historic center, or living in the wider Veneto region, among others.
75,000
The average number of daily visitors on the first 11 days of 2024 that Venice charged day-trippers. That’s about 10,000 people more than the number of tourists recorded on each of the three important holidays during the previous year. City council member Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opponent of the measure, said the figures show the project has not deterred visitors.
48,283
The number of official residents in Venice’s historic center composed of over 100 islands connected by footbridges and traversed by its famed canals. The population peaked at 174,000 in 1951, when Venice was home to thriving industries. The number shrank during Italy’s postwar economic boom as residents moved to the mainland for more modern housing — including indoor plumbing which was lacking in Venice. It has been shrinking dramatically over recent decades as local industry lost traction, families sought mainland conveniences and housing prices rose. Activists also blame the “mono-culture” of tourism, which they say has emptied the city of basic services like shops for everyday goods and medical care.
51,129
The number of beds for tourists in Venice’s historic center, including 12,627 in the less regulated short-term rental market, according to April data from the Ocio housing activist group. The number of tourist beds surpassed the number of permanent residents in 2023, according to Ocio’s monitor. Anyone staying in a hotel within the city limits, including on the mainland districts of Mestre and Marghera, pays a lodging tax and is therefore exempt from the day-tripper tax.
25 to 30 million
The number of annual arrivals of both day-trippers and overnight guests roughly confirmed by cellphone data tracked from a Smart Control Room since 2020, according to city officials.
Queen Elizabeth’s former solicitor linked to wealth management of alleged war criminal Rifaat Assad
LONDON: The private solicitor to the late Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain also helped manage the wealth of an alleged Syrian war criminal known as “the Butcher of Hama,” according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.
Mark Bridges, who was knighted for his services to the Queen in 2019, acted as a legal adviser to Rifaat Assad, the uncle of former Syrian president Bashar Assad.
Bridges served as the Queen’s solicitor between 2002 and 2019 and was a trustee of financial trusts linked to Rifaat or his relatives, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported.
Assad, now 87, commanded an elite Syrian force accused of massacring up to 40,000 civilians during the brutal suppression of an uprising in the city of Hama in 1982.
After leading a failed coup in 1984, he was exiled from Syria and went on to invest heavily in the UK, France, and Spain.
Bridges’ prestigious London law firm, Farrer & Co, said his work for Assad complied with regulatory standards and that he had received “credible information” at the time that cast doubt on the war crimes allegations.
Bridges served as a trustee for Assad between 1999 and 2008, and continued to provide “ad-hoc and limited” legal advice until 2015.
The Crown Prosecution Service began efforts to freeze Assad’s British assets in 2017, obtaining a court order preventing the sale of a £4.7 million (SAR 23.39 million) Mayfair home. However, it came too late to block the £3.72 million sale of a seven-bedroom property in Leatherhead, Surrey. Assad’s £16 million townhouse in Mayfair had already been sold.
A 2018 ruling by a court in Gibraltar noted that Bridges had been a trustee of two financial trusts connected to Assad, the English Palomino Trust and the Oryx Trust.
In 2020, Assad was convicted in France of embezzling Syrian state funds to build a French property empire valued at £80 million.
Bashar Assad and his British-born wife Asma fled to Moscow after his regime collapsed late last year.
Responding to the revelations, Farrer & Co. told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: “Whether the same decision (to act for Rifaat) would be made today in light of further information now available and, arguably, the more stringent demands of the regulatory environment, is a point on which one might speculate.”
Britain’s King Charles highlights interfaith values in Easter message
- Monarch praised Islam’s ‘deep human instinct’
LONDON: Britain’s King Charles has praised the ethics of Judaism and the human instinct of Islam in his Easter message, calling for greater love and understanding across all faiths.
In a message issued on Maundy Thursday, the King wished the public a “blessed and peaceful Easter,” reflecting on the enduring importance of compassion. “The greatest virtue the world needs is love,” he said.
In his Easter message, the King said: “On Maundy Thursday, Jesus knelt and washed the feet of many of those who would abandon him.
“His humble action was a token of his love that knew no bounds or boundaries and is central to Christian belief.
“The love he showed when he walked the Earth reflected the Jewish ethic of caring for the stranger and those in need, a deep human instinct echoed in Islam and other religious traditions, and in the hearts of all who seek the good of others.”
Since becoming monarch, King Charles has made interfaith dialogue one of his key priorities, often highlighting his admiration for the values found across different religions and encouraging greater communication between faiths.
While he has issued Easter messages in previous years, including during his time as Prince of Wales, this year’s message marks one of his clearest acknowledgements yet of the shared principles across Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other traditions.
‘Defend ourselves’: Refugee girls in Kenya find strength in taekwondo
- Kakuma is Kenya’s second-largest refugee camp, home to over 300,000 people — from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Burundi
- Taekwondo black-belt teacher Caroline Ambani, who travels sporadically from Nairobi, pushes the sport’s discipline in each lesson
KAUMA, Kenya: Along one of the many dirt tracks leading into Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp there is a large hidden compound, where inside, twice a week, adolescent girls gather to learn taekwondo, the martial arts lessons offering a safe space in the often chaotic settlement.
Kakuma is Kenya’s second-largest refugee camp, home to over 300,000 people — from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Burundi — and managed by the Kenyan government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since its establishment in 1992.
The camp endured protests last month when rations were reduced after the announcement of the USAID cuts, with President Donald Trump’s decision to slash aid funding impacting many within the area.
But the compound — on the outskirts of the camp proper, down ‘New York City’ lane — was calm when AFP visited.
Roughly 80 teenage girls crammed into an open-sided room, their raucous chatter bouncing off the corrugated metal structure.
Fifteen-year-old twins Samia and Salha are among them, Samia explaining they joined because they live in the camp’s dangerous Hong Kong district.
“In the past when we were beaten up, we couldn’t defend ourselves but now we are able to defend ourselves,” Samia told AFP.
Her twin, Salha — who can neither speak nor hear — is just as fiery as her sister, their father Ismail Mohamad said with a grin.
The 47-year-old, who fled Burundi 15 years ago, was initially hesitant about letting his daughters join, but the difficulties that Salha faces in the camp changed his mind.
“I thought it would be good if I brought her here so she could defend herself in life,” he said.
“Now, I have faith in her because even when she’s in the community she no longer gets bullied, she can handle everything on her own.”
Taekwondo black-belt teacher Caroline Ambani, who travels sporadically from Nairobi, pushes the sport’s discipline in each lesson.
Yelling through the chatter, she tried to bring the excitable girls to order: “Here we come to sweat!“
But her affection and pride in her students is evident, particularly girls like Salha.
“Some of these girls have been able to protect themselves from aggressors,” she told AFP.
However, the three-year program, run by the International Rescue Committee and supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is coming to the end of its funding.
Instructors hope the skills they have imparted will be enough to see the girls through the coming years.
One of the captains, 18-year-old Ajok Chol, said she will keep training.
She worries about violence in the camp — like what she fled in South Sudan aged 14.
“We were so scared about that,” she told AFP. “We came here in Kakuma to be in peace.”
Now she wants to become an instructor herself, “to teach my fellow girls... to protect the community.”
