Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15

WORLD
A nun holds an image of St. Kuriakose Elias Chavara at his canonization Mass in Rome in
2014. | CNS/PAUL HARING
■ Indian Catholics protest saint’s
removal from textbooks
India’s communist government has removed school lessons
on St. Kuriakose Elia Chavara, a 19th-century social reform
leader in the Indian state of Kerala.
“It is a deliberate attempt to ignore the contributions of
St. Chavara in reforming the caste-ridden society of Kerala
through the light of education,” said Father Jacob G. Palakkappilly,
spokesman of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council
(KCBC), which is calling for the restoration of the lessons.
The government argues that two brief mentions in the
social science textbooks for grades 10 and 12 are appropriate
and a full lesson is not needed.
Chavara expanded schools to all church premises, regardless
of caste, during a time when education was reserved
for social elites. He instituted free mid-day meals, provided
clothing and books to reduce dropouts among poorer
students, and founded the first indigenous Catholic religious
congregation for men and women, the Carmelites of Mary
Immaculate, which continues to run hundreds of schools.
■ Controversial papal
interviewer dies at 98
An atheist Italian journalist whose interviews with Pope
Francis sparked controversy is dead at the age of 98.
Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the Italian newspaper La
Repubblica, famously reported that Pope Francis denied the
existence of hell in 2015 and 2018 and the divinity of Jesus
in 2019, even though the Vatican denied the claims, saying
that Scalfari’s writing cannot be considered an accurate
description but his own “reconstruction.”
“I try to understand the person I am interviewing, and after
that I write his answers with my own words,” Scalfari said to
the Foreign Press Association of Rome in 2013, explaining
his practice of conducting interviews without a recording
device or notes.
In a statement after his July 14 passing, Pope Francis said
he cherished “with affection the memory of the meetings”
with Scalfari and entrusted “his soul to the Lord in prayer.”
■ Pope makes changes to
Opus Dei’s status
Pope Francis announced changes to Opus Dei’s relationship
to the Vatican Curia, including that it will now answer
to its Dicastery for Clergy (rather than for Bishops) and that
its head can no longer be a bishop.
In the apostolic letter “Ad Charisma Tuendum” (“For the
Protection of the Charism”), released by the Vatican on July
22, the pope said the changes are intended to highlight the
movement’s special charism and its evangelization work.
Opus Dei has a unique structure in the Church. As a “personal
prelature” first established by St. Pope John Paul II in
1982, it has its own seminaries and priests but unites clergy
and laity committed to the same missionary or apostolic
work.
Pope Francis noted that the change is a consequence of his
recently implemented overhaul of the Vatican bureaucracy.
In a statement, the prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando
Ocáriz, said “the pope’s desire to highlight the charismatic
dimension of the Work (Opus Dei)” rather than its hierarchical
structure, “now invites us to reinforce the family atmosphere
of affection and trust: the prelate must be a guide but,
above all, a father.”
A president’s pilgrimage stop — An Orthodox clergyman greets U.S. President
Joe Biden as he crosses himself before visiting the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem on July 15. Biden was on a four-day visit to the Middle East. | CNS
PHOTO/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS
4 • ANGELUS • July 29, 2022